Might seem obvious, but no one’s said it yet: Mental Health IS Health.

I’ve seen this in “propaganda” from the mental health industry lately, and I appreciate them saying it so. I say “propaganda” in quotes because it’s not really propaganda, but I see the mental health industry really pushing these last few years, they get billboards, they get ad spots, it’s good to see because they’re putting good information out there.

But I got it from Fallout: New Vegas. When you first visit the NCR (the remnants of California government trying to stake their claim; they’re the good guys but their critics say they are stretching themselves too thinly, into Nevada where the game takes place, for example) camp, one of their leaders tells you about a soldier who was SA’d by a madman. She was out on patrol or whatever, the raiders killed her team, and the leader abused her and sent her back with her physical and mental scars, and she hasn’t been the same. If you have a high enough medical skill and a high enough charisma skill and you pass a dice roll, you can tell her that her mental health is just as important as her physical health, and talking to someone does not make her weak, it’s the same energy behind taking care of her physical body. It’s a great point and the dice roll for the speech check shouldn’t be so hard, because I go for it every time, except I quick save before the attempt, so if I fail, I quick load and try it again, because she’s worth saving and it sucks that it’s down to a dice roll. That’s one choice I don’t let RNGesus make for me. (RNGesus = RNG or Random Number Generator + Jesus… common term in RPG (role playing game) communities.)

And of course we need to get rid of the stigma around mental health.

And it’s not just endemic to the west. Here is Japanese rap duo Creepy Nuts singing a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dAzUOzWvrk How much of that video applies to you? (It is in Japanese. Turn on the captions, it has an official English translation, but you have to read along.)

That mental health issues are real issues and not “just a symptom of poverty” or whatever other bullshit people say to make it a purely political issue instead of a health one.

Also, people who don’t understand the expression “you can’t buy happiness.” It does not mean that you do not need money to be happy. It means that no amount of money is going to help you if you do not care for your mental health.

Disorders like ADHD and autism aren’t “new”. They’ve just been defined and recognized more recently than other mental health issues.

STFU, grandpa. Children did have “the autism” when you were a kid. It was just lumped in with “misbehaving” then, because doctors hadn’t learned better yet.

Nothing has to be “wrong” for depression to kick in. It obviously doesn’t help when things are tough, but sometimes your brain chemistry just is what it is. Life is fine* my brain is not.

You can be depressed without having low self esteem.

Me being happy on a particular day doesn’t mean my issues magically went away. I’m making an effort to not sink further into the dark place and it’s just taken for granted by most people around me. Then, when the pretense slips because I’m tired or overwhelmed, it’s treated as if I’m “unusually” sad or irritated.

You aren’t a depressed person. You’re a person experiencing depression.

You’re not an anxious person. You’re a person experiencing anxiety.

You need to decouple your struggle from your self, or it will just become a part of your identity.