Post No.: 0884
Furrywisepuppy says:
One reason why some people don’t consider seeking help for a potential mental health problem (which is usually far less visible than a physical health problem) is because they don’t know any differently to how they’re feeling and thus assume everybody’s internal experiences are similar, like voices in their heads or experiencing extreme highs and lows. Therefore they don’t realise they have a diagnosable problem at all. Our own perception of ‘normal’ may not be the same as another’s until we learn differently from enough others. Or we might think it’s our own ‘individuality’ rather than a problem. Indeed this is the case unless the situation does cause difficulties in one’s life – mental and physical differences aren’t problems in themselves unless they negatively affect one’s life.
In other cases, one thinks one is different to most others but then learns that one’s private thoughts or behaviours are typical across the population.
Even when they know they’re suffering from something, some people worry about receiving help or sympathy from others and appearing vulnerable, needy or a ‘failure’ instead of self-sufficient, low-maintenance and like they’ve got it emotionally together – at least in front of others for the sake of their public image (but no successful person has ever made it alone). They might’ve wanted to be the hero, not the one who needed saving by others instead. Or they may worry that others will respond with judgement or dismissal rather than compassion and support.
Opening up to others about sensitive private matters may not have been what they were raised to do. Perhaps they were even raised by parents who directly believed that crying or complaining is weak and punished such behaviours – at least such outward behaviours, hence one learns not to be stoic or to not cry per se, but to not speak of one’s suffering or cry in front of others i.e. we become conditioned to hide our suffering rather than not feel it. Or they may have been raised by parents who simply neglected them during times of emotional need, hence they learned that they cannot rely on or trust others to help them. They might alternatively worry about being sectioned – but this’ll only be for really extreme cases.
Note that the philosophy of stoicism doesn’t espouse the common interpretation of the word ‘stoic’, where people are expected to just hide their emotions even though they feel them inside. It’s not about the suppression of emotions but a change of perspective in order to alter or reframe our emotional reactions towards how we feel.
They may have succeeded well on their own in the past and so presume they’ll always be able to do this. They might be self-critical perfectionists, and constantly regret and ruminate, over-think, over-analyse and over-excoriate upon even small mistakes, missed opportunities or every minutiae of what they’ve said and done that they think they could’ve said and done better. Caring is more mentally taxing than not caring. Bedtime ruminations can lead to insomnia, and thus the vicious circle effects of sleep deprivation on one’s mental health. High achievers and those with high expectations can fall into depression easily if life doesn’t turn out as they planned – if only perfection will do then one will most likely be disappointed. The future appears hopeless or even blank (how we perceive the future has profound implications for our present mood and health). They may dwell like a stuck record on wishing they could turn back time to change something, unable to forgive themselves and move on, like a computer program stuck in an infinite loop, except there’s no reboot switch apart from one-way suicide – but there is an alternative with the help of cognitive behavioural therapy, medications and other treatments.
A high pain threshold can eventually be self-destructive. Those who commit suicide can have pain thresholds that are so high that they’ll never admit that they’re suffering to themselves or to others in order to seek help for it, and then their pain crescendos to a point they wish to end their life. One can hide one’s own developing suffering until it gets overwhelming, and then becomes too late. Depression can insidiously creep up on us so gradually that we might not realise how we’ve gotten so desolate. Those with depression also tend to reluctantly seek treatment for any non-communicable comorbidities they may have. And some ailments get physically worse and more directly life-threatening the longer one puts off getting them checked out, like chest pains or headaches. Small problems are better off nipped in the bud – but complaining about small problems is considered ‘weak’. Toughness can turn into headstrong and dangerous stubbornness.
So some people don’t complain enough. They’re prone to downplay how serious their problems, like addictions or grief, are even when first directly broached about it. Therefore we shouldn’t always assume people’s ‘I’m fine’ responses or silences mean that they are actually fine. Some can hide their internal problems from others really well – too well. (Not a mental health disorder but even illiterate people can hide or mask their illiteracy well, by avoiding situations where they’ll need to read something for themselves.) Even if they open up slightly, they might still be downplaying their feelings. So they might not answer truthfully the first time even if you directly ask them how they are? If they just say they’re ‘okay’, they certainly won’t be feeling amazing otherwise they’d have expressed so. We often don’t pay enough attention to others in our own busy lives anyway, as we focus on our own personal daily concerns.
