Why is talking about mental health taboo in cultures?
There are many who do not know that they are suffering from mental health issues. I, certainly did not think of myself as being depressed until a pharmacist friend pointed it out. I knew I had anxiety and heart palpitations as they are obvious symptoms. However, the word depression never entered my mind - the word felt like it describes too much of a severe problem. It conjures up fear instilled by watching movies of people being locked up in a mental asylum being drugged up until they're near unconscious. I was in denial of being depressed until I could stand it no longer and went to see my GP who confirmed that diagnosis. Many do not go and seek help, they suffer in silence.
According to the NCBI website "only 39.4% of respondents have indicated that they have had a formal diagnosis of depression and 60.6% have not. In contrast, 53% of participants have considered seeking help from a mental health professional while 47% have not considered such a course of action."
Mental health issues have often been misunderstood and stigmatised. There's a prevailing belief that mental illnesses are a sign of weakness or personal failure, which can lead to people being hesitant to openly discuss their struggles. In some cultures, there's a strong emphasis on maintaining appearances, strength, and stoicism. This can discourage individuals from admitting vulnerabilities or seeking help for mental health concerns, as it might be perceived as a sign of weakness.
I spoke to a life coach colleague recently who specialises in a different coaching area to myself. She too had been suffering but only through having coaching session with her mentor coach, was it pointed out that she is suffering depression due to childhood trauma crying out to be healed.
A deep transformational coaching session was booked in the colleague above, though I had no idea what she had been going through until our chat at the start of our zoom call. She mentioned she her childhood trauma had been relentless, suffering more frequent flash backs. It was her soul crying out for it to be healed and resolved. She had kept it hidden deep within her, but now it kept saying, no more, I want to be out and resolved. Synchronicity is a wonderful magical phenomenon. It just happened to be that early that day, her trauma life coach had cancelled on her due to some health problem. When she mentioned that, I knew that the coaching session needed to be switched to a Root Cause Therapy session instead that lasted for over 2hrs. She was so grateful after to have healed the removed the emotions that kept her trapped in that unfortunate event many decades ago. That was a crazy synchronicity. What are the chances of her life coach canceling on her so that me and her could carry out a Root cause therapy session?!!
Her spirit guides knew what was best for her and arranged synchronistic events to occur that day to allow this kind of healing to have happened.
By allowing yourself to talk it out with others even with friends or family, you are taking the first steps into healing yourself. They can see what you’re going through is not your usual self at all. It helps for someone close to contextualise it for you so that you can become more aware of it and connect the dots.
People close to you can also help to guide you to seek help. For me, talking to my mum started by healing using holistic methods of Chakras. She encouraged me to start meditating on my Chakras to heal my mental health issues. You're welcome to read my Heart Palpitations blog for more about that.