I’ve heard stories many times of people who have had nervous breakdowns, received the news of a serious diagnosis or, worse, decided that life is no longer for them.
For many people, it’s hard to talk openly about mental health issues, difficulty coping with challenges, excruciating loneliness, fears, and plans to leave life.
This difficulty to talk openly manifests itself for most people in both private and organisational contexts. The label that a person gets if they talk openly about such issues can stick with them forever. Moreover, most will avoid it for a while.
The World Health Organisation estimates that mental health problems will affect one in four people, at some point in their lives, and these range from anxiety to depression, drug and alcohol abuse, or suicide. The highest percentage of cases is in the United States. But we have to bear in mind that most other countries in the world do not have a culture of openness about discussing these problems, preferring to sweep them under the carpet.
Here are some indications that something is wrong with someone:
Frequent mood swings
Substance abuse
Absenteeism
Non-involvement
Difficulty understanding
Withdrawal, avoidance of others
Decreased motivation
Decreased quality of work
Continuous fatigue that does not go away after a few days off
Lack of enjoyment of any activity
People often see such changes around them but choose to behave like ostriches: stick their heads in the sand, pretend they don’t exist. They glance out of the corner of their eye, then shift their gaze, their thought, like when you open a door a little, sneak a peek, then quickly close it and pretend you didn’t see, didn’t hear, didn’t happen.
Maybe they don’t know what to do, what to say, how to help. Maybe they just don’t care, though I’d like to think they don’t. Or maybe they’re protecting themselves, maybe they’d find it hard to act, to cope. Maybe the idea of someone’s pain makes people uncomfortable. They want to see them happy, positive, enthusiastic, and when they don’t feel the positive energy, they tend to pull away.
Just when we don’t feel the other person’s enthusiasm, it’s good to be closer to them. Then it is in that liminal state beyond which there can be an unrelenting abyss. When we care, when we are attentive, empathetic, when we allow ourselves to care about others as well as ourselves, then perhaps we have a chance to be more human.