Your Mental Health is a Spectrum

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope you’re all keeping well 🙂

Mental Health is a topic that has always fascinated me, the way that it means something different to each and every person, but still unties us all together, as we all have our own form of mental health & wellbeing. If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that our mental health works on a spectrum, which is exactly what we will be looking at in today’s blog!

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Before we get into what I mean by our mental health residing on a spectrum, I think there is one question that we need to talk about first, and that is – what is meant by the term ‘Mental Health’?

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Every single person in the world, in my opinion, has a unique mental health which is shaped by a variety of factors, including their past experiences, their current environment, their future ambitions, and much more. At its core, this is what makes life the intriguing mystery that it is, and something that I personally love learning more about. We all process and perceive the world around us differently.

Our mental health is in this state of ever-evolving development, we can picture it as being on an invisible spectrum – some days when we are feeling happy and contented, we fall on one side of the scale, and then on other days, when things may not exactly be going to plan and we may be feeling a tad bit overwhelmed, we may be at the other side of the spectrum.

As we continue to grow, learning more about ourselves, other people and the world around us as a result, our mental health grows in tandem. The way that we identify, approach and resolve problems now may be completely different to how we did it let’s say 5 or 10 years ago, highlighting the growth that we have had as both individuals and as a society.

If we take a look at the last couple of years for example, think of just how many things have changed. Whether it’s down to the Coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the current Cost of Living Crisis in the UK, something entirely different or a sum of all of those, life has not exactly been easy for any of us. We would have all identified, approached and tackled these events in our own way, depending on what else was going on in our lives at the time, the direct ways that these events would impact us and the implications that they would have on our futures.

Whether you have handled the last few years in your stride, or if you have really struggled, that is completely okay, there is no right or wrong response to this kind of thing, we all handle situations in our own way. What I would say though is that if you do feel like you are struggling or are overwhelmed, please do reach out for some support, help is always available if you need it, never forget that.

Always remember that we are all on our own journeys, our mental health is something that develops alongside us as people. It exists on this sliding spectrum which we are learning more and more about each day. Your mental health is what makes you the person that you are to this day – that’s something that you should be proud of, something that you should actively accept, embrace and appreciate as the magical entity that it is.

That’s all for today’s blog, what do you think? What does the term ‘Mental Health’ mean to you? What factors have influenced your mental health over the last couple of years? What kind of topics would you like to see me explore on the page going forward?

Be sure to let me know your thoughts and answers to the above questions, either in the comments below or through our Facebook page!

Thanks for reading & I hope you have a lovely day!