Everyone Has Mental Health

Recently, I have been thinking about the term mental health. As it stands alone, the term often has negative connotations formulated alongside it. People hear the word "mental health," and they often think about other terms: mental illness, depression, therapists, and maybe even "crazy" or "psycho." What I find interesting is that people forget we all have a mental health.

You don't have to have a mental illness to have mental health. Like physical health, we all have the right and duty to take care of our mental health, and how we take care of it is going to look different based on our personal needs. For example, I do have a mental illness, so therapy and medication were two ideas I wanted to consider. They have, thankfully, both been very successful for me, but that does not mean they will be successful for everyone, including people who also have OCD.

I see a therapist about once a month, I visit a psychiatrist every three months, and I take 40 mg of Prozac on a daily basis. I also take bubble baths, I paint, I write out my feelings in a blog post or in my journal, I read a new book (or maybe an old one), I do yoga. The list goes on and on depending upon what I need that day. I have also learned special tricks that help fight against anxiety, such as deep breathing and saying random numbers (in no specific order) to force my mind to think about something else. This is what I do to keep myself mentally healthy. Yes, partly because I have a mental illness. . .because I have struggled with depression. . .because I have anxiety, but also because it is how I take care of myself.

I've said it before; I will say it again--mental health is just as important as physical health. Everyone has a mental health, and everyone has the right to take care of it. You don't have to have a mental illness to talk to a therapist; you don't have to have depression to feel down or sad. There is so much stigma in what "mental health" is perceived to be compared to what it actually is. Mental health is simply a part of overall health. So tell me, how do you take care of your mind?