History of Mental Health Awareness Month
Clifford W. Beers is the founder of the mental hygiene movement, which was only observed for a week in May in 1949. Beers had gone through severe episodes of depression and anxiety himself. During Beer’s confinement at various private and state mental institutions, he was maltreated and abused. Ever since that encounter Beers wanted to advocate for mental health and potential treatments that could be used.
What does Mental Health Awareness Month do?
The whole month of May is now observed for mental health awareness. This month raises awareness and reduces the stigma around mental health. According to youth.gov, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, general public, and others within the mental health community have made efforts to increase the importance of understanding both prevention and treatment of mental health problems. All these efforts made by these people have improved the outlook for those affected by mental illness.
Signs and Symptoms of Mental Health
Mental health is a constant at every stage of life, whether you're a child or an adult. It’s important as it helps to determine how we handle stress, affects how we think, and act. There are lots of factors that could lead to having poor mental health like family history or traumatic life experiences. According to mentalhealth.gov, some early warning signs could be having no energy, feeling numb or hopeless, using more drugs than usual, thoughts of harming yourself, or the inability to perform daily tasks.
Everybody is different though, so symptoms that one person is experiencing may not be the same for the other person. Also, just because you may be experiencing one of the symptoms or signs doesn’t mean that you have a mental illness, don’t self diagnose. Self diagnosing your illness cannot only be harmful to yourself, but to others who surround you as well. When you self diagnose, you could be trivializing your illness, missing something that you can’t see, or could be a result from something that you don’t know.
Ways to Improve Your Mental Health and Get Help
Therapy, hobbies, positive affirmations, good routines, and a good night of sleep are all ways that could improve your mental health. Just keeping yourself occupied in general is a really great way to not drown in thoughts. It’s important that if you feel like you could possibly be suffering from symptoms of mental illness, to get the help you need. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255 or you could call a warmline, a peer-run hotline that connects callers to trained mental health advocates and social workers in your area, who provide emotional support.