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steve brown

Emotional Health vs. Mental Health

Updated: Oct 10, 2019

I don’t know if anyone refers to “emotional health” or not, but I am going to use the term. We hear the terms “physical health” meaning our bodies, and “mental health” which is our brains. To me there is huge difference between mental and emotional health.


Mental health can be a very complicated matter and require medical care, prescriptions, procedures, and in-patient care. Diagnosis seems to be unlimited; from depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders, etc.



People can be emotionally not healthy and have absolutely nothing wrong with their mental health. Like me, for example. From the minute my wife Mara unexpectedly died, for at least six months, I was an emotional dumpster fire. But mentally, I was fine…and I know that because I went to a doctor to make sure. So where am I going with all of this?


I think our emotional states of health often get overlooked. In my first blog, I wrote about how I want to help people who are suffering from setbacks.These setbacks cause people to become emotional and often irrational. (Read my TED talk on the “press” tab and see what I call “the Spock” factor when it comes to irrationality and emotions.)


For me to be effective with this “help,” it must be at the macro levels. I have worked one-on-one with a few folks, and in small groups of less than 100. It’s great, and I have been told it really helps, but the “reach” needs to be much broader. I haven’t figured out exactly how I plan to pull this off, but I will.


It may sound oversimplified, but what I mean by “helping” people who are going through some emotional setbacks, I get people to open-up and talk about it. There is a lot more that goes into it, but that “talking” part is huge. I also give examples of things my kids and I have done that have helped us to cope, and it works! I also ask if they are working with a licensed counselor, and if not, I suggest that they should.


To start with, I think there are three main areas we could work on:

· Hosting “Coping with Setbacks” seminars in our middle and high schools.

· Educating our workplaces on recognizing someone dealing with an emotional problem due to a setback and how we can better take care of those employees.

· Updating bereavement policies and employee assistance programs to better serve our emotionally suffering employees that we have time and money invested in.


I want to really drive home that fact that we should call it “emotional health,” and not “mental health.” This next statement is probably going to rub someone the wrong way.


People will shy away from exercising mental health benefits because of the stigma attached to it.


I didn’t make up the stigma and couldn’t tell you why it exists. But it does. For those people who are clinically diagnosed with “mental health” issues, there is all kinds of help available. But I think it would be more well received by people dealing with a loss/setback to seek “emotional” support. How do we facilitate getting people to take advantage of getting the support they need? That’s the million-dollar question.The help is out there, I know because I have been on the receiving end of it.


Let’s start with our schools:

Kids start taking puberty classes and sex education as early as elementary school. I know because all four of mine were in those classes, and parents can opt out of the classes if they don’t want their child to participate. The schools also teach them about the dangers of alcohol and drugs. Great stuff! All very valuable lessons for life. But what about coping with problems?


Kids are subject to a lot of things. Maybe it’s Mom and Dad fighting every night, or some sort of abuse, a divorce, or dealing with a death. Unless they have already been through it, how in the world would a kid know to reach out for help? And who should they reach out to? There are a lot of parents who don’t want to deal with this stuff, and their kids will know that. Plus, a lot of kids don’t want to “disappoint” dear old Mom and Dad with their problems.

Kids will keep stuff bottled up and that’s when the problems start. Whatever their condition is that is bothering them; setbacks, bullying, lack of self-confidence or whatever; they lose hope and become desperate. Some of them wind up taking their own lives because they feel like there is no way out.


WE HAVE TO INSTILL HOPE IN THEM AT A YOUNG AGE, THAT WITH TIME, HELP, AND EFFORT, THINGS WILL GET BETTER.


My hope is that once kids (who might grow up but never have healed without help) know there is a way out. Maybe the suicide rates will drop. Or bullying, drug use, promiscuity, lives of crime, homelessness or any other negative ways of life will decline.

And the faculty and staff would benefit as well. Sometimes there are tragedies that happen, and teachers find themselves dealing with the loss of a student. How do they deal with that, knowing that everyone is aware of the empty desk that was occupied the day before? Or how about the school districts reeling from one of these school shootings? How on earth do they get the courage to come back to their classrooms?


By hosting these seminars, they would need to have a positive spin with examples of triumphant outcomes. Most of us have read heartwarming stories where a kid is suffering emotionally and considering ending their life. Then, someone notices and intervenes, just in time. They work through it, and then go on to be a valedictorian or the captain of the girl's volleyball team. If the seminars are gloom and doom, creepy and morbid, it will turn kids off. The seminars would also need some stay-behind material so kids would know where to turn to and the faculty would know where to send them for help. A team of experts trained in this area would need to come up with the seminars. I am not suggesting our schools don’t know what they are doing or don’t ’have the resources. Maybe they do. I just think we can do more.

I also don’t think these seminars should be taught by the school faculty or staff. They have enough to deal with. I think they need to be people that can share their success stories of overcoming their setbacks in order to inspire, coach, and educate kids.


I just saw this on the news this morning…. this is exactly what I am talking about:


If you didn’t click on the link to the story in the hyperlink above (you should), in short it is about a Columbine Massacre student who survived, although was shot and saw his friends die at the scene. As an adult, he went around the country talking about how people are suffering from “emotional pain” and the need for our society to do something about it. Unfortunately, he was found deceased from a heroin overdose.


Well, my “blog-o-meter” is running out of time for this edition, but more to come!




Steve

 

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