They may just wish other people knew about their suffering without having to make it explicit. They might think they’re not worth saving. So it’s often a part of the mental condition they have if they won’t even seek for help. They often beat themselves up more harshly than others can. They can blame themselves for things they didn’t cause or couldn’t have changed. There’s no reliable correlation between those who talk about their pain the most or claim they have a great pain tolerance and those who experience the most pain or have the greatest pain tolerance – for some suffer in silence.
Joking is a common tactic to try to minimise one’s addictions. People who joke all of the time, meanwhile, can be dismissed as joking again when they’re actually trying to hint about something serious this time.
Some may not wish to oblige others to waste their time on them because they don’t want to feel like a burden, to bring others down with them, or they simply don’t want others to worry, especially if they feel they need to appear strong in front of those who depend on them.
With depression or insomnia, we might not want to be around others, or we’ll believe others won’t want to be around us because we’ll be terrible company for being constantly in a tired or disconsolate mood. So we avoid others and compound our loneliness, which means that again we don’t receive any help, or even any understanding as others may assume misconceptions about us like ‘we’re being deliberately aloof or just antisocial’ and that’s ‘the usual and irredeemable us’ now. Our social and thus support networks may therefore dwindle. Chronic pain can make people grumpy, but we can assume they’re just grumpy people rather than people in chronic pain.
When people lose their limbs, for instance, it’s not the loss of those limbs that’s most life-threatening to them in this modern medicine age once they’ve healed with no infection or other complications, but the loss of the will to carry on stemming from the lowered quality of life. A (anticipated) poor quality of life can seem worse than death, thus depression can be life-threatening. The longer one’s suffering, the more likely suicide is a possibility. Also, the longer the suffering, the harder and longer it’ll be to recover from the depression.
And sticking with a limb analogy – if they don’t seek help, it can be like blaming a person who has just lost all their limbs for not going to travel to see their doctor about it. It’s not easy for a broken brain to realise that it is broken – precisely because it is broken. There’s therefore a huge responsibility upon those who are mentally sound to educate themselves about, recognise, and look after, the mentally unwell. So if you see someone appearing chronically downcast, solitary (by perceived choice or not), silent about their feelings or stuck in their lives then don’t ignore it or pass the buck. Absolutely never dismiss comments about suicide.
Don’t be someone who’s too frightened about saying the wrong thing (or worse, no longer sees a friend in them because they seem changed from the person you used to know and love, and like they’re now an encumbrance in your life) that you avoid them precisely because you know they’re mentally unwell. Yes, naïvely-applied ‘tough love’ like telling them to ‘get a grip’ doesn’t work and can make things worse, especially for someone who already self-criticises themselves excessively. Don’t knock someone down when they’re already down too. But overall it’s less about what you say and more about being there and being a listening ear.
If there’s no big problem then there’s no big problem, but if there is then you’ll be making a positive difference to their mental welfare by letting them know you’re there for them at any time they need.
…We ourselves need to reach out when we’re feeling desperately low for more than a week – even superficial interactions with the people around us can be beneficial. Yet for many of us, our tendency is to withdraw from social encounters when under stress – perhaps because they take energy and we just want to rest. But this could lead to a vicious cycle.
First practising self-compassion (being kinder to, and less critical of, oneself) will help one to eventually become more receptive to accepting compassion from others, and therefore connecting with their social circles and beyond. Self-compassion is correlated with feeling more secure, safe, less threatened and more trusting, and thus more connected to others. Being less harsh and negatively judgemental on oneself will loosen the fear that others may be harsh and negatively judgemental on us too. After all, there are many different valid perspectives that reveal, say, how relatively small our failures or ‘failures’ really are compared to all the good we’ve done. Or perhaps the only failure is not learning, and we can try again as a wiser person no matter our age. All judgements are therefore subjective rather than objective or fixed, especially in a world where luck plays a role in everything.
A chief way to increase the chances of people seeking help is to remove the physical and psychological obstacles and barriers, such as the worries or fears concerning admitting to suffering or of obtaining support. And it’s excellent progress to see that the stigma of mental health problems has reduced since the days of the beginning of this blog! Woof!
It’s not a weakness but a bravery to express one’s authentic feelings of struggling, and to ask for help. Receiving compassion graciously is a skill worth developing. And sometimes admitting to our suffering is necessary to reveal any wider hidden injustices that need to change in society, like domestic abuse, sexual harassment or violence.
Woof. When one has been close to dying, so many other things in life can suddenly appear trivial, like what people are wearing, which way up we should eat chocolate biscuits and other ‘first-world problems’. Life must be fantastic for us as individuals if we’re bothered about these sorts of things because there are bigger and more important issues in the world or that one could be personally facing. So if we can find a way to survive, we can emerge much wiser and stronger!
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