BY MARIA ALTAF
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Mental health as a state of wellbeing in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities and can cope with normal stresses of life, besides working productively and fruitfully.
The person should be able to make a contribution to his or her community.
Categorizing it on a large scale, it has almost around seven components and Independence and self-governing is one of the basic and integral parts.
One should be self-decisive and independent to work alone and not let others dictate her/him. Another most important point is self-actualization and maximizing one’s own potential.
Facing and accepting challenges, tolerating uncertainties of life helps him /her to grow as a person.
According to studies self-esteem is a key ingredient because it helps to build self-confidence, so there should be no compromise on this very point. Being competent and being able to deal with society and the people also is a salient feature.
Reality orientation sums up a very basic component of Mental health.
Many of us remain confused between psychosis and Neurosis.
Both of them are two different terms. Psychosis is a term where the person cannot deal with reality and lives in a world of fantasy.
Psychosis holds three major categories under it which involves Hallucination, delusion and Illusion.
While as in Neurosis, a person remains in touch with reality. Stress management is a principal unit of Mental health.
Using the support of family and friends is the best way to manage stress. Awareness about Mental health in this world has really become something very important that we all should know, because many of us suffer from different Mental conditions.
Because of misconceptions and stigma surrounding Mental health issues, people often suffer in silence, they are either not able to share or they don’t want to share.
Mental health awareness is an important Initiative to improve understanding of mental health and increase access to healthcare to those who need it.
We should normalize visiting a psychiatrist whenever we feel like going and share our conditions like we consult a doctor in case of other diseases such as hypertension, diabetes etc.
For such patients who suffer from any mental health condition, I personally believe that counselling is a must part of the treatment process.
Giving sympathetic ears to someone, trying to understand conditions and not being Insensitive to someone makes them more comfortable to share their feelings.
This can really be helpful for someone who is suffering.
It should also be noted that medicines taken for mental health conditions are known to have side effects and addiction and Dependence liability and should be taken on the prescription of a registered medical practitioner. We often laugh at someone’s mental condition, make fun of them, start addressing them with words such as Mad and stuff which discourage them more to share anything even to the right person.
So, concluding with this point, we should try to help people who suffer, try to ease their sufferings and don’t show a crass attitude to someone who is really battling.
Mental health is everything, take care of it.
(Maria Altaf is a MBBS student)
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.
