Have you had a check-up at the doctor recently? What about the optometrist? Dentist?
How about a visit with a mental health professional?
If you aren’t, you may be among the one in five adults in the United States who experience mental illness each year. Only half of those individuals, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, receive treatment.
The range of mental illnesses includes depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and others.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this year NAMI is encouraging people to Take a Mental Health Moment and discuss or explore their mental health issues. Some of the common symptoms of mental illness for adults, according to NAMI are:
• Excessive worrying or fear
• Feeling excessively sad or low
• Confused thinking or problems concentrating and learning
• Extreme mood changes, including uncontrollable “highs” or feelings of euphoria
• Prolonged or strong feelings of irritability or anger
• Avoiding friends and social activities
• Difficulties understanding or relating to other people
• Changes in sleeping habits or feeling tired and low energy
• Changes in eating habits such as increased hunger or lack of appetite
• Changes in sex drive
• Difficulty perceiving reality (delusions or hallucinations, in which a person experiences and senses things that don’t exist in objective reality)
• Inability to perceive changes in one’s own feelings, behavior or personality (”lack of insight” or anosognosia)
• Overuse of substances like alcohol or drugs
• Multiple physical ailments without obvious causes (such as headaches, stomach aches, vague and ongoing “aches and pains”)
• Thinking about suicide
• Inability to carry out daily activities or handle daily problems and stress
• An intense fear of weight gain or concern with appearance
The average delay between onset of mental illness symptoms and treatment is 11 years, and 122 million people reside in mental health professional shortage areas.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis: Call, chat, or text 988 to speak with a trained crisis counselor 24 hours a day, seven days a week.