I’ve had mental health issues for most of my life, but I’ve only known about them since I was twenty one. That’s when I was diagnosed. Beforehand after visiting about twenty doctors we finally saw one that knew what they were talking about and he told us that I was getting stuck in the anxiety circle.
But that was back in a time when no-one knew what mental health was, and the closest we knew to anything of the likes was someone screaming and banging their heads off the walls. It was a little archaic back in my day. So we sort of swept it under the rug, and I managed to find a way to cure my anxiety (which was mostly at night) and that was drinking lots of alcohol.
Which leads me to my first point:
Unhealthy Addictions
Many people view addictions as a bad thing, but I see no issue with becoming addicted to writing, or building, or coding, or anything that is a net benefit to your life. Some addictions can be quite healthy and are a way to cope with the addictive personality which I unfortunately have.
Unhealthy addictions are coping mechanisms, usually in the form of drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling and the likes. Things that whenever taken part in can have a net negative benefit on your life. Now I don’t mean that you like to gamble once a year and have a glass of wine on Sunday, no, that’s fine, what I mean that you do these regularly and as a way to cope with something underlying, such as stress or worry.
Generally a sure sign of poor mental health is using drugs, alcohol, sex etc daily and regularly. It doesn’t need to be all of them, only one will suffice. Like I say, I was an alcoholic for ten years and my mind was in the gutter.
The main thing with this is that unhealthy addictions will stop anyone from making appointments on time, or at all, missing work, or other duties — they will basically retreat from society to a certain degree.
Lack of sleep
Not getting enough sleep is in itself a sure fire way to have poor mental health, but a good defining factor is to how well are you sleeping? Poor sleep can be the contributing factor to many things wrong in your life; it can add to stress, confusion, fuzzy headedness, and high anxiety amongst an array of other things. But a good way to tell how you or someone you know is mentally is understanding their sleep patterns and are they having enough of it?
Loss of Interest in general
Sometimes it could be the mere fact that interests have changed. This happens to me all the time. One minute I am enjoying writing, the next minute I’m making videos. It’s natural to have your hobbies switch and change, but if everything seems a struggle now, and watching TV whilst laying in bed is the best thing to do then it’s probably a sign that things aren’t right.
I mean if sitting down watching TV is what always happened then that’s normal, but if they’ve gone from high impact sports to just lazing around in their jim jams and don’t have an injury then it’s probably about time that you have a word.
Loss of interest can be a sign that they aren’t coping. Usually this happens when whatever’s rolling around in their head gets too much.
It’s a recognised symptom in any trade. If you overload someone with too many options then they don’t get much done. The same can be said with life. If they have too many things going on upstairs and it’s getting too much then they tend to shut down, and their regular activities get left on the side.
Unnaturally Anxious
When you’re worried about a test or the argument that you had with your best friend then that’s a perfectly normal reaction to have as a human being. People with mental health issues tend to worry and get anxious about things they really shouldn’t.
A general rule about this is heightened anxiousness. Normally people would feel anxious about starting a new job or meeting new people that they want to impress, but unnatural anxiousness could look like worrying about what your friend said to you last night when there was absolutely no reason to be worried. You thought that they just looked at you funnily.
Heightened anxiety can range from really mild, which doesn’t cause much of a problem in daily life, to really severe, like thinking the whole country you live in wants to kill you. This is what I believed before I was sectioned in a psychiatric ward.
Mood Swings
Teenagers have mood swings all the time. One moment they are happy, and the next moment it may only take a wrong word to set them off like a wrecking ball. But teenage angst is quite normal, and healthy, but what isn’t healthy is feeling deeply sad for no apparent reason. Feeling like the world and your life is just a boring monotonous snore fest and you just don’t want to compete anymore.
Inversely, they could switch from extremely sad, to extremely happy for no apparent reason. If there’s a reason to be happy then that makes sense however it is normal for people with mental health issues to go from feeling really down and depressed to really happy and upbeat. It’s like a massive sin wave of emotion. All the way up, then all the way down.
This all happens for no reason whatsoever and can be a sign that a doctors visit or talking to a professional may help.
Spending Recklessly
One thing we used to laugh about when I was younger is that I would go out to the shops and come back with nothing that I needed. Maybe I’d go out for the groceries, but I’d come back with the groceries AND several other things that I don’t really need but it made me feel good to buy them at the time. We used to laugh and call this retail therapy, and it is therapy but it’s masking something more pressing.
Whenever I wanted an escape from my anxiety or depression I always thought that buying things would make me feel better. Particularly when I didn’t have the money to buy it really. I would buy it to make me feel better about not really being able to afford it. It seems counter intuitive but this is actually what I’ve experienced and I expect many people have went through this too!
It’s not just retail that this can happen with it’s anything you can purchase. Ranging from nights out, hotels, subscriptions, you name it. It’s one thing that I know if I ever find myself looking for items when I can’t really afford them I stop and try to think what’s really going on.
Maybe next we’ll talk about how to catch it before it gets worse.
So today I’ve talked about the signs, maybe tomorrow or in a few days I’ll talk about how we can overcome these problems or at least catch them before they get out of hand or turn into worse habits. We’ll talk about coping strategies and ways to iron out the kinks if you or a friend seem to be swaying off the natural path of wellbeing.
But for now, peace!
