Q: Why should I reach out?
A: Reaching out can seem incredibly daunting or sometimes useless if you're not totally familiar with reaching out. However, It is incredibly important because it allows an opportunity to make things better for yourself and your teen. Just remember; it is always worth it in the end to reach out.
Q: How do I reach out?
A: Reaching out can be an incredibly hard thing to do but I seriously encourage it. The biggest ways you can reach out is talking to your current regular health care professional for advice of where to turn or looking for psychologists or psychiatrists in your area.
Q: How do I know if I'm depressed?
A: Depression is not just feeling sad a lot. That might be something that comes with it, but a lot of time people tend to feel more numb and unenergetic. These are in no way all the symptoms, and if you are really curious whether or not you are depressed you should ask a mental health professional about it. Definitely do not search up your symptoms, as the internet is not nearly as reliable in diagnosing these sorts of things as an actual professional.
Q: If I’m depressed, will I always feel it? Is it something that is constant or does it go away?
A: Depression is a hard topic to deal with, and mental health illness never truly goes away entirely, it simply becomes easier to deal with. When you receive treatment you’re learning to deal with it, you're not making it go away. However with work it can become less severe but it is something that will usually require maintenance.
Q: What is the difference between being stressed out and having an anxiety disorder?
A: This is a question I have heard people ask a lot, because the words are practically identical it’s easy to think they are the same. Everyone gets anxious and nervous, it’s human nature. However an anxiety disorder is where a similar “anxious feeling” becomes overly active and comes out in situations it usually wouldn’t. (DO NOT USE THIS TO DIAGNOSE YOURSELF! If you think you may have an anxiety disorder go talk to a professional.)
Q: What is the difference between being sad and being depressed?
A: Also very easy to mix up but as I have said once in this Q&A being sad is not really what depression is. It tends to be more numb and low energy. A lot of times things that come with it are a slight lack of empathy, slight loss of memory, and irritability. (DO NOT USE THIS TO DIAGNOSE YOURSELF If you think you may have depression go talk to a professional.)
Q: If I wait it out, will my depression go away?
A: I wish this was how it worked, things would be way easier for everyone but unfortunately it’s not. In minor cases you may be able to make slight changes to the things you do to help deal with it. However usually waiting it out will just make it worse. The sooner you reach out the higher the chance may be that you could have a somewhat easier time dealing with it. However again things like this usually don’t actually “go away”.
Q: If I’m medicated, will I have to be medicated forever?
A: Medication is, like treatment, different for everyone. However medication should usually be accompanied with therapy and practices you can utilize. But truly it’s different for everyone. Some medications may need o be taken forever but some maybe not.
Q: How long will “getting better” take?
A: “Getting better” is not truly applicable to mental illness, like I’ve said a couple times your never really “healed” you just learn ways to deal with it. Also the process of dealing with mental health takes a range of times but truly your never going to be able to just stop doing whatever your doing if you’ve developed some sort of practices. TLDR there’s no one answer, and mental illness never magically goes away.
Q: Why should I care about people with mental illnesses?
A: You should care for the same reason you should care about if people with physical disabilities are getting the treatment they need. It’s a similar type of thing, just taking place in the brain.
Q: How can I help someone with a mental health issue?
A: It’s really important if you are trying to help someone with a mental illness to also prioritize your own mental illness. If something feels too severe for you to deal with, reach out to someone they trust, a parent, or in some cases emergency resources. However, the biggest thing you can do for someone is to do your best to be there for them. Most people just need someone to talk to.
Q: Is mental health contagious?
A: No mental health is not contagious. Many times however it can be genetically passed down, but you can’t catch it like the flu.
Q: Is mental health gender based?
A: While Mental illness is not more likely in either boys or girls it is true that symptoms show up differently in different genders.
Q: Are people with mental health issues dangerous?
A: NO. people with mental health are not usually dangerous. It is very uncommon and tends to only accompany severe and less rare mental health illness and even then a lot of times those people are not dangerous.
Q: Is there such thing as situational mental illness?
A: Yes there is such thing as situational mental illness. The most common example is most likely seasonal depression disorder. This is when depression comes with the change of seasons in winter. However there are so many examples of this. When people are in grief, or basically have gone through some sort of trauma it’s somewhat common for mental illnesses to develop.
Q: How common is it to have a mental health issue?
A: So common!! 1 in 5 adults in the US deal with some sort of mental illness in a year! 1 in 4 people deal with a mental health illness in the world!!
Q: Is being Queer a mental illness?
A: NO. Being gay is not a mental illness. Some people like their own gender and that has nothing to do with mental illness.
Q: What can cause mental illness?
A: Mental illness can be caused by a surplus of things. Many times mental health illnesses are genetic. As stated above sometimes it can be after a traumatic event, a seasonal thing, or sometimes it has no real easy to visualize reason.
Q: How do I know if there is something wrong with my child?
A: There’s so many ways to tell if something is wrong but there’s a couple over arching ways to identify things. THESE ARE NOT WAYS TO DIAGNOSE YOUR TEEN! For example if your teen is especially moody or irritable, or if their sleep or eating is particularly obscure or if they’re having behavioral issues or isolating themselves. Or in some cases being violent, saying the hear or see things that aren’t there, or being hurtful to themselves. Essentially any of these things can advise conversations with a health professional that could possibly be tells of Mental health issues.
Q: If I have a mental illness, how do I prevent my child from getting it?
A: Sadly, many mental illnesses are hereditary and are commonly passed down within family. Mental illness is impossible to fully prevent in anyone, however there are small things that can help. The biggest things are consistent sleeping, eating, exercise, and making sure your child understands that talking about their feelings is fine.