On World Mental Health Day, we don’t need a diagnosis to want to feel better
It’s “World Mental Health Day” today. People are talking therefore about “mental health.” Consequently, parts of those discussions include mental illness. Depression. Anxiety. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Etcetera.
Some people are engaging in the discussions enthusiastically.
Others are feeling like they’ve been screened out: “Well, I don’t have ‘depression.’”
But what human can really, truly be screened out of a discussion about health?
I, myself, don’t think we need to be “diagnosed” with anything, or labeled in any way, in order to want to feel better.
I think we just need to want to feel better. Or to wonder if maybe we can indeed feel even better than we already do.
For me, when I began to heal myself, I never felt bad in any way.
I simply had tried some things and noticed that, after I was done, I felt better than prior to trying them.
And I liked how that felt. So I wanted more of it.
I think that “mental health” and health writ large is as simple as that: Trying something new, and continuing to do it if we like the experience.
There doesn’t need to be a label. There doesn’t need to be any reason other than, “Hey, I’d like to try this. It intrigues me.”
