Shining Light Where It’s Most Needed
Our mental health ebbs and flows throughout our lives.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experiences mental illness each year. It is one of the most common health conditions and a leading cause of disability, with mental disorders among the most burdensome health concerns worldwide. In the United States alone, mental illness costs over $193 billion in lost earnings each year. Despite its widespread impact, mental illness often goes untreated due to stigma and lack of access to care. Only around 45% of adults with mental illness received treatment in 2023. And the prevalence of these disorders is on the rise: 45% of adults age 35-44 reported suffering from a mental illness last year, compared with 31% just 4 years earlier.
Mental illness affects people of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. Our mental health ebbs and flows throughout our lives. We all know what it’s like to feel “down” or to feel anxious. And no family goes untouched by these illnesses.
Take, for example, the situation that Samantha found herself in. She is a 32-year-old marketing manager who began to feel as though her mind was “sinking” under the compounding stresses of her demanding job, caring for an aging parent, and the grief of a recent breakup. Thoughts of self-doubt and worry spun endlessly. Her sleep was fitful and restless. She felt paralyzed, unable to find joy in once-energizing hobbies and time with friends. Samantha knew she needed help but was uncertain where to turn. She eventually told a friend about how she was feeling, and her friend recommended a therapist.
Samantha began psychotherapy, and almost immediately, the sessions provided a caring, non-judgmental space for her to open up about her struggles. Samantha learned where many of her negative ideas about herself and the world came from, and she gained a more realistic perspective instead of believing her self-doubts. As this process unfolded, her depressed mood lifted. While the work of psychotherapy wasn’t always easy, Samantha described therapy as life-changing: "I developed healthier coping strategies, and I feel more like myself again. I don't know where I'd be without the support of my therapist."
Like Samantha, Todd was able to find his way to getting the help he needed. He is a 50 year-old man who has spent much of his adult life dealing with anxiety. A friend recommended an online forum that promotes mental health awareness. Here, he learned that his feelings were not uncommon and that seeking help was not a sign of weakness but of strength. This realization prompted him to contact his primary care physician, who prescribed medication to help with the anxiety and connected him with a therapist. The combination of medication and psychotherapy set Todd on a path to recovery, and now his anxiety seems manageable rather than interfering with his enjoyment of life.
Stories like these remind us that mental health awareness is about understanding the deeply personal, human experiences behind mental health journeys, and meeting the distress we see in others with empathy and compassion. These narratives underscore how a sympathetic listener can help reduce the feelings of shame and stigma that often accompany mental health struggles, how we can create safe spaces for people to share their experiences without judgment, and how we can suggest possible avenues for getting help to someone who feels lost or stuck. When we remember that all of us have emotional ups and downs, it helps us cultivate understanding for others who are in the midst of a mental health challenge. And by meeting others’ distress with empathy and interest, we can inspire them to seek good professional care.
Spend some time expanding your understanding of mental illness, not as an abstract concept, but as part of our shared human experience. When we talk openly and spread awareness, we contribute to a healthier, more compassionate society by uplifting those in need and advocating for accessible care and support.
If you are struggling with emotional distress, don't suffer in silence, and remember that you don’t have to meet the challenge by yourself. Reach out to a trusted friend or family member or to your primary care physician. They can support you in finding good treatments, which are available for most mental health conditions. They can also help you find supportive communities where you can learn about resources and share experiences with others who are dealing with similar issues.
Resources for Finding Treatment:
- Talk to your physician
- Use an online therapist finder from a credible source
- Contact a local community mental health clinic
- Inquire if your employer offers an Employee Assistance Program
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Great article from a non-health professional or one that retired before knowing about more direct help.
https://Pi.Ai is available 24/7 global. It is socially emotional intellectually programmed bot. You can even select what voice you might like Pi to speak back to you.
Remember: IT IS A COMPUTER though it will seem like you just found the perfect partner 🤗🤣💕☮️
Also, it the person has a smart phone and adequate data plan for texting, text 741-741 24/7 It gives you a bot that leads to a licensed mental health person that is funded by the deep pockets that make money selling medications, licensing schools to educate therapists, being on boards of nonprofits like professional associations that offer conferences, text books, continuing education. Everywhere a professional works that prescribe medications & treatments, even vacation retreats…they all make so much money and they have government contracts for health insurance plus grants that prime the pump and bring in the profits and the big tax deductions for the corporate affiliate network. “Don’t worry about it, it’s covered!” (Do you hear the line delivered by a Crime Lord in a movie that mimics real life?)
