Happy world mental health day

For World Mental Health Day, I’m sharing some tips, considerations and common misconceptions about mental health.

Trauma

Trauma often gets mistaken for an event instead of what it is, an experience. Trauma is when something bad happens to you, and you (or somebody else) cannot protect you from it. When the event happens, your body is unable to use its stress hormones for you, so they get used against you, creating the experience.

For example, If I walk down a street and three people jump out to attack me. My body will go into survival mode, in its efforts to save me. If I successfully give them a beating (in self defence), weeks, months and years later I’ll talk about the memory with slight fear due to the initial stage of what happened. But overall, my feelings would be positive with a slight adrenaline rush. This is because it’s a victorious memorial without any trapped energy from the day, my body successfully used the increased blood flow, hyper vigilance, fear, concentrated energy and other ingredients of anxiety.

If I’m unsuccessful, my stress hormones will be on repeat. Anything that reminds me of that day will cause a spike in the stress hormones from that day too (anxiety), increased blood flow, on edge, fearful, defensive and aggressive. Everything that my body provided to save me, is no being used against me (and those close to me). Although there is no danger, the body continues to react as though it is, playing out in everyday situations.

Trapped energy that continues to repeat itself throughout the bodies life until it receives help = Traumatised.

Mental health is like physical health:

This is true, what we cannot see, we do not consider and for this reason our mental and physical health suffer.

Here’s something to consider, how you sit and walk right now can be the reason why you will require hip and knee replacements 20, 30, 40 years later. This isn’t because of old age, it’s because of technique/habits that have not been corrected and your body can no longer compensate.

It’s the same with the trauma and adversity you experience, they become a part of your personality and lifestyle affecting you quietly for decades. Damaging relationships and leading to…

Terminal illness:

Traumatised people are more likely to incur terminal illnesses. If your body constantly feels under attack, everything performs out of sync, making you more vulnerable to injuries, sickness and terminal illness.

This is another reason why understanding the trauma cycle is important. Anxiety in the short term saves you, in the long term it kills you.

Your body is a system that has a team it relies on to function. If members of the team choose to work ahead of the others or work at a slower rate than others, it will survive and others will adapt how they perform. But there will come a time where the other members of the team can no longer perform to their level due to exhaustion, or not perform to their full capability as they’re operating at a level that prevents them from doing so. This is where getting cancer, heart disease and other terminal diseases increase.

People who feel under attack by their bodies seek solace in substances. If a terminal illness is not developed by trauma directly, substance abuse will increase chances, as a secondary trauma response.

Stigma:

Removing the stigma around mental health will always be difficult whilst we continue stigmatise the symptoms.

I don’t believe we should focus on removing the stigmas, I believe we should start learning what the stigmas are. Mental health is complex, so this makes stigmas complex too.

Speak out campaigns have led to increased sympathy to those who can communicate their problems, whilst those who struggle to communicate their problems are excluded.

Learning about how we do this, would be a huge step towards breaking down stigmas.

Be kind: 

Attention and care develop (opioid) receptors in the anterior cingulate part of the brain, the area responsible for kindness. People who suffer from neglect and abuse in their childhood, have the development of these receptors stunted, so it becomes difficult to “be kind”. 

If you’d like to learn more about your mental health, I recommend being more curious about your body, your habits and your relationships, and be fearless when facing your truth.

😊