Mental Health vs. Mental Illness

Pride: It is good to be proud of our accomplishments but at the same time it is not good to be so proud of them that we forget from whence they came. To get so entangled in our own small rewards, inventions, abilities and forget the purpose of our work and begin to believe we did without the help of others and our creator is the beginning of sin. It leads into more of the same and taints our minds into believing we are more capable than we are.

Envy: A healthy mind is not envious. To be glad for others and to appreciate their good fortunes and their well being is healthy; to be envious to the point that we neglect our own work and begin copying or mimicking theirs, is not.

Gluttony: Eating for the sake of eating and not for the nourishment our bodies need is not healthy. The press is full of reports of how not to do this, but few ever mention the nasty word gluttony. They don't do it because they know that some people's bodies cannot process the food and although overweight, they don't want to be callous and uncouth. That's healthy. Working toward better nutrition for everyone is healthy. Living to eat and not simply eating to live, is unhealthy.

Lust: Lust is not love. It is using another person for personal pleasure and that is not healthy. To love others as God loves us is healthy. Lust causes unwanted pregnancies and the killing of unwanted babies. How can that be healthy? That is murder, and the whole affair is not pure and it is not simple.

Anger: Anger can get all of us into trouble and no one in fits of rage can be considered to be mentally healthy. Yet to not get angry at wrong doing and is also unhealthy. There must be less stressful ways of dealing with such intense emotions. People do things when angry, and when mentally not healthy that they would not do when clear headed.

Greed: is another unhealthy mind condition that cannot get enough. They never seem to know when to stop and stop using the fruits of their labor as they were intended to be used by healthy minds.

Sloth: Laziness I suppose is what the amounts to. Nothing much is heard of this word anymore but the word reminds us those slow moving seemingly uncaring creatures. Sluggishness is certainly not healthy, whatever else it is. And who among us has not been lazy at times. We even admit to being somewhat lazy when asked why we did not do such and such, but how many of us will ever admit to sloth?

To answer the question what has sin to do with mental health, I reiterate it has everything to do with it, but probably not in the way sin is viewed by most people. The above characteristics are sinful and aren't we all sinning? And it is this very sin that keeps us from growing mentally healthier and healthier by making every effort to keep to our path and to do the work on earth we were meant to do.

As long as we keep our eyes and ears closed to the truth of our own sin and we use every bit of our energy to hide the fact of our wrong doing, how can we ever hope to be cured of our mental and physical illness? Therefore I accuse everyone, myself included, of being mentally ill at times. Some more than others, of course, no one is mentally healthy to the point they can gloat or brag about it.

The point of the above discussion is to show that no matter how much one denies it, mental illness is prevalent in the world today, and no one is spared.
Before anything can be done about it, each individual -- if they are capable of this much truthfulness within themselves -- must admit to their own signs. To whom do they admit this too? To their God, of course.

Mental Health statistics aren't always true

Ever notice that one once something gets started, duplicates of it are often picked up elsewhere? This is especially true where health care is concerned. Health care reform, while surely needing to be, and most certainly not an ideal model, but something needed to be done, and something was done, and there's no argument there, but the overboard of criticism and is a good illustration of what I am trying to say. And that is, the mindless jumping on bandwagons before examining all the reasons behind the actions being taken.

Specifically regarding mental health, and what prompted this bit of venting, is the easy way assumptions are made. Recently: Bipolar is more prevalent in the U,S. than in any other country, blah, blah, blah. Well of course, it is probably due to the fact that better diagnosing is being done, this country is more populated than many others, and even in comparison with other countries with more people, that statistic means only one thing, this country cares more about its people than its headlines.

Any way, whether statistics are right or wrong, what does it matter who has the most of what, obesity, mental illness, heart disease, and so on, it's what's being done about it that matters. This is the age when it is not fashionable to hide things. Get it out and look at it and see what can be done about it.

The above sounds as if anger prompted this blog and that is not so. I've been pondering this all week since the last blog, and amidst my prayers for the living and dead souls in Japan, I have tried to think about what should be written here. Believe it or not, thought goes into priorities here and when I blunder, sound foolish, show my ignorance, I fully take responsibility for that too.

The idea that I have about mental illness, after living with it for seventy eight years, trying to hide it at times, denying it at others, studying about it, and finally getting enough courage to talk about and share what I've learned, the truth is, I believe, something most aren't willing to face: That everyone has times when they are not mentally healthy, but when they have more mental healthy time than mentally ill time, they can be said to be more mentally healthy than mentally ill.

When are so called normal people mentally ill? When they blame others for what clearly is their own fault, when they can't distinguish lies from truth, when they are greedy and when they hoard things they cannot use, and on, and on, and on. In fact this is a sick society we are living in. That's nothing new, otherwise would the biggest industry be in health care? One thing for sure,You really cannot separate the mind form the body or the body from the mind. Or from the soul, for that matter.

Until next time, let's look behind the headlines and see what is not said. And in the meantime I intend to do a little homework and see exactly how mental health deals with the the seven deadly sins. Remember, until that first sin was committed, the body and the mind was perfect, and no one was ill!

PS:
True to form I try to find some remnant of my past art work or scribblings to post here, and I ran across this image. It was done in the early 1990s, when I bought my first computer. I was delighted that with my old matrix printer I could print out my poems in various shapes. Words and people are my passion and they take precedence over poems, paints, and whatever. If the finished product is not perfect, at least the intent was.

Mental health as a state goal

Mental Health of course is a national, as well as an international goal, but at its best it begins as a personal choice by the lone individual making up the family, the community, the city, the district, the county, and finally the state, and the country. Or, by those responsible for those who are mentally incapacitated and who aren't to make their own decisions.

What this is leading to, is state care of the mentally ill, with help and direction, of course, from national sources. In other words, states often have peculiar circumstances that make their problems slightly different from problems in other states. They must have the choice of managing health care since they better understood what is needed most.

In particular, and for this topic, I am using the state of West Virginia as an example. Certainly they won't mind being made a scape goat once more for problems they didn't create. But they have, like all other states, plenty mental health problems on their books. Why them and why bring it up on this particular day?

This is the March 9, Ash Wednesday, the first day of the 2011 Lenten season. It is the forty days before Easter when traditionally the Christian religion, and more specifically, the Catholic Church, decides to live a more austere life as preparation for a cleaner slate come Easter Sunday, where once again they hope to live a better life.

Of course, much of this is ritualistic, but no matter, it is far better than skipping over the event as if it never happened. Where does mental health and West Virginia come into the picture? Well it happened like this: I received in the mail, as part of The Spirit, the West Virginia Catholic newspaper, a special insert "Hearts Made Whole, written by the Most Reverend Michael J. Bransfield, the Bishop of Wheeling- Charleston Diocese in West Virgina.

This was written by him to tackle the problem of drug abuse. He notes that in his travels across our state, he has been aware of the overuse of drugs. And in this way, he is trying to do his share of alleviating the problem by making known how serious a problem it really is.

"Bishop Bransfield to Release Pastoral Letter on Behavioral Health:
By Colleen Rowan: WHEELING—In his third pastoral letter, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield calls for an improved response to and care for those suffering from chemical dependency and mental illness in West Virginia.

Bishop Bransfield will promulgate the letter, entitled “Hearts Made Whole: A Pastoral Response to Behavioral Health in West Virginia,” on the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, Feb. 11, which is also World Day of Prayer for the Sick.