What If We Talked About Mental Health Struggles?

I want you to take a step back and think carefully about the following question: In your world, is talking about mental health a normal part of your conversations? Or is it something you try your best to keep to yourself and deal with on your own?

Let’s take this a step further. Parents, if you struggle from time to time with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, etc. Do you let your family in on your thoughts—spouse and kids? Or do you just fake it until you make it—assuming you will someday make it? What about your employer? Students, are you letting your parents or another trusted adult into your world, or are you shutting them out because you’re convinced they wouldn’t understand?

The Secret of Mental Health Struggle

Throughout most of my adult life, I believed mental health was something you didn’t talk about. My aunt was diagnosed as bipolar. We didn’t talk about it. Ever. I suffered from bouts of depression from high school through my early career days. I never told anyone. I knew kids who died by suicide. We mourned the tragedy and then moved on.

I believed mental health struggles meant something was wrong with you. And it was reserved for the professionals and those diagnosed with actual disorders. As a follower of Jesus, I thought issues like anxiety, worry, and depression were less of an issue related to mental health and more of a lack of spiritual maturity. After all, if you believe in Jesus, you should have no worries and endless joy. If you did have a problem, bury it and deal with it. Fake it till you make it. Right?

That was until I experienced a collision of joining the team at RemedyLIVE and witnessing, first-hand, my wife experiencing such debilitation anxiety that she struggled to leave the house. And all of this happened in front of our four kids. The episode was so bad that there was no hiding it. I stayed home from work—the kids could feel something wasn’t right with Mom.

So, instead of hiding behind a thick veil of faking it, we started talking about it.

Mental Health Struggles Are More Common Than You Might Think

Mental health concerns all of us. Because every one of us has mental health, it doesn’t have to be awkward to talk about. Sure, it’s hard. The good things we need in life often are. But if we all participated in the conversation, it wouldn’t be so awkward and probably get a little easier.

Everyone has secret struggles. You aren’t alone in the battle. And the more you talk about mental health and let other people in, the greater clarity you have for hope. Specifically, hope in Jesus. 

No matter which way you slice it, there is a stigma around mental health that just seems to linger, leading you to feel shame and isolation. Yet, we freely talk about physical health and our spiritual health. So why not mental health? Well, there are various reasons—the biggest—knowledge and understanding. We simply don’t talk about what we are unsure of or afraid of. So mental health gets swept under the rug. We hope that if we ignore it, it will go away. It won’t. 

Additionally, you might get some terrible advice. When my wife was struggling with anxiety, I had to learn how to help her best. But that was not my initial response. I told her to get over it and stop being irrational. My brain wasn’t spiraling around anxious thoughts; why should hers? I figured she was in control of her thoughts and, therefore, letting the anxiety win. A completely false and shortsighted way of thinking. And not at all helpful.

This is precisely the point behind RemedyLIVE’s interactive polling. It gives people the opportunity to be educated about mental health, discover that you and those around you are not alone in your struggle, and a brand new confidence to begin speaking up.

And it all starts with a straightforward question: How are you, really?

Talking About Mental Health Struggles Is The Gateway to Hope

There was no magical remedy to my wife conquering her struggle. In fact, she still does. But in those moments, we rallied as a family around Mom so that, above all else, she never felt alone in her struggle. The kids always had coloring supplies ready to go. At the first sign of an attack, they all would sit on the kitchen floor and color. If they were driving, they carried mini whiteboards. They would pull into a parking lot and draw until the moment passed.

When a person has a chance to share a secret struggle, it’s a gateway to a conversation that’s more than just a conversation about mental health. It becomes a conversation about hope. The simple truth of knowing you have a community around for support makes an undeniable and lasting impact.

We struggle because there is sin in the world. We struggle because we are broken people living in a broken world. We struggle because no matter how hard we try, we are not the solution. There is something greater. But when we struggle in silence and solitude, the path to hope and healing is clouded and impossible to see. But allowing people to see they are not alone clears the fog and removes the barriers to reveal a path to hope, healing, and purpose.

So much mental unhealthiness robs people of that hope. Worry, anxiety, depression, etc., trick our minds into believing the worst about ourselves and the world around us. It tricks us into believing we are worthless, purposeless, and unloved. A simple conversation can change all of that.

Next Steps

The first step to these critical conversations can be scary. So let RemedyLIVE help. Schedule a Wired Experience today and begin radically changing your organization into a how are you really organization because healthy people create healthy profits. Or perhaps the Get Schooled Tour hasn’t made a stop at your child’s school. Reach out to your school administrators and let them know you want The Get Schooled Tour.