Mental Illness: Are 3 Days Enough?

It is hard to believe that in 2018 there is still a negative stigma attached to mental illness. I mean nobody wants to be depressed any more than they want diabetes or cancer. Yet, trying to receive decent care for such diseases as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar is difficult and complicated.

Having recently gone through treatment for depression and anxiety I was dumbfounded to discover that my health

insurance only approved 3 days for me to get well! Are 3 days long enough to receive proper treatment? Hell no. After 3 days you are barely becoming coherent to the fact that you are in a treatment facility for depression and wondering how the hell you got to this place in your life.

It’s no wonder that celebrities like Mariah Carey have kept this so-called evil demon a secret. It is not only embarrassing but people judge you like you’re a serial killer. On the contrary, we are people just like you; doctors, lawyers, actors, teachers trying to make sense of this thing called life. No we didn’t ask for this so why then are we so mocked and ridiculed?

Perhaps it’s because there is a lack of understanding of what mental illness really means. We are all different races, ethnicities, cultures, and bodies, and so too are our brains. It is the changes in our brain, usually around puberty time that can cause a mental illness.

The human brain is a flexible organ that changes in response to experimental learning, known by scientists as ‘neuroplasticity’ (Leung et al., 2013). This is done by training the brain to fuel active changes in brain regions that are needed to make that trained behavior (Draganski & May, 2008). Likewise, the experiences we have in our life affects our brains as well. What this means in simpler terms is that your brain, specifically your amygdala, (uh-mig'-duh-la) responds to the experiences you are having all the time. If you are having loving and happy thoughts, your amygdala responds to these feelings. Likewise, if you are experiencing fearful or angry thoughts your amygdala also gets sparked by those feelings as well.

Sometimes, when we experience too many traumatic events in our lives our amygdala gets triggered over and over again

to the point where we fight, flight, or freeze. For many, women in particular, we fight the feelings by drinking and getting abusive because the pain we feel is so great. We can use flight methods by running away from our problems and going into a deep depression never wanting to leave the safety of our beds. Or we can freeze our feelings by using other coping mechanisms like binging and purging, self-harm, or drug use.

What we need instead are better coping mechanisms that can be found in Mindfulness Education (ME) techniques. However, the trick to these strategies is that they must be practiced over and over. Certainly 3 days of psychological effort is not going to work! Just like other illnesses such as chronic back pain, there is no quick fix. You must eat healthy, exercise, and sometimes take the proper medicine. When you combine ME with a healthier lifestyle and practice ME skills consistently, you can begin to move from pain to prosperity living.

For more information on Mindfulness Education go to www.BreakingFreeofBullying.com

Dr. Bria Bliss is author and co-founder of Breaking Free of Bullying. The same ME strategies that are used in her book can be helpful for combating mental illness as well.