Mental Health Matters
Learn what you can do to help yourself and others by looking for warning signs, making mental health care a priority, and finding help if you need it. By Tarre Beach
M
ay is Mental Health Awareness Month. It was first celebrated as Mental Health Week in 1949 and created by former mental health patient Clifford W. Beers, who many refer to as “the founder of the American mental health movement.” This month offers each of us an opportunity to increase the awareness of mental health and wellness for ourselves and others. It’s also a wonderful time to celebrate the successes on the road to mental health.
Ending the Stigma
While mental illness is not judged the same way it was in the early part of the 20th century, social exclusion and prejudices toward the mentally ill haven’t completely gone by the wayside, says Jamie Gunning, licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of SoulCare in Orlando. According to Gunning, the American spirit of independence and the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” ideal continues to fuel many negative stereotypes associated with mental illness. “There’s a stigma that having a mental illness is a sign of weakness. Yet we don’t put that same kind of shame on someone who has type 1 diabetes
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Central Florida Lifestyle | May 2022
or cancer,” Gunning says. “It’s getting better, but we still have some work to do to make mental illness a less emotionally charged issue and mental health care simply a part of our overall well being.” Joseph Noecker, licensed mental health counselor and founder of Center for Self Balance in Winter Park says that mental health should be important to everyone because anyone can experience a mental health issue, if not a mental illness. “We perceive everything in our lives through our minds. So even if everything is going right in your life, if your mental health is out of balance, you can interpret your experience as ‘negative.’ This can affect your relationships, your work, and your physical health. And it goes beyond that. Our individual mental health contributes to the collective mental health and wellbeing of our community and world as a whole,” Noecker says.
Talk About It
Gunning says she’s happy to see young people making mental health a priority. “Gen Zers like to have a therapist to check in with every once in a while. Maybe it’s because their role models—athletes, musicians, actors
and actresses, and social media influencers are more open about their own mental health.” Regardless of their age, many people find talking about how they’re feeling difficult. That may be because they aren’t sure how they are feeling. Mental Health America (MHA) suggests finding a trusting and sympathetic friend or family member to share how you’re feeling as a first step. It can reduce stress and help identify feelings. Making an appointment with a primary care physician is also a good place to start. He or she can provide appropriate mental health care resources. Neither Noecker nor Gunning are medication prescribing practitioners, but they both say many mental health treatment models, including those that employ medication, also incorporate talk therapy and/or behavioral therapy. Noecker is in favor of normalizing talking about mental health and mental illness. However, he doesn’t like the casual use of diagnostic language for complex feelings. He feels medical terms such as PTSD or bipolar for example can be overused. “I think society can use medical terminology as a kind of shorthand
