World Mental Health Day 2016: Psychological and mental health first aid for all

Source: https://www.askideas.com/40-world-mental-health-day-2016-wish-pictures-and-photos/

We all know that it was World Mental Health Day 2016 last week. 1 in 4 adults experience mental health difficulties once. But many of them will receive little or no help when they are in an emergency. This is the reason that contributes to the theme for this year is ‘Dignity in mental health – psychological and mental health first aid for all’. It provided a great opportunity for us to focus on continuing to help the people with mental ill health and their families to get the right help in crisis. The aim of World Mental Health Day is to promote social wellbeing to the world and encourage people to maximise their health potential in order to enhance the coping capacity of the global communities and increase mental health recovery.

Indeed, the psychological first aid can be a long-term effort to ensure that anyone in severe distress due to a crisis is able to receive basic support and that those who need more than psychological first aid will receive additional advanced support from health, mental health and social services.

Although World Mental Health Day is over, October 2016’s Mental Heath Month is still ongoing in the NSW area that has organised various events to help promoting World Mental Health Day to raise awareness and understanding of mental health issues. The events like Mental Health- Art Works! Exhibition, Wellbeing Street Stall, Modo Yoga Supports Mental Health Month, Yaarning About The Good and Random Acts of Kindness are very are great and exciting in bringing great awareness and educating the people with the importance of what are the mental illnesses and how we can get through it.

They aim on getting people to:

• Learn how to provide basic psychological and mental health first aid in order to provide support to distressed individuals

• Address the stigma associated with mental ill-health so that dignity is promoted and respected• Empower people to take action to promote mental health
• Spread understanding of the equal importance of mental and physical health and their integration in care and treatment
• Work with individuals and organisations to develop best practice in psychological and mental health first aid
• Provide culturally sensitive learning materials to enhance the skills in managing psychological and mental health first aid

What we can do?

45% of all Australians will experience some form of mental illness during their lifetime and those that don’t will most likely know someone that does. But there is still a lot of stigma and confusion around the topic and that is where learning and growing comes in.

We can learn more about mental health and use that knowledge to grow personally and take control of our mental wellbeing. It is important to make sure that we know what mental illness looks like and what can be done to treat it, even if it is not an problem for us right now. We can encourage our friends and families to learn new and exciting things, as the very act of learning can have many positive outcomes on our mental health and wellbeing.

During this month, our communities around NSW are holding events that focus on this theme and we encourage everyone to find out what is happening around them and to get involved.

What Is It Really Like Living With Body Dysmorphic Disorder?

Many people have never heard of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) and most psychologists had never heard of it until the 1900s. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist and it was first recorded in 1891. People with BDD spend every day to believe they look and appear more distorted than they really do. When the anxiety of their appearance builds, it becomes a devastating panic. In some extreme case, they may physically hurt their bodies to improve the flaws they believe have. This disorder can destroy live that like any other mental disorder. Therefore, it is critical for the public to be completely aware of the facts surrounding BDD.

I believe we should take an important step toward understanding more about what the people with BDD see and feel when they look at their own appearance or reflections.

Lauren Keith who is 26 and suffers from BDD that causes her having a highly distorted view of how she looks at herself. For her, a horrifying notion is a daily reality. It is like there is a voice in her mind repeatedly telling her that she is ugly and worthless. Whenever she is looking into the mirror, she sees a monster looking back at her and the image is so horrible that makes her physically sick. This damaging mental illness has immersed in her life for more than a decade. She even tried to research surgery to ‘improve’ herself. BDD had caused her to have depression and a high anxiety that led her to escape from society. She has battled BDD for years and she was diagnosed with BDD when she was 15. She began to obsessively fixate over what she saw as major flaws on her body and face to the extent that the way she led her life was severely damaged. Most of the BDD patients focus on fixating about certain features but for her, it was everything about her appearance. She believed she was ugly and had a sense of shame around on her shoulders like a despicable secret. Hopeless was what she always thought of that she had nothing to offer the world and redeem features to defeat her physical flaws.

Make-up was her protective barrier that could convince herself that she could look normal like everyone else. She revealed that she never wanted to take off her make-up. She stopped to go swimming and ensured that she never wore anything could show her body shape. One time, she even wore a winter coat in Spain on a family vacation. Things got worse when she had her public exam. She hid completely away from social events. She stopped to stay around friend’s houses as she was afraid people would ask why she had make-up on before bed. It had really made her mum very sad. But her mum always put on a brave face for her and supported her as best she could, including giving her heart and ears to listen and feel her daughter.

Lauren’s condition started to improve when she began her part-time job in a shop and started to make some new friends that forced her to be sociable and smiley. It made her behave to be like a ‘normal’ teenager to have fun and meet people. She is now managed to devil voice telling her that she is ugly with a support of a child counselor. She is acknowledged to listen for a short and do her own things. She is now an advocate for being open about the mental health issues and self-esteem issues and taking a wholesome approach to her wellbeing. It is important for people to be more aware of how others are feeling and work on being supportive and compassionate.

Lauren’s journey has allowed her to see beauty is just a little thing that life made up of. What is really important? Our inner quality!!! I am sure it is a hard time for people with BDD to get through. Telling people about BDD’s real life stories and experiences like Lauren’s can help others to get through and deal with this problem. She acknowledges us to not just concern so much about our face and appearance but to see all the wonderful thing that we have done and become. Healthy eating, filling time with people that we love and challenging ourselves at work and believing how we can be more selfless and mindful are the things that people can do to make progress over the years with BDD.

BDD: Does media play an important role?