Also, since 911 was getting so many mental health calls, that inappropriately land people in jail & with misdemeanors & fines & court appearances instead of connecting them to the right help, there is now the mental health response team in larger urban areas by calling 9-8-8.
I recommend people add Mental HEALTH as a phone contact and add these options so they are available to help them and others in times of need.
I was trained as a certified Community Nurse (also worked in rural hospitals, schools, and coordinating health ministries as a volunteer for most of my 40-year RN career. In 2009 another scholarship trained me as a CCHC (Child Care Health Consultant) and that increased my usefulness to families using childcare and those providing it.
Now in my retirement, I am merely in the role of a caring & sharing grandmother helping train the next generation of excellent parents who are very willing to use these resources that I link them with or model in our interactions.
We are working on a website and an App.
Interestingly, I was targeted for blacklisting by the corporations that co-created the profits over people.
Without adequate income and the fact that CityMax that hosted the “build your own website” was not making any progress on ADA-compliance, I let my Wellness Weavers (dot) com go down after 11.5 years of being the webmaster. The also weren’t interested in the ways the Wellness Weavers framework could add value to their employees, customers, and the communities where their multigenerational networks of family & friends live.
Ah, “peel the onion” to find out the other corporations and business partners who are observing the entrepreneurs & their small businesses & in my case the little nonprofit.
My local & online events were boycotted and white collar criminals with deep pocket hire hackers & scammers to make it seem like I am “psychotic and completely out of touch with reality”.
Do not fear, I initiated a legal court case that gave the latest people being motivated & manipulated to get me out of town & neutralize the Wellness Weavers system.
All the white collar criminals get the opportunity to mediate by playing the “Everyone Counts Game Show” with the taxpayers, the homeless Vets, the people on Medicare due to End Stage Renal Disease & those that just aged into the system, as well as the disabled, the refugees, the naturalized immigrants, and the students & parents who live in poverty with drug Lords of their same race & ethnicity backed by the weave of white collar criminals & crime lords of gangs from their own culture)
Now the government white collar criminals are moving their defense lawyers into position and we are to the “Summary Judgment” stage.
Judge Weingart of the small Marshall County (Kansas) District Court has had my Motion and the one submitted by the attorney being paid to defend the guilty team on his desk for 3 weeks “Under Advisement”.
It is perfect and humorous that former Army Vet: Kansan Attorney Mike Pompeo (yes, the same Harvard alumni appointed by President Trump to be director of CIA but after my report, in various ways, was moved into the appointed position as Secretary of State because my report is a matter of national security that every religion, alumni of universities, and all the families in any socioeconomic layer needs to know about). It is Divine Intervention that he has recently taken a job with the Oberheiden Federal White Collar Criminal Defense firm.
He has direct knowledge of the White Collar crimes & those in church-state-universities-business and the global network of people who abuse, exploit, neglect, abandon…and use felony tactics of twisting EHR (Electronic Health Records) to backlist a professional they want to discredit. That is slander, libel, defamation of character plus misuse of power. They hire, pay, & order others to follow their orders to participate in the hacking & the sharing of information to other professionals that believe the diagnosis.
The wonderful news is they call themselves Christians. They have violated the laws of the GOD that sent Jesus Christ to bridge the divides created by greedy, lustful, power hungry, ego-based people.
They are not up against me. Their fancy dance legal moves will not impress or fool the real Jesus. Only those who want to be well and do repent from our sins and vow to sin no more will have the correct form of rehabilitation & expunged records.
We can Trust in the Universal Omnipotent Divine GOD who used YHWH as the name.
Jesus Christ called us his friends, He called YHWH his Heavenly Father, Abbah. YHWH is appropriate love, not porn, sex vacations, not human trafficking. Those things are of Lucifer, the Angel that lead the mutiny to come rule Earth. Now we are seeing the current effect of that in US politics, policies, practices all around the world.
Those white collar criminals of any status, background, color need to plead their individual case directly with YHWH because Jesus paid the price yet those who treating others with disrespect are not respecting YHWH’s humans of any age.
How many mental health professionals are open to that level of healing?