About Mental Emotional Health

Explore
mental and emotional health issues including mood disorders, depression,
anxiety and anger problems. We’ll also keep up with the latest scientific
research on developments related to mental health. Stress, physical illnesses
and pain can trigger negative feelings and despair but we’ll focus on how to
cope through those difficult times.
Eating disorders afflict millions of people in the United
States. Thousands of these individuals will die from them each year. It may
seem to be a funny obession when we hear kids talk about “losing ALL my weight”
or “eating like a bird”, etc. Like any other addiction, eating disorders
multiply like mushrooms in the secrecy of the dark. Those places can be in the
bathroom, in the bedroom, in the kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed,
etc.
Parents must be alert to the first warning signs of any
eating disorder. Here are the four eating disorders that we are going to be
discussing:
Anorexia,
Bulimia,
Binge Eating Disorder,
Compulsive Overeating.
I am not going to go into detail on any of these in this particular blog because there is far too much to discuss. This initial information is general in nature but vital for your bank of information.
You may be a parent who is seeing the signs of one of these
eating disorders in your daughter. Girls are more vulernable to the eating
disorders but an increasing amount of men are joining their ranks currently.
You may be a friend who knows someone at the office or just
on a friend basis who has one of these secret eating problems. There is a lot
of information to be had and dependent on how severe or how advanced the
disorder is, there is help. Sometimes with encouragement and information an
individual can turn his or her situation around. More times than not, however,
professional help is required. There are facilities where help is available and
these eating disorders can be reversed. Lives can be saved, but time’s
a-wasting so let’s talk.
Anorexia and Bulimia are classified as starvation eating
disorders. Binge Eating Disorder and Compulsive Overeating are referred to as
excessive eating disorders. Studies have shown that both groups of individuals
have an emotional link that is missing. It may be missing from childhood or
from the teen years. For girls, the most influential parent figure is a dad.
Many times there was an excessive amount of criticism and ridicule from a dad
that left a girl feeling unloved, not-good-enough, and dispondent.
Unfortunately, this lack of emotional acceptance followed this dear girl as she
slipped into further and further into eating disorders.
Attention Deficit Disorder
Attention Deficit Disorder is a misfiring of the executive
functions of the brain. These executive functions of the brain control
inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. These high-order, self-controlling
cognitive functions are a guide to an individual’s overall thoughts, emotions,
and actions.
Attention Deficit Disorder is sometimes referred to as
Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). AD/HD has been suspected as
a contributing factor when a child, teen or even an adult experiences problems
with learning, self-control and addictions, or independent
Functioning in social interaction environments.
The America’s Journal of Public Health”, shows that 17% of
white boys in one particular region were given medication for ADD while at
school. Different rates were 9% for African-American young men, 7% for white
young ladies, and 3% for African-American young ladies.
There are two major types of ADD. They are ADD with
hyperactivity and ADD without hyperactivity. ADD without hyperactivity must
meet six of the following:
Fails frequently to give close attention to details;Difficulty sustaining attention in tasks;
Appears not to listen;
Fails to follow instructions;
Fails to finish work;
Loses school assignments, books, tools, etc.;
Is easily distracted;
Forgets about daily activities, tasks to be accomplished.
ADD with Hyperactivity must meet six of the following
Fidgety in a squirmy sense;
Runs or climbs excessively;
“On the go” or acting as if “driven by a motor”;
Talks excessively and blurts out comments and challenges;
Difficulty waiting their turn;
Interrupts or intrudes on others.
There has been confusion and controversy from some mental
health professionals when an assumption is made that everyone diagnosed with
ADD has a mysterious, irreversible brain defect. The best ally that a parent
can have who is raising a child with AD/HD, is a mental health professional who
understands the specifics of this condition and gives hope in management of the
disorder.
ADD is not a singular “disease”, but rather a collection of
behaviors or “symptoms” caused by a wide range of problems which may have their
origin from a variety of places or because of a variety of social environment
nuances.
If you have a child who you believe has ADD or if you,
yourself have symptoms of ADD, avail yourself of information every time you
can. Search the internet, call a health care professonal and discuss your
concerns. Information is power. Power propels you to solutions.
Anti-Social Behavior
Anti-social behaviour is that lacking in judgement and
consideration for others, ranging from careless negligence to deliberately
damaging activity or vandalism. Anti-social behaviour has a great range of
severity. Depression can be so minor that it is hardly recognizable. Then
depression can be so severe that an individual is unable to function in any
degree in society, even to limiting them from holding down a job.