The rise of social media has changed our culture into one of over-sharing. As we spend more and more time online, it is essential for us to look at how it may affect our mental health. By reading Facebook posts, tweets and Instagram images, we always look at a piece of someone’s edited life. We often find ourselves judging and comparing our own lives with these photos and updates. The comparisons we make to the reality are unrealistic and unfair as those images may be edited by lots of filters and being photoshopped. They are just a filtered perspective of someone’s life. It could cause us feeling inferior and lead to developing low self-esteem.

Low self-esteem is not the only adverse side effect of intensive media use. Researchers have suggested increased amounts of time spending on media may lead to body image insecurity. A societal premium on image and beauty is one of the cultural factors that contribute to BDD. Researchers have shown the possible relations between pop culture and the prevalence of people with BDD. This theory can be easy to recognise: an individual only needs a glance at the local grocery store’s magazine rack and view that tabloids feature the latest celebrities to go under the knife. The fashion industry is always blamed for encouraging an unhealthy body image standard among young women in the Western society. There are many media stories that have been written on a particular body image in the fashion industry and advocated a unhealthy body image among the teenagers. Many people with BDD are not even trying to look as glamorous as those celebrities but they just want to look like what they think is ‘normal’. As BDD often takes hold during the teenage years when one is very vulnerable, it can be assumed that teenagers are more common than others to get the disorder.

We are in a culture that so concerned with beauty and body image where fashion plays a significant role in how we think and act. We used to be set our standard for what beauty means is those ‘supper-skinny’  models, like Twiggy, the ‘60s fashion icon. As the fashion industry always sends out the message that ‘skinny is IN’ and this is then smashed into the mindset of the masses through magazines and other social media. Therefore, it is easy to assume that those people who are suffering from BDD may begin to have their fears about never fitting in the high standard of beauty.

There are just many possible factors contributing to BDD that shouldn’t just point an accusing finger directly at the fashion or media industries. I would rather suggest that people, particularly teenagers are more common to getting BDD than others and if ‘ideals’ of appearance are held up to them, it can be more likely to trigger their development of the disorder. Knowing that many teenagers love to read a fashion magazine and follow that kind of stuff on a daily basis, it could be assumed that fashion and media industry has a significant influence on BDD when it comes to teens. After all, it does highlight the great responsibility for the fashion agencies and media producers to take towards their readers and consumers.

In the next blog, I will be sharing an inspiring story of how people can use social media as a tool to spread the message of body positivity. Stay tuned xx

BDD caused by bullying?

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is more common in people who have experienced teasing or bullying. BDD is a type of chronic metal illness that a person can’t stop thinking about a flaw in appearance. It can be an imagined or just a minor flaw in appearance. Generally, people are feeling most sensitive about their appearance through young adulthood and adolescence. As they might be bullied about a character trait, it can trigger sensitivity or hyper focus. Among all the psychological illness that can be caused bullying, Body Dysmorphic Disorder is one of the most common and the more dangerous psychological disorders that can develop. Bullying can cause Body Dysmorphic Disorder and its damage can be distressed, especially in adolescence and when focused on appearance. It can create a distortion in self-perception.

The symptoms of BDD often start in adolescence. There is a story of Minnie Wright who has suffered from BDD for most of her life. She revealed that the symptoms of BDD started when she was 11 after experiencing bullying at school. Since then she focused a lot on the size of her nose, she emphasised on applying ‘shading’ make-up and hold her head in a certain way to avoid exposing her nose in profile. She even tried to cure her “perceived imperfection” with plastic surgery to get a nose job done privately on her 18^th birthday. It could just make her temperately feeling better but soon she was unhappy again with her appearance. Later, Minnie shifted her unhappiness with her hair and the symptoms became immobilized and she wanted to commit suicide.

Another story is about a fashion student, Cassi Jones who was diagnosed with BDD and it started when she was bullied about her appearance at the age of 11. She got called names at school and has grown up incapable of believing herself is beautiful. When she was 11, she started to being bullied by other girls teasing she looked like an alien and many other hurtful things at school. After that, by the time she was 13, she was obsessed with mirrors. She pull different faces, examine herself and eat in front of the mirror to watch herself and looked how her face can be in different angles. She became very anxious when she couldn’t get to a mirror and had a difficult time at school. Sometimes, she felt very guilty when she saw people who are disabled or have scars on their face that she was afraid she looked much worse than these people. It’s not the fact that she wanted the attention or she was vain and it’s just the opposite. She got nervous to explain what she doesn’t like about herself as she was scared pointing out her flaws will just make others to notice more of her flaws. In her mind, she believed her nose has a bump and turned up like a ski slope. Also, she didn’t like the proportion of her facial features as she thought her lips are too big, her eyes are too wide apart, and her chin is too pointy. And She had to wear a fringe to cover my forehead and having her make-up done in front of a mirror for having an achievement for her.

How to combat bullying and the negative thoughts?

The relationship between BDD and bullying is one which can be can be prevented and reduced through education and treatment. Embarrassment and shame always restrain individuals who have experienced bullying from seeking help. Once healing steps are taken into action to reform healthy and positive ways of thinking. The result is terrific. One easy way to start is to stop critical self-talk and shatter the damages of bullying by dealing with your inner adversary and challenging the negative beliefs you still hold on to. We need to model positive self-acceptance for the younger generations and ourselves. More importantly, if you or someone you love is sufferer of bullying, don’t hesitate to seek help and overcome the criticism to find confidence again in order to prevent them ruin your life.

References:

Langlois,C. 2014, ‘What Childhood Bullying Does To Your Body Image Later In Life’, Mind Body Green, viewed 12 September 2016, < http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16233/what-childhood-bullying-does-to-your-body-image-later-in-life.html >

Stocks, J. 2009, ‘Four beautiful women – and four startling images that show how THEY see themselves’, Dailymail, viewed 12 September 2016, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/beauty/article-1195336/Body-dysmorphic-disorder-Four-beautiful-women-distorted-way-THEY-themselves.html >