Before digging into part 2, there is an important distinction I think is worth highlighting: mental health vs. mental illness.
Mental illnesses are diagnosable health disorders of varying severity, which the American Psychiatric Association (ASA) highlights involve ‘changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these)’.
Mental health however in the words of the WHO is ‘a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community’.
Therefore, although it is possible for mental health to have a bearing on the development of mental illnesses, a person could have a severe mental illness and still have good mental health and vice versa.
Opening up
It’s understandable why we don’t open up to everyone and offer raw unfiltered answers to the routine question ‘how are you?’, for example we may:
- not want to talk;
- feel like the conversation won’t help; or
- have already discussed something to death with others.
In society’s drive to avoid neglecting mental health, there seems to be a gap in understanding that fundamentally each individual is the ultimate guardian of their own mental health. This means that although (like I highlighted in part one), we all sit in a place of influence for each other’s mental health there is just no way for us to completely monitor or control the mental health of others.
In the mix of this there is also this popular rhetoric that ‘all you need to do is talk to somebody’. I agree that speaking about issues can be therapeutic and open more doors for people to assist.
However, this ‘just speak to me’ wave at times has a weird counterproductive effect of making people feel bad for not speaking to you. The point is we should be available for when people wish to open up (and yes, be proactive in making enquiries) but we shouldn’t try to force our desire to speak on others (especially when we aren’t opening up to them).
Now, what about when people do open up?
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but that’s just it… sometimes the news is bad.
People tend to open up to those who they feel won’t abuse their vulnerability, who they feel closer to, or who may have some level of understanding, but there are also those days when people just can’t keep their guards up.
‘How are you’
‘Not very well thank you, and you?’
Our reaction to the low mood of others can be intriguing. I understand why a person might get frustrated with others who always seems to have a low mood but due to a lack of transparency they feel powerless to help them. However, it is important to consider how this may be a slightly selfish attitude related to how another person’s demeanor makes us feel uncomfortable and forgetting that not everybody expresses their mental state in the same way.
And then… when we actually get a negative response to a mental health enquiry the question is whether we are actually comfortable with getting a genuine response? At the end of the day we are actually asking questions here, we’ve just become so used to these questions being intertwined with our daily greetings that it’s not always clear when somebody actually cares to receive a response (neither do we always expect one).
Sometimes we ask about somebody out of courtesy whilst not consciously seeking the answer. I wouldn’t say that’s a crime but if we do care about mental health, then if they respond in a way that suggests they may be struggling or that they simply aren’t on ‘cloud 9' our reaction firstly shouldn’t be to make them feel bad about not giving us a paragraph and verse about why this is so. You can push slightly, but I do think it is important to respect people’s boundaries as being able to speak on your own terms often leads to a more productive conversation. I’m not saying you should ignore the conversation all together but it’s important to respect:
- that you often don’t know the full picture when speaking to people;
- a person may not wish to speak to you specifically;
- sometimes people genuinely are just ‘okay’;
- it’s rare for people to have a 100% high mood every single second; and
- not everybody wants to pretend about how they feel (but this also doesn’t mean that they want to go into depth about it).
Listen & Acknowledge
People have a tendency to avoid bad news, so when they hear it they quickly try to think of a way to solve it (I am definitely guilty of this). We can’t ‘fix’ everything however and people don’t always open up to us because they somehow believe that we can fix things, sometimes it’s just about listening.
Our desire to avoid bad news can lead to a person feeling that we are belittling the severity of what they are sharing, or automatically create a barrier to them sharing things with us in the future. The thought becomes: ‘Iyanu doesn’t want to hear my problems, forget it’.
It’s therefore important not only to consider if suggesting a solution is appropriate but actually making sure that we first acknowledge a person’s feelings or what they have told us before making any suggestions. This reminds me of a time when I opened up about a personal situation to somebody, partly because they pushed, and I kid you not the immediate response I got was ‘so?’, my heart sighed. I knew they didn’t intend to offend me, but I think as they hadn’t experienced what I was talking about they couldn’t appreciate why it affected me. In contrast, I spoke to a friend about the same situation. My friend pressed less than the previous person for information but their response was so much more helpful simply because they were empathetic and acknowledged what I said to them.
So in essence, part of caring about another person’s mental health is also respecting their boundaries. Of course it’s great to seek out how people are doing, but if done in a way that makes somebody feel bad either for not offering full disclosure, not wanting to speak, or ironically telling you the truth, then it’s actually quite unhelpful.
As food for thought, it would also be interesting to consider the way we greet people: are we asking questions we don’t want the answers to? Even if that is the case, surely we shouldn’t then be dismissive towards a genuine response?
Thanks for reading ❤️
NTI | 25 April 2021
📧Email me: ntiyanu@gmail.com
References linked in text.
