May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Breaking the stigma of mental health and seeking out counseling seems to be slowly shifting as I encounter more people who hear from others how counseling has helped them. Oftentimes, during sessions, I will get questions such as “What is considered normal?” when talking about mental health. I often respond with, it’s not necessarily that simple, since normal can look different for different people depending on several factors and the context of their own lives.

The Mental Health Continuum

It is helpful to look at mental health on more of a continuum instead of an either/or perspective. You could say we all probably have some level of mental health but we can also say that we probably all exhibit some symptoms of mental illness from time to time as well.

For instance, some symptoms that are common across a broad range of mental health disorders are things such as difficulty with sleep, changes in appetite, changes in energy levels, problems with concentration or focus, and perhaps difficulty with regulating our emotions.

Now, most of us could probably relate to times when perhaps we did not get a good night’s sleep, we aren’t physically feeling well, we were feeling more tired than usual, or perhaps we lost our temper or got easily irritated at a loved one, but we don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that we are experiencing a mental health condition.  

How Are You Functioning?

The difference often comes in when we step back and look at the bigger picture of how these things are impacting our functioning from day to day. Are we able to carry out our daily tasks and responsibilities or show up for school or work, how are we interacting with others, or not interacting, how are we taking care of ourselves? A few days of feeling that we are off from our usual way of feeling may not be a cause of concern, especially if we are able to recover from it after a few days, but if those same issues persist for several weeks or more, or start to get worse or more intense, then it may be something more to pay attention to and discuss with your healthcare provider.

I hope this was able to shed a little light on the question of what is considered “normal” in regard to mental health, and as always, feel free to contact me if you think that counseling might be something you want to explore more.