May is Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental health shouldn’t just be something we worry about when we focus on when we notice something out of the ordinary. Like any part of our health, we should focus on prevention. Self care is underrated and often neglected in our reactive society. I’m committed to bringing awareness to help you begin to heal and stay on the road to happiness and contentment. If we wait, we exacerbate the problem and are only reacting to a sometimes preventable situation.
- Check out the following statistics.
- According to the National Institute for Mental Health:
- 46.6 million people in the US reported some varying degree of mental illness in 2017.
- An estimated 31.1% of U.S. adults experience any anxiety disorder at some time in their lives.
- An estimated 2.8% of U.S. adults had bipolar disorder in the past year.
- Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death overall in the United States, claiming the lives of over 47,000 people. (1)
- Also… 25 million US adults take an antidepressant
- According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 19.7 million American adults (aged 12 and older) battled a substance use disorder in 2017.
- Almost 74% of adults suffering from a substance use disorder in 2017 struggled with an alcohol use disorder.
- About 38% of adults in 2017 battled an illicit drug use disorder. (2)
I think it's safe to say that what we're doing as a society clearly isn't working. It's time to rethink what we think we know about mental health and life in general.
- Let's normalize talking about our mental health.
- Let's normalize pro-actively taking care of ourselves, and each other.
Together, we can radically change how mental health is not only viewed, but managed in this country.
Check out my resources below.
Bradley