Mental Health

Mental, neurological and behavioural disorders are common to all countries and cause immense suffering. People with these disorders are often subjected to social isolation, poor quality of life and increased mortality. These disorders are the cause of staggering economic and social costs.


Most of the people take our mental health for granted. We get on with our lives, eat and sleep, laugh and cry, work, talk to our friends, travel, shop and cook. But there may come a time, perhaps very briefly, when the ordinary patterns of living become oddly distorted. Perhaps we cannot sleep or we feel anxious, we may be afraid to go out, lose all feeling of hope and optimism or swing wildly from peaks of furious activity to periods of deep gloom.

It is very common for mental health to be disturbed now and again. Most people have experienced an occasional attack of the 'blues'. It is part of being human. Sometimes these attacks come in cycles, affected by menstruation, or by the seasons. You feel low for a while and then bounce back up again. If you learn to recognize the reason for gloom, you can usually learn to wait it out, then circumstances change and life seems to get better again.

Occasionally people get submerged, stuck inside misery. You need to ask for help to find a way out and back into the light again, but you may feel too low to make the first move, and sink into a cycle of feeling sad and uncared for. There may also be the fear of being considered weak, or perhaps of being labeled "mad". You may hope that by ignoring your pain it will magically go away by itself. Maybe it will, but you will almost always feel better for a little support. You may believe that you can pull yourself together, but the more you force the lid on your feelings, the more difficult it will become to deal with them and learn, first to accept them, and then to move on. 

For some people the distortion of everyday reality becomes frightening -- either to them or to the people they are with. They may see or hear things that others are not aware of; behave in ways that friends find disturbing; threaten, or actually attempt suicide. 

When reality has slipped too far away, others may need to intervene and help you find a route back, or a way of living that decreases the stress and pain. It is not uncommon to have a breakdown, but nor is it uncommon to recover completely. The sooner you find help, the faster the process of recovery will be, and you can learn to find ways of keeping yourself out of the abyss in the future.