Okay, show of hands: Who among us has had or currently has a mental healthcare issue?
Studies show that one in four of us do or have had a mental health issue at some point in our lives.
But how bad really is it to have a mental health issue? If everyone has one, is it so bad to carry on without help?
This article is going to delve into the importance of resources for people who struggle with mental health and the severity of cases being left alone.
First: What Are The Stats?
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The most recent data we have on the state of our country’s mental health lies with Mental Health America. Their study of 2023 mental health (still incomplete as of this article, since new data is always being added until 2024) is all-encompassing and gathers data for its study all the way from 2020 until 2023.
Here’s what they have to present:
- 21% of adults are experiencing at least one mental illness. That’s roughly 50 million people.
- 55% of adults with a mental illness have not received any treatment.
- 5.44% of adults experience severe mental illness.
- Over 12.1 million adults (4.8%) have reported serious thoughts of suicide. This figure more than doubles when surveying adults who identify as two or more races.
- The states faring the poorest included Kansas, Arizona, and Oregon, which all report high percentages of adults with mental illness and thoughts of suicide.
As we can see… not good.
We know that symptoms of mental health disorders go far beyond the mind. Data gathered as of April 2023 states this:
- People with depression have a 40% higher risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic diseases than the general population. People with serious mental illness are nearly twice as likely to develop these conditions.
- 33.5% of U.S. adults with mental illness also experienced a substance use disorder in 2021 (19.4 million individuals)
- The rate of unemployment is higher among U.S. adults who have mental illness (7.4%) compared to those who do not (4.6%)
- High school students with significant symptoms of depression are more than twice as likely to drop out compared to their peers
- Students aged 6-17 with mental, emotional or behavioral concerns are 3x more likely to repeat a grade.
The state of our people is in decline. Every year we get a higher level of mental issues in the U.S. Some of this is due to a more accepting culture of mental illness, and therefore more reports are able to be made; and some of it is due to the last few years being heavily affected by a global pandemic – but when we take those factors out and focus on the trend, we’re still left without excuse to acknowledge this ever-growing mental health crisis.
Okay, We Have A Problem… What’s The Solution?
So we know that this is a real, growing, serious problem. How do we fix it?
To me, the answer is two-fold:
We MUST have well-funded, easy-access mental health resources for our people, this is a necessity.
The second thing we need is, to my own understanding, just as important. We need a culture of a people whose very existence kills mental health issues before they can take route in us.
Do you know the main causes of depression? Abuse, neglect, conflict, death or loss – among plenty of other factors. What are we doing to each other? Do we realize how common depression is? Which means all of its causing factors are just that common. And the stigma behind this and other mental health issues is sadly alive and well.
I struggle with getting very annoyed with people. Sometimes, when dealing with customers, I endure one too many people who aren’t thinking about how entitled and demanding they come across to me and my younger coworkers. I snap. Sometimes I’m rude back, sometimes I’m passive, sometimes I respond well but my anger burns inside me. It’s a constant battle of working on myself so that nothing bothers me – least of all the shallow annoyances at work.
But how common is that? So common that if you’re reading this you probably can relate in some way, or you think my complaint is so silly because it’s so commonplace. And you would be right about that: it’s commonplace. It’s too commonplace. It spreads disregard and indignation for our fellow human being. This, along with the severe lack of people who can teach having a thick skin and at the same time returning evil with love, is the issue.
Having a plethora of avenues in which people can get treatment for mental health is a wonderful thing. Seeing it become important to the vast majority of people in America makes me proud to be among these people. But what would happen if we didn’t have these problems in the first place? And how would we go about it?
This problem had to have sprung up from somewhere, right? People weren’t this depressed, anxious, or hurting in general fifty years ago – heck, twenty years ago!
I don’t believe the answer is that “this generation is just weak because they have everything already and got bored”. I also don’t believe the answer is “we were always this hurting, it’s just that in the last couple of years we’ve had access to a wider range of information”; that may be, but it doesn’t account for the percentage of people who said they were happy being at the lowest ever recorded in the last 71 years!
We have a culture problem, a big one. Can this article fix that? I’m sure it can’t. What might be able to change it is if we went out of our houses intent on finding one person to show love to. What might be able to change it is if, when someone does wrong to us, we return their slap with kindness – don’t strike back!
I’ll be the first to say I’m not always kind. I’m human, as are you, and I can’t keep the high standards I’ve set for myself, nor, I assume, can you. But culture isn’t about perfection, culture is about a way of life. People are hurting all around us, let’s not just ship them off to a mental health resource. Let’s send them to get help from these places and show them that there is love waiting for them – even if they’re a stranger to us!
The next person who annoys you to know end, try returning their insult with kindness, practicing forgiveness, and letting the hate and anger die there.
Bless others and be blessed. Thank you for reading this article. Maybe we can do some good together! See you out there!