Anti-social behaviour or anti-social disorder is behaving in
a manner that violates the social or legal norms of society. This individual
does things that are hurtful to others and says things that are mean and
cutting. They actually may not have the ability to control their actions or
their words and if they do have the ability to control it, they do not
comprehend the reason to control it.
The manner in which they process reality and good and bad is
so far to the left of normal that bad may appear to be OK and good is maybe OK
also. Antisocial behaviour is based, many times, on a dysfunctionalist point of
view.
Antisocial behaviour can be explained as resulting from
reactions to frustration. These frustrations could be events and conditions of
work which can induce anger and frustration accompanied by antisocial acts such
as aggression, sabotage, theft and the withholding of output.
Antisocial behaviour can include arson, blackmail, bribery,
discrimination, espionage, extortion, fraud, interpersonal violence, kickbacks,
excessive lawsuits, lying, sabotage, sexual harassment, theft, violations of
confidentiality and whistle-blowing.
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is a manifestation of anxiety disorder that
causes the sufferer to experience high anxiety or panic attacks when attempting
to carry out normal tasks away from a person of safety or a place of safety.The
clinical meaning of agoraphobia is a dread of circumstances or spots "from
which departure may be troublesome or in which help may not be accessible in
the occasion"of a panic attack.
The beginnings of Agoraphobia may be after a panic attack in
an automobile on a crowded highway or in a department store 3 days before
Christmas. An individual can experience such a sudden panic attack with no
“apparent” rhyme or reason that they make a visit to the emergency room
believing they have had a heart attack.
The root cause of any number of mild or severe anxiety
disorders lies in the Amygdala. The Amygdala is a small organ in the
subconscious brain responsible for many emotional decisions icluding the
anxiety response. The Amygdala becomes "reset" when life conditions
cause it to discharge restless reactions over and again. Because of the
continual and repeated anxiety reponses, this small gland learns to become
inappropriately anxious.
Many have described Agoraphobia as the fear of open spaces.
This definition is incorrect. Agoraphobia is ANY anxiety reaction which results
from an individual’s geographic location when it is other than the safety of
home, or some other familiar place.
Avoidance of being away from that safe place may begin and
end with only one situation, or it might escalate until a person is completely
homebound. Even being homebound is not the answer because they also may have
extreme difficulty being alone. Then again, a few people with agoraphobia can
go into phobic circumstances as long as somebody is with them.
Levels of Mental Health
When I first started writing on this series, I was thinking
of mental health vs. mental sickness. To me, health is feeling good, strong,
and energetic. The other side to that is sickness. However, I’m finding out
that everything that has to do with health or sickness is referred to as
“health”. He has “bad health.” She has “good health.” It’s all referred to as
health. Also, those with mental sickness may think that they have good health
because they’ve never known anything else so it is normal to them.
Next on this blog, I’m going to take various mental
illnesses or mental conditions and explain them and maybe contrast them to good
mental health vs. poor mental health.
There are many conditions and levels of health and sickness.
I would think that everyone would like to feel strong and healthy rather than
sickly and weak. As you read about these conditions, and perhaps even have
experienced some of them, make a decision what level of health you want.
Mental and Emotional, What?
Health, Brother and Sister, it’s Health!!! I know that it
seems that there is more sickness that health today but I want to show you that
there is a way to have mental and emotional health. So in order to understand
what mental and emotional health is, I believe we need to look at some mental
and emotional disorders.
So since I believe that we need to look at these disorders,
I did a google search and found a website with 46 Emotional and Mental
Disorders. WOW!! sounds like we are going to be together for quite awhile if
we’re going to discuss all those. I am going to list a few of these below and
if I do not discuss one of the disorders that you are interested in, you can
send me a comment asking to discuss it.
Agoraphobia
Antisocial Behavior
Attention Deficit Disorder
Explosive Behavior
Grief and Loss
Sleepwalking
Obsession and Compulsion
Panic Attacks
Paranoia
These are going to be some of the disorders that we are
going to discuss. Let’s look a bit more at health. People, children, teen, and
adults, with good stable emotional health are in control of their thoughts,
feelings and behaviors. included in this behavior is an individual feeling good
about themselves and having good relationships with peers, with co-workers and
people who have even hurt them. They manage problems by keeping them in
perspective.
A little side bar — people with emotional health do have
emotional problems or illness at times. However, emotionally health people keep
their focus on coming out the other side.
Don’t Be So Emotional!
I bet you’re smiling now, right? I’m sure you heard this
from a co-worker, your husband, your boyfriend or whoever else is close to you.
For some reason people think that we are to be stoical and a little bit happy
or a little bit sad or a little bit anger.
