Having a mental health issue can impact our Self Esteem as it can affect how we see ourselves, and how others see us too.
Reminder: Mental health issues are best handled with help from those who are experts in that field ( which I am not). However, let’s explore some of the ways that such issues affect Self Esteem, while keeping this understanding in mind.
Our Mental Health depends on how we express our life force, our impulses, to live, to express, to connect, to explore, and to evaluate. Mental Health issues are increasingly a part of our society. This is a sign that, despite all the advantages of these days, many people feel thwarted in expressing their life force. The mental health issues we face can vary from trying to handle a stressful situation at work, anxiety about money, worry about someone we care about, to dealing with a serious mental health condition.
Dealing with a mental health issue can impact our Self Esteem as it affects how we see ourselves and, if severe enough, it can affect how others see us too. Yet, mental health problems are so common nowadays that many are learning to take them in their stride and not feel stigmatised by having one. It is also possible that, especially in the longer term, facing a mental health issue might benefit our Self Esteem. Facing and resolving a long-standing issue can be challenging, but it can also free us up to live our lives more fully. Once we fix a mental health issue that was affecting our Self Esteem, our life could move forward to being better than it ever was.
Mental health issues can arise from an intense conflict between the way we present ourselves to others and how we truly feel.
One possible cause of Mental health issues is when we have an intense conflict between the way we present ourselves outwardly to others and how we truly feel. We might present ourselves as happy, but inwardly we feel lonely and depressed. We might come across as being kind or friendly, yet we are angry or raging inside. We might present ourselves as calm and optimistic, yet inwardly we are fearful and worried. To a certain extent, this is normal and natural, not to be like an open book, especially to strangers. Yet, if it goes on too long or takes things too far, our repressed feelings can erupt in inappropriate ways. We might take our anger out on an innocent person, or share our troubles with someone who is not able to cope with it, or who will gossip about us.
There are times and places where it is best not to express certain aspects of our inner life to others, but there are also times and places when it is best to do so. We may face challenges in doing so, especially if we are shy. Still, those very challenges will help us develop our character and become better and happier people as a result.
If you are not willing to change, how can you expect your life to change?
When we feel lonely, and if we examine the cause, we might find that we have a range of attitudes and behaviors that contribute to our feelings of loneliness (see the Handling Loneliness chapter). We may well discover that we are overly judgmental, cynical, suspicious, negative, and highly critical of others. If so, it is likely that these attitudes, and the behaviors that arise from them, are what keep us lonely, as they deter people from approaching us. To stop feeling lonely, we need to cultivate new attitudes and behaviors. We have to be willing to change. If we are not willing to change, how can we expect our lives to change?
We may not always be sure that our feelings are right, but we can always be sure that we have the right to our feelings. However, that does not mean we have the right to vent negative opinions we have of someone directly to them, or to others. That would likely damage our relationship with them and not help us feel good about ourselves in the long term. It’s better to vent strong negative feelings in a harmless way (such as writing them out as a letter and then discarding it, or speaking them out to a therapist or trusted friend) and then deal with the situation when we can do so calmly.
If we are the type of person who feels angry all the time, always raging about this or that, ironically, it can mean that there are ways we need to assert ourselves more. Anger may be a way of compensating for situations where we are holding back too much and building up resentment. There may be times when we are not speaking our truth to someone who needs to hear it. This is an opportunity to learn how to express ourselves about important matters diplomatically, minimizing the risk of causing offense. Feeling angry a lot of the time can also mean that we are not expressing our creativity in the way we want to. Holding ourselves back in such ways can cause frustration to build up, and our creativity can become misdirected.
We might assume that we have “anger issues”, when in fact there are underlying issues such as; being triggered by being blamed or shamed, feeling embarrassed because of feeling insecure and not wanting to show it, frustration at hopes and dreams which are not working out or being denied, our pride is being hurt because of someone not respecting us properly. There can also be a lot of sadness behind anger, but we might not be comfortable with acknowledging that sadness, even to ourselves, so it comes out as anger. Alternatively, if we feel worried, anxious, and fearful too often, it can help to deliberately cultivate qualities like boldness, courage, and confidence to counteract this tendency.
Our mental health is affected by a wide variety of internal and external factors, as well as how our brain is “wired”. Too much stress and too much busyness (unfortunately, all too common these days) can ultimately lead to mental health conditions, which can interfere with our capacity to lead life the way we would like. As touched on earlier, our levels of stress and anxiety can fluctuate widely in response to the news and current events, challenges in earning a living, challenges in our social and work relationships, and so on. These can all impact our behaviour and our mental health. This makes it very important for us to take responsibility for our well-being and to look for ways to care for ourselves, as well as for those around us – unless we are already doing too much of that.
