Mental Health

Today my group had a mental health workshop! I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect, but by the end of it, I was glad to share this experience with my group. When we first came in we learnt the difference between mental health and mental illness, often times people confuse both terms. However, mental health is your emotional and psychological well being as an individual. Meanwhile, mental illness refers to changes in thinking, emotion, or behavior. After that, we learnt about how mental health is seen throughout India. It was surprising to learn that India doesn’t like to talk about ‘mental’ health because it has the word ‘mental’ in it. Mental, to them means crazy or mad and nobody in India wants to be labeled that so they rather pretend mental health is not real.

Some activities we had to do was act out a story regarding a schizophrenic person in India. The actors were: Gabe, Ashley, David, Nailah, and me. The rest of the group was supposed to identify key symptoms of schizophrenia in the patient. This was a great activity because the acting was PHENOMENAL. Gabe truly deserves an award, as well as the rest of the cast. Then, my group formed a safe circle were we were all able to share a personal story with each other. At first, I was hesitant to disclose personal information because I don’t like feeling vulnerable, but I felt really safe and comfortable with my group. Hearing everyone’s story really opened my eyes and allowed me to see everyone in a new light. We all had/have our own struggles and the fact that everyone was willing to open up made us become much closer. So, I’m thankful for this session because it allowed me to vent and let go of heavy baggage I was carrying.

Finally, at the end we were all giving a rock and had to write positive messages for someone to read. I enjoyed doing this because I like to make someone’s day brighter. Today was such an emotionally daring day that spending some time writing and thinking positive thoughts really helped me feel better.