Stop Living in Misery and Just Do It – Get Help
We live in a strange day and age – a time when, in certain cases, talking about positivity and happiness can actually be a detriment to our wellbeing.
How is this possible, you ask? Optimism is good for mental health, isn’t it? Yes, it is – but only when it is rooted in truth. Unfortunately, it’s all too common nowadays for people to cover up serious mental health issues by opting only to speak about ‘positive’ and ‘happy’ topics.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s good to look on the bright side of things. However, the only way to be truly happy and live a complete life is to acknowledge all the aspects of yourself – even the damaged, hurt, insecure, stressed out, or anxious parts of you that don’t get enough love.
When Focusing On the Negative Can Be Good
We live in a world where there is a great deal of beauty and positivity. However, we also live in a world where the opposite is true. There are many negative forces in the world which bombard us on a regular basis, even if we’re lucky enough to live in the first world.
Many of us (in fact, almost all of us) are subjected to these forces from the time that we’re born. As children, we have no coping mechanisms for these issues, and as such we tend to internalize these situations as trauma. Many of us hold onto this trauma long into our adult lives.
It’s not just trauma that can cause problems, either. If someone is mistreating you but you choose to see their behavior in a positive light when it’s really affecting you negatively, chances are you’ll bottle up your true feelings. This can lead to stress, an eventual emotional explosion, and even physical health problems.
The sad reality is that pretty much everyone living in modern society has some sort of mental health issue. The problem may be mild, such as a subtle anxiety or unaddressed sadness. Many people, however, have much more serious problems that they refuse to acknowledge.
The lowdown here is that it’s dangerous to ignore your mental health problems, even if you’re painting them with an optimistic brush. The best thing for you to do is work through these issues by seeking professional help.
Seeking Help for Mental Health Problems
There are a number of ways that you can improve your mental health, but the most important and effective will probably be seeking therapy. Therapists are professionally trained to help people improve their mental health and their general wellbeing.
Here are a few things that a therapist can do for you:
- Provide you with coping mechanisms and tools to help you manage issues like stress, depression, and anxiety.
- Help you to develop a new perspective on life situations, encouraging open-mindedness and offering an opportunity to be genuinely optimistic without ignoring your mental health problems.
- Help you to improve relationships of all types: school, family, work, or personal.
- Help you learn more about yourself, your emotions, and the deeper parts of yourself that you might not have even been aware of.
As you can see, there is a lot you can learn from a therapist. Even if you don’t think that you have a serious mental health problem that could be diagnosed, there is still a great deal that a therapist could help you with.
Conclusion
In this day and age, many people are so focused on being blithely optimistic that they forget to acknowledge the fact that many of us have mental health issues that need to be addressed. It’s a good idea to seek the assistance of a mental health professional to help you overcome this issue. If you’re struggling with mental illness, you can search for professional help on directories like Psychologytoday.com, ADAA.org or E-counseling.com.