Mental health issues can themselves be an additional source of stress and anxiety, especially if we are having mood episodes caused by the likes of Bipolar Disorder and feel guilty about our behaviour. This makes learning how to forgive very important, even if initially it is only as a way to forgive ourselves. Facing the question, “Do I have a mental health disorder?” can be a fearful, lonely, and unsettling experience. One of the many benefits of self-forgiveness is that it makes it easier to face potential causes of a “psychological disorder,” which may well have a physical cause, which is exacerbated by external stress. Mental disorders and various types of mental illness can have multiple causes, and this includes issues around brain development. For example, it has been shown that adolescents with bipolar disorder (one of the most common mental health issues) develop differently in the key areas of the brain that help regulate emotions.
In response to increasing mental health awareness, some of us are managing to reduce our stress levels by working from home more; others are finding working from home a source of stress due to social isolation or a noisy home environment. Yet, many people are waking up to the fact that much of the stress in our lives is unnecessary. We can take serious steps towards improving our quality of life by reorganizing our working lives in ways that reduce stress.
Much of our stress stems from the discrepancy between the persona, or mask, we must present to the world to fit in with modern society, and our internal self. Yet, aspects of our internal self may cause us serious challenges, and serious challenges to those around us, if we don’t yet have the skills to express them in mature ways. We might tend to bottle things up until they explode out of us, rather than finding a way to communicate in measured ways. We might be caught between an intense feeling of wanting something and an equally intense feeling that we don’t deserve it. We might be hiding sadness behind our anger, or hiding anger behind our sadness, because we don’t want our true feelings to be revealed.
One way to move forward is to consider which aspect of our nature we would like to cultivate and deliberately work on it. It may seem to us that there is no apparent connection between our mental health and an urge to take up activities such as hiking, gardening, painting, learning a musical instrument, or any other hobby, but this is increasingly being recognized as true. In fact, such things are crucial to our well-being. A minor “unimportant” hobby can be the very thing that keeps us happy and in balance.
The important thing is not to get overly ambitious about our hobbies and interests, or we might take the fun out of them by getting too serious. Some people can’t do anything without feeling that they are “the best” at it, so they get too serious about things that are supposed to be fun. This leads to them striving and stressing themselves about it. They become too competitive or ambitious, and their hobbies and leisure activities no longer bring them joy. This can happen with the most surprising things. I once realised that a meditation exercise I was doing, which was intended to help me relax, was stressing me as I was trying too hard to “do it right”.
This is not a big thing. Yet, it is a great thing, as a small thing can be a great thing.
Another key to mental health is to ensure that we connect with others in healthy ways. I often think of the saying, “If you want a friend, be a friend.” It reminds me to find ways to reach out to people and not get too caught up in myself. Sometimes, when we connect with someone, they might make it all about themselves, talking incessantly about their problems and showing little interest in us. These people are a good reminder: “Don’t be that person.” I don’t mind that type of behaviour up to a point. There are times when we need to vent to a friend about something. It’s fine to support a friend in doing the same, but not all the time. Actively taking an interest in other people and asking about their lives, perhaps offering help in small ways, may not seem like a big thing, but it is the essence of building friendship and being part of a community. Though this is not a big thing, it is a great thing, as a small thing can be a great thing. Small acts of kindness can ripple outwards and benefit many people.
Just as physical health depends on a healthy physical diet and regular physical exercise, our mental health depends on having a healthy mental diet and engaging in healthy mental exercise. Actively cultivating specific qualities, such as friendliness, cheerfulness, or optimism, represents a far healthier “psychological diet” than anger, resentment, and frustration, and is therefore more conducive to mental health and healthy Self Esteem. It is beneficial to give ourselves a healthy psychological diet by cultivating interests that help us focus on the good, the beautiful, and the true. This also allows us to replace our default responses – the very ones that trigger stress, anxiety, and conflict – with ones that are more conducive to greater equilibrium and possibly even contentment and peace of mind. It is often less effort to focus on cultivating something good and worthy than trying to suppress something not good and unworthy.
Try this:
If facing mental health issues, please seek help from a suitable professional. If this is not possible, here are some tips that might help with minor issues. These are simply ideas based on my personal experience and should not be considered recommendations; use them at your own risk.
1) Many people lack a feeling of connection because nobody or hardly anybody listens to them. Practice listening to others, as that will take you out of yourself and be a real help to people. (See the Active Listening chapter)
2) Volunteer for something and see if you can make happy connections with those around you.
3) Pick a quality that you would like to have more of in yourself (friendliness, cheerfulness, optimism, positivity, etc.) and cultivate that quality. How can you be more than that way? Write down any ideas that come to you and follow through if possible.