By Carol Fisher-Linn
May as Mental Health Awareness month was established over 75 years ago, with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration finally recognizing it twenty years ago to increase awareness of mental health and the role it plays in overall health. Each year, National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day (May 7) seeks to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health and show that positive mental health is essential to a child’s healthy development.
Johnshopkinsmedicine.com reveals that an estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older — about 1 in 4 adults — suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Forbes.com reveals that “young adults ages 18 to 25 in the U.S. experience the highest rates of mental illness (36.2%), followed by those ages 26 to 49 (29.4%) and adults ages 50 and over (13.9%). In 2022, multiracial adults in the U.S. were more likely to experience any mental illness in the last year (35.2%).”
Not surprisingly, most people are not willing to accept that someone in their circle or family may be suffering from a mental health condition. It is much easier to believe that it happens to someone else, yet that someone else is one of about 44 million Americans, perhaps one in your own family. Is there anything we, as individuals, can do to help those statistics change? Is there a way we can at least do something positive, to become more aware, to make others more aware?
For beginners, we could educate ourselves and become aware that according to the Mental Health Association (MHA), “Mental Illnesses are brain-based conditions that affect thinking, emotions, and behaviors.” Now, since we all have brains, it’s entirely possible that any one of us could, at one time in our lives, be inflicted with mental health problems. Just as the body with cancer changes it chemistry or the behavior of the affected cells without our doing a thing to make it happen, so it goes for people who have mental illnesses: “their brains have changed in a way in which they are unable to think, feel, or act in ways they want to. For some, this means experiencing extreme and unexpected changes in mood – like feeling more sad or worried than normal. For others, it means not being able to think clearly, not being able to communicate with someone who is talking to them, or having bizarre thoughts to help explain weird feelings they are having.” And much like the person battling cancer, those inflicted with mental disorders can no sooner make it go away simply by willing it so, or instantly modifying their unwelcome behavior.
Mental health issues sometimes develop due to genetics and/or biochemical imbalances or excessive stress brought on by life events or situations with no perceivable work-around. With more than 200 classified forms of mental disease, it’s sometimes takes a lot of detective work to diagnose the affected individual. The more common forms of mental illness, particularly in children, are anxiety, depression, behavioral or bipolar disorder generally manifested in mood or personality changes. Treatment of mental illness takes time, counseling, discovery, medication, and gradual behavior modification. With proper care, patience, and treatment many individuals learn to cope or recover from a mental illness or emotional disorder.
You can help and become more aware by looking for these signs in the children in your world, according to Mental Health Services (MHS): “In older children and pre-adolescents: substance abuse, inability to cope, changes in eating/sleep patterns, excessive complaints of physical ailments, changes in ability to manage responsibilities, defiance of authority, truancy, theft and/or vandalism, intense fear, prolonged negative mood, often accompanied by poor appetite and thoughts of death, and/or frequent outbursts of anger. In younger children: changes in school performance, poor grades despite strong efforts, changes in sleeping and/or eating habits, excessive worry, or anxiety (refusing to go to bed or to school), hyperactivity, persistent nightmares, persistent disobedience or aggression, and/or frequent temper tantrums.” Truth is, sometimes we mistake poor behavior for an incorrigible, temperamental child, when there could be something deeper going on. Learn the signs and speak up if you see something.
If you or someone you know is in crisis now, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.