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Mental Health Blog
Interesting thoughts and write-ups on mental health by our guest writer. 

EC is a 30 years old man having suffered from anxiety and OCD for more than 15 years. He has been struggling to get better and has seen more than his fair share of ups and downs in life. Some said God broke the mould when He made him while some others said his psychiatrist thinks he can be cured. Currently he is opening up and promoting public awareness about psychology,  mental disorders and his hopes for a better life moving forwards.



Article # 3

Meet the Leppers: the social lives of people with mental disorders

By EC

When people talk about mental health and mental disorders when it goes wrong, they usually talk about the biological and psychological aspects of people?s lives with mental disorders. Comparatively less is talked about the social effects having a mental disorder can have on both the ailing people and other people around them. This is more often than not an overlooked part of life because it is not as intuitive or easily understandable as the chemical and psychological workings, everything that happens is confined within the human skull, which isn?t true for the sociological aspect, which involves not only other brains inside other skulls, but other live human beings and the entire environment which their senses can handle.

I am going to be honest: from the year I was officially diagnosed with OCD to today, I have had more bad social experiences than good ones that were influenced by my mental disorder. Other people around me were generally unkind about the influences my OCD had on me.

Having said all that, there is the figurative silver lining around the dark cloud. Among the people that me, you and everyone else engages in day to day life, some people would be kind with you and befriend you regardless of your mental disorder. Such people would do so despite you having your mental disorder or might even treat that not as your problem but as a part of who you are. People with mental disorders would have a much more difficult time socializing with other people or even to get out of their home for people with clinical depression but it?s certainly possible and there can be good results for the investment put in if you put your best foot forward.

To conclude this short essay, the social lives of people with mental disorders are much more difficult to talk about than the biological and psychological aspect. This is because it involves people interacting with the world and the people they engage with. People could expect to encounter more nasty experiences than nice ones in mainstream society. It?s with this background that having people who accept and befriend you all the more stand out and beautiful. People with mental disorders can have friendship and happiness with other people but only if they hold on to themselves and rehabilitate to become better versions of themselves.


 


Article # 2

A personal account about anxiety.

Among all the emotions that people feel in daily life, anxiety is one less commonly encountered in oneself than others. Anxiety is also less intuitive to understand, unlike more easily understandable feelings like happiness or sadness for example. There are ways to help most people understand and empathize with this emotion. This personal account is one such move.

Here is the dictionary definition of the word ?anxiety? as provided bywww.dictionary.com:

Anxiety

[ang-zahy-i-tee]

noun, plural anx?i?e?ties.

  1. distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune:

He felt anxiety about the possible loss of his job.

  1. earnest but tense desire; eagerness:

He had a keen anxiety to succeed in his work.

  1. Psychiatry . a state of apprehension and psychic tension occurring in some forms of mental disorder.

This is a description of anxiety in the American Psychiatric Association (APA) website:

Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress and can be beneficial in some situations. It can alert us to dangers and help us prepare and pay attention. Anxiety disorders differ from normal feelings of nervousness or anxiousness, and involve excessive fear or anxiety. Anxiety disorders are the most common of mental disorders and affect nearly 30 percent of adults at some point in their lives. . But anxiety disorders are treatable and a number of effective treatments are available. Treatment helps most people lead normal productive lives.

Anxiety refers to anticipation of a future concern and is more associated with muscle tension and avoidance behavior.

My personal description of anxiety is that out of the most commonly experienced emotions in the daily life of most people, anxiety feels like worry and that something is wrong. I developed a saying to describe my own experience: fire and barbed wire. When it is more intensely felt, it feels like barbed wire is wrapped around my whole brain, tightly constricting and cutting into my brain and burns like it?s set on fire. In an episode of panic attack that I used to regularly have, the anxiety felt can be so intense that I felt like I am about to faint but never quite actually fainting and everything is spinning around me in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions at once.



Article # 1

Living with a mental disorder. 

People usually said that their lives were difficult. If people were diagnosed with a mental disorder, then their lives would become significantly harder. I am diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD for short). 

A mental disorder can start developing in an individual at any point in his/ her life. I was officially diagnosed with OCD by a psychiatrist when I was 13 years old. Having said that, I am highly confident that I was already developing OCD before that point. I would say this because I could remember feeling a lot of anxiety and various symptoms. 

When a mental disorder starts developing in a person, generally all aspects of the person?s life would be affected, usually for worse. Every aspects of a person?s life would be affected without exception. Me, I remembered feeling a lot more feeling that I would later learn is anxiety. I also remembered doing a lot of strange behaviors that I can remember little of nowadays.

A facet of mental disorders that might be less talked about than the effect in the physical body of the sick is the social influence of the mental disorder. Having a mental disorder would greatly influence a person?s social life and his/ her ways of engaging with other people around him/ her. generally other people would react negatively to the effects. When I was 13 years old, I was in my first year of secondary education. Due to the effects of the OCD on myself and other people around me at that time, I was treated so badly by other people that I couldn?t study and quit school by the end of the year. 

Life with a mental disorder is difficult but doesn?t mean you can?t live your life. With proper healthcare using medication and therapy, you can have a happy and productive life the same as everyone else around you.