So its been a while but recently a massive topic has come into peoples lives around me. The subject today is still sort of taboo and noone really understands it. In some cases its hard for the person to say how they feel and in other cases its hard for people to understand. As you've already guessed, that topic is mental health.
Quite recently I've had a handful of friends battling mental health problems. But as an on looker its hard to see what happens. some people describe it as having two voices in your head and we choose which one to listen to and then amplify it. Others describe it as this is how society has made me feel. Others suffer because of their past and they struggle to overcome it.
There's a lot of different strands to mental health but because of society and technology nowadays this seems to have demonised some of the issues. According to society its ok to be anxious waiting for test results, but being anxious about going to work, a meeting or waiting on a reply is classed a a mental illness. Being stressed with kids is 'normal' but getting stressed at work is seen as a sign of weakness. Being alone in a crowded room now seems the 'norm' but when someone says they're depressed its classed as attention seeking. How can it be that one strand is ok and the other isn't??
Nowadays, people are becoming more involved in social media and portraying a fake image about themselves because being liked by thousands of people across the world makes them feel happy about a life where talking face to face is now a problem. Everyone gets asked where they're working now or which car they're driving but how many people actually get asked if they're ok??
With social media and technology, we seem to be more involved with celebrities and people we don't even know rather then the friends and family who we should be spending our time with. missing out on quality time with people who could actually help us. The problems we have these days is that technology has got us to a stage where checking out phones every five minutes is fine but when your waiting for a reply you start to over think. Surely this shows that these are mental health problems. Checking your phone every 5 minutes is OCD, over thinking is paranoia, stalking someones social media builds anger and trust issues.
I saw this picture recently and for me it sums up how technology has taken how we used to be to how we are now. How trying to get fifty likes will make us happy instead of having that one friend who says, you look beautiful or lets meet up sometime.
Surely this shows that not only pictures or messages sent that trust issues can be broken and damaged within seconds. How misinterpreting a message because of how its written and not said because we've taken it on face value instead of asking the person who said it.
Where in this world currently 1 in 4 people struggle with mental illness in a year and where suicide is the biggest killer for men under 49. It only takes 30 seconds to check in with someone and ask if they're ok...........
