Wikipedia defines a Pandemic as, “an epidemic of infectious disease that has spread through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide.” The definition goes on to say that a stable disease is not considered a pandemic.
Is mental illness a disease? If yes, would it be considered a pandemic disease? Is mental illness stable? No, it is growing. Some health speakers are predicting that mental illness will rise from 1/5 to 5/5 and that it will rise worldwide!
This may be a crazy statement but what I am seeing is widespread DIAGNOSIS of mental illness that is making people believe that they are mentally ill and that there is nothing they can do about it. In some cases this diagnosis alone defeats the individual’s possibilities.
Okay, so let’s ask a few questions about rising mental illness.
- What if it is not mental illness rising but is actually our diagnosis of anything outside of a normal brain (which does not exist) that is rising?
- What if our expectations of what we deem to be success is way beyond what it needs to be and is dragging down our happiness?
- What if we are learning how to achieve but not how to sit in the moment and that is burning out the nations?
- What if we could instead optimize our mental health through prevention and learn how to move our mood and focus? What if this could turn the prediction around?
- What if we could change how stress damages us by learning first to react differently and secondly when the stress response is activate to learn to balance it with deep breathing?
- What if we learned that we are all okay as we are and that all of us need a little something sometimes – that we don’t have to “fit” but we do need to learn about our gifts and our bridges?
- What if we knew that it is our differences that help our species survive and that our differences may even be an intentional design?
- What if we began with our children – teaching acceptance and balance and breathing rather than teaching solely achievement?
- What if we began to see all the good that is being done in the world rather than share only the bad news with our family?
Can we reverse the trend of mental illness and convert it to greater mental health?
I believe we can.
Patricia Indigo Irwin
http://wwwpatriciaIndigoirwin.com or http://www.patriciairwin.me