Caring For Mental Health Versus Mental Illness

I cannot proceed with talking about mental health on here without defining what I mean when I talk about mental health versus mental illness.

We all have mental health to care for – everyone will experience challenges related to their mental well-being (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2021). Even in the absence of mental illness, we must acknowledge our mental well-being, as this affects how we think, act, and respond to stressors. Your mental health can affect your physical health as well, and vice versa. I will discuss this in more depth in a later post about the social determinants of health, but chronic psychological stress weakens our immune system, making us more vulnerable to chronic illness.

In any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental illness (The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 2020). This may refer to a mood disorder, like depression, or a personality disorder, like borderline personality disorder. Some mental illnesses are comorbid, which means that two or more mental illnesses are often seen together in a person, such as anxiety and depression.

It is worth noting that you can have poor mental health in the absence of mental illness, or great mental health while living with a mental illness – having a mental illness takes work to care for, but does not doom you to having poor mental health (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2021).

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In a society attempting to normalize the fact that we all have mental health to care for, we didn’t make much progress in decreasing the stigma around caring for mental illness, especially for anything outside of generalized anxiety and depression. And that’s the thing – self-care looks very different when caring for each, not to mention that it will vary by individual as well.

When the topic of ‘self-care’ comes up in the media, I tend to see advice to take a shower, go for a walk, cook a nutritious meal, and so on. These are all valid examples of self-care, but for someone during a depressive episode, these aren’t exactly realistic. It can be difficult to get yourself up and go for a walk, no matter the fact that it may help improve your mood. Self-care at this time may be attending therapy and completing the ‘homework’ your therapist gives you or asking for help to make sure you take your daily medications. And there is nothing to be ashamed about.

There are so many different kinds of self-care, and you shouldn’t feel bad about one type not being ideal for you. Figure out what works for you and is realistic.

On a similar note, I want to acknowledge how some techniques used to improve mental health in people without mental illness can be truly damaging. The first example that comes to mind is the concept of manifestation in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I have OCD myself and it took me some time to figure out why seeing influencers preach this made me terrified. People with OCD have obsessions and/or compulsions that we complete to avoid something bad from happening, so the idea that these thoughts, that we don’t want, could become reality, is a nightmare. I’ll likely talk about common misconceptions surrounding OCD in a later post in more detail.

I hope to write various posts about my personal lessons in therapy that relate to my journey in improving my mental health, despite mental illness. This includes conversations on panic attacks, OCD, depression, grief, trauma, and so on.

However, there isn’t one way to care for your mental health or illness. I encourage you to reach out to a professional if you’re struggling to cope.

Take care of yourselves,

Raquel

References

Canadian Mental Health Association. (2021). Fast facts about mental health and mental illness. Retrieved from https://cmha.ca/brochure/fast-facts-about-mental-illness/

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. (2020). Mental illness and addiction: Facts and statistics. Retrieved from https://www.camh.ca/en/driving-change/the-crisis-is-real/mental-health-statistics