Guess what? I’m giving you a lightbulb moment — “GET
EMOTIONAL!” If someone hurt you or you were disappointed, cry, cry hard. You
will feel so much better afterwards. Cry is a passage to emotional health.
Who has hurt you in the past? Have you ever cried about it?
I hope so because healing has taken place. Today, are you sad? Did someone
offend you? Did your sister or brother wrongly accuse and thus reject you? If
you covered it up and said, “Oh, it’s ok, I’ll just forget it,” then your
emotions are bruised and not as healthy as they could be.
“Be emotional!” This goes for men and women alike and I can
just see you men out there say, “No way, I’m the man. I wouldn’t cry for
anything or get emotional. That’s the very thing I tell my wife not to do.”
Well, maybe she’s been right all along.
So what is emotional health? “…the ability to express all
emotions appropriately.” If we break the word down, it is “e-motion”, implies
motion or change. Emotional health is not simply the lack of emotional
dysregulation or psychiatric disorders. Emotional health is not just the
absence of negative emotions.
We are dialoging about mental and emotional health here but
health is a compartmental issue. "Ideal wellbeing is characterized as a
parity of physical, enthusiastic, social, otherworldly, and scholarly
wellbeing." All of these aspects have a bearing on the whole man or the
whole woman.
Be emotional!
Why Define Mental Health?
Good health is relative. So can mental health be relative.It
is comparative with what you have encountered in your life.
You may believe that you are solid since you feel great as
you've each felt.
Much the same as you believed that trees were a glob of
green before you got glasses.
What a stun when you previously put on glasses and saw
singular leaves.
I’m not suggesting that you are mentally sick….not at all.
However, if there is something better, don’t you want to experience it? I,
personnally want to be as healthy as possible, physically and mentally. With
that said, let’s define mental health then you will know what it is NOT, as
well as what it is.
The definition of Princeton University for “mental health”
is “the psychological state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory
level of emotional and behavioral adjustment.” The Connecticut Department of
Public Health says that mental health is “the capacity of an individual to form
harmonious relations with his or her social and physical environment, and to
achieve a balanced satisfaction of his or her own drives.”
Mental prosperity is what individuals resemble at
themselves, their lives, and the others in their lives; survey their challenges
and issues; and examine choices.This includes handling stress, relating to
other people, and making decisions.” This is how Dorene Philpot, Attorney at
Law, defines mental health. Wikipedia says, “Mental health, mental hygiene and
mental wellness are all terms used to describe the absence of mental illness.
By this definition, mental status has two prospects: either wellbeing or
sickness."
Wow, that’s black and white enough! Are you beginning to
doubt the extent of your mental health? Well, everyone has the right to be
living in a state of exuberant health. If your mental health state is not the
best, smile, because it can be the best.
What Is “Mental”?
Has anyone said to you recent, “Are you mental, or what?”
They were probably referring to some of your crazy behavior. I looked up a
definition of “mental” and it was not defined alone. Either it is mental health
or mental disorder, mental math or mental impairment, mental illness or mental
health professionals…yes, they’ve got a doctor for the “mental” situation.
However, mental refers to an individual’s cognitive and
emotional capabilities. Now isn’t that funny! I thought that I was going to be
writing about 2 different things “Mental Health” and “Emotional Health” It
looks like they are tied very closely together. So is “mental” your mind or
your brain or is it more of a certain state of being?
Well, we will be having a dialog on all the ins and outs of
the topic of Mental and Emotional Health and the illnesses connected with these
two concepts. We’re not just talking about “being mental” or “being
non-mental.” We’re talking about Mental Health or Mental Sickness.
Then
there is “Emotional Health”. There again, “emotional” is NOT defined.
Emotional health, illness, intelligence, etc. is defined. Emotions are
feelings. They may be happy feelings or sad feelings, peace feelings or
feelings of fear. All are emotions and all are OK. Sometimes we need to feel
the emotion of anger. Tomorrow we may need to feel the emotion of joy. We need
all the emotions to be whole healthy people.
Mental health problems can be the outcome of many different
kinds of experiences such as chronic illness and experiences that undermine an
individual’s self confidence. So, now that we have this “baby on the road”,
let’s start talking.
All statements made on this website are for informational and educational purposes only. We believe all statements are factual. However, they are the individual experiences of each author(s) and are not warranted. All sources are referenced when possible. This information is not intended to treat or diagnose any disease or illness – It is simply mothers sharing what treatments worked or didn’t work to help their child’s autism. We believe all children with autism are unique individuals and should be treated as such. Therefore, no two children will respond to the same treatments the same way. All health concerns including, but not limited to, starting or stopping any medication or supplementation should be addressed with a doctor or other appropriate health professional.
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