Are you open to having a serious conversation about your mental health?
Recently we have been having a lot of conversations about mental health and suicide in our district. We started with a small group of students listening to a young lady share her story. Our local mental health facility followed up with students on the importance of monitoring their mental health and suicidal ideation. Later, we opened the conversation to our entire high school student body. We hired a guest speaker and visited with a local mental health professional. Our plan is to extend the conversation to our parents and the community. It occurred to us that we are being proactive with this sensitive conversation. We feel it is important to talk about mental health and seeking help when it is necessary. My main question is, are you evaluating your mental health?
We can no longer tell people to suck it up or get over it when it comes to their feelings. We must be kind and compassionate when we deal with others. We are seeing more and more people suffer in silence because of abuse, addiction, or even bullying. Our kids are suffering because of their social media use and interactions. Their perspective of other’s exceptional media presence makes them feel inferior at times. They experience terrible comments from people who do not agree with their posts. These comments, hurt even if we think they are small and insignificant in the moment. If we could only take the time to see what we are consuming. We need to take in positive content and stop exposing ourselves to junk. This negative stuff plays mind-games with our mental health and hurts our self-confidence.
This is not to say that we cannot expect ourselves to be mentally tough, chase goals or have ambitious dreams. We still need to be aggressive and strong when things are not going our way. Perseverance is important and we should teach our kids to push through some of the struggles life throws our way. When are struggles consume us to the point we want to give up and shrink back into ourselves, this is not acceptable. Knowing when to seek help when we struggle, should be part of daily conversations.
Let us start talking to each other more. Most importantly if we are struggling mentally let’s be open to saying something. It is unnecessary for people to struggle with their thought all alone. We all have people in our lives we depend on and feel safe with. There are individuals who may feel they do not have a safe person to talk to. These individuals should seek out professional help when it is necessary or visit with their religious or spiritual leader if that is their belief. We can find those safe individuals to talk to, they are out there. We must be willing to share our feelings and lose the fear of judgement. We feel what we feel, and that is ok.
Are you taking in positive messages each day?
Are you reflecting on your mental health?
Do you feel open to sharing your feelings with a trusted friend?
How do you overcome the mind-games we allow to occur in our thoughts?
Many communities are impacted by people with mental illness and/ or suicide. We must be open to having conversations about this in our communities. This topic can no longer be ignored. Thank you for checking out this post. I hope you have a great week sharing how you are doing with your family and friends.
Steven C. Bucks- Leading Conversations
Resource:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255
