Mental Health to Me

Mental health, to me, is the most difficult concept to understand. I can never pinpoint what it means to be mentally healthy because it is true that we all have our ups and downs. That’s just life. However, there is more to mental health than just simply going through what life brings. As defined by Google, mental health is “a person’s condition with regards to their psychological and emotional well-being.”

Personally, I am someone who fears going into social situations with people I do not know or with large quantities of people. This is in a way a form of anxiety because it makes me nervous to the point where I almost back out completely. With the support of those around me, I am able to push myself to go outside of comfort zone and do what makes me uncomfortable.

This is not something I tend to share with many people, but here I am announcing it to anyone who reads this. I get anxious. I struggle too. No one’s life is perfect and that is the fact of the matter. Mental health is always something I’ve had a hard time grasping, especially because I was always too scared to admit that I get worked up over things that teenagers do without thinking.

Watching my own family member at a young age struggle with an eating disorder was a learning lesson in retrospect. Being only about 10 or 11 years old at the time, I did not understand what was truly going on with someone I cared so much about. Looking back, I can now see through pictures the demons she was battling and the struggle she was undergoing.

Growing up, I watched her go through every up and down while battling anorexia. Watching her get defeated after an accident years after recovery and have an immense setback made me realize how tough it truly is to battle an eating disorder. It is hard to understand that this is something that will always be a part of her, no matter how much progress she has made. I know she will have times that set her back, but as her support system I have chosen to be that person she can rely on when life is tough.

The saying you never know what someone is going through is true in every aspect. I have found out about mental health struggles people have faced that I truly never would have suspected by looking at them on the surface. I have learned that judging someone on their outward appearance does not capture what is going on with them internally. It is hard to not judge based on actions, but it is worth trying.

I would like to encourage everyone to speak about what they are going through so we can end the stigma of mental health, that it is a disease. It is not a disease and that’s where the discussion needs to start. Again, no one is perfect, so let’s talk.