Tired of Mental Health “Excuses”?

Of late, I have started seeing a pattern around the responses people have to mental health issues.

The first time someone talks about their mental health issue(s), people are incredibly supportive. They are like “Incredibly brave of you to share this”, “Please reach out if you need anything”, “How can I help you?”, “Sure, take your time!”

But this support and solidarity doesn’t last long.

Once the novelty wears off, the support ends too.

By the time the mental health reason comes up the third or fourth time, people start getting tired of it, it will start getting framed as an “excuse”, and the person with the issue will start getting considered as crazy, lazy, unreliable, unproductive, etc.

Impatience with mental health

I think, maybe, people think of mental health issues like they think of cough or fever. They think that someone will have an issue for 3-4 days, and then they’ll not have it anymore.

That they ought to come out of it in a few days.

But mental health is complicated. It tends to be chronic. It tends to linger.

Sometimes people can present themselves in ways that make it appear like everything is fine.

And this creates even more impatience in others.

It is often forgotten that someone’s mental health issues can continue regardless of how they present, and how many times it has come up to the surface in the past.

One wouldn’t think of more visible disabilities like this

If I didn’t have my left thumb, you wouldn’t expect me to have grown a thumb the next time you see me.

If I am blind, you would not be surprised when the accommodations I need are recurring every time we meet.

You wouldn’t call it an excuse if I say no to an event because of a locomotor disability.

You would understand if I frequently have to reschedule, postpone, or cancel.

Depression, etc

Depression is probably the most common among the issues that gets this treatment (pun unintended). Someone says they’re feeling low and can’t follow-up on something and you go “again?!”

All chronic mental health issues would have to be in the list: anxiety, ADHD, autism, OCDs, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, PTSD, schizophrenia, psychosis, etc.

Even things that probably don’t get attention:

• Jealousy
• Low self-esteem
• Loneliness
• Grief
• Insecurity
• …

Don’t act like it is fixed

You can give a pep talk. You can give validation. You can be supportive. You can ask people to take a break. You can give them a vacation. You can connect them to a therapist. You can help them start a new exercise regimen and start cooking differently. There are so many things you might do or they might do themselves.

But sometimes these things don’t get “fixed”.

They will come back in different ways. Or in the same ways.

The expectation that it’s a one time thing has to go.

If you want to be truly supportive, you will have to be supportive more than once.