Home › Forums › Health & Fitness › Openness about mental health
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July 31, 2017 12:30 pm at 12:30 pm #1329685slominerParticipant
Is it normal or ideal for people to be as open about their mental health as they are about their physical health? If you need to miss a party you might excuse yourself by explaining that you have a conflicting appointment with your podiatrist, but should you also simply say that you have an appointment with your psychiatrist if that’s the truth? If you have to leave school early or miss work you’ll easily say you’re having a severe headache but what about telling them that you’re experiencing an emotional issue?
July 31, 2017 1:42 pm at 1:42 pm #1329706👑RebYidd23ParticipantPeople aren’t open about their physical health at all.
July 31, 2017 2:05 pm at 2:05 pm #1329731slominerParticipantThank you for that perspective. I agree that people aren’t all open about physical health. But you’ll probably agree with me that people are more open about it than about mental health. My question really is whether one should be as open about both.
To take a more extreme example, though I’m also talking about more mundane issues as well, if a person r’l has cancer I think he’s more likely to share that with friends (obviously not all people or all situations) than a person who r’l has schizophrenia is likely to share that information with friends or even extended family. Maybe another example is sharing that one needs some kind of surgery than sharing that one needs treatment for depression.
July 31, 2017 2:49 pm at 2:49 pm #1329740👑RebYidd23ParticipantEveryone agrees that a person is not his body. But not everyone agrees that a person is not his psyche.
July 31, 2017 2:50 pm at 2:50 pm #1329742Moshe1994ParticipantPeople are generally more sensitive about their emotional/spiritual health, than their physical health. Speaking from personal experience, I’m only willing to discuss my emotional issues with my parents or close friends.
August 1, 2017 7:32 am at 7:32 am #1330203slominerParticipantI gather a sense from many mental health professionals and doctors that they encourage openness in discussing one’s mental health with a person’s social and business circles rather than trying to hide or deny the issues they’re experiencing or conditions they’re undergoing.
August 1, 2017 11:50 am at 11:50 am #1330239chabadgalParticipantpeople arent, but they should be. suffering from depression isnt any more a persons fault then getting cancer ch’v
August 1, 2017 2:22 pm at 2:22 pm #1330317👑RebYidd23ParticipantDoes Tznius mean nothing anymore?
August 3, 2017 7:51 pm at 7:51 pm #1332490ChortkovParticipantI’ve rarely seen people judging someone because he has a sore leg. Mental disorder, however, will change the way people interact with you, one way or another. It is obviously more private.
Having said that, I once heard from a kid in Yeshiva that his therapist told him that it doesn’t matter that monsters come out from under his bed at night. I thought it funny that his therapist didn’t tell him there were no monsters, or at least that they don’t come out at night. Someone asked him who his therapist was, and he said “I’m not saying, it’s private.”
That’s open for you!!
August 3, 2017 7:52 pm at 7:52 pm #1332485chabadgalParticipantwhat does tznius have ti do with this
August 3, 2017 8:05 pm at 8:05 pm #1332498👑RebYidd23ParticipantTznius is about keeping the inside inside. Sharing medical information is not tznius.
August 3, 2017 8:16 pm at 8:16 pm #1332504TheGoqParticipantI was in therapy for about 5 years and looking back i think it literally saved my life and i feel no shame for having gone.
August 3, 2017 9:01 pm at 9:01 pm #1332511ChortkovParticipantThere is no shame in going to therapy. There is certainly no shame in being healed. There is shame, however, in having mental disorders.
August 3, 2017 9:01 pm at 9:01 pm #1332516JosephParticipantPeople are often not open about mental health issues when dealing with shidduchim.
August 4, 2017 3:45 am at 3:45 am #1332553PosterGirlParticipantThere is a stigma about mental disorders in the frum community. Right or wrong, its not considered acceptable to share such information.
The reason why therapists say that? Maybe because they know how prevelant mental disorders are, so they think everyone should tell all and break the stigma. We are years away from doing away with stigma, you don’t have to be the first to tell.August 4, 2017 6:32 am at 6:32 am #1332581JosephParticipantIn the secular world there’s less stigma in sharing with others one’s mental challenges?
August 4, 2017 8:55 am at 8:55 am #1332607PosterGirlParticipantSo it seems. Honestly, I was never part of the secular world, but that is what I have heard from pple who are.
August 4, 2017 8:55 am at 8:55 am #1332608TheGoqParticipantYekke2 what do you mean by this “There is shame, however, in having mental disorders.” how so if someone is born with a heart disorder how is that different from being born with a mental disorder?
August 4, 2017 9:46 am at 9:46 am #1332636👑RebYidd23ParticipantPeople are not open about heart disorders either. They go their whole lives not telling anyone so it won’t ruin their siblings’ shidduchim.
August 4, 2017 10:01 am at 10:01 am #1332644ChortkovParticipantYekke2 what do you mean by this “There is shame, however, in having mental disorders.” how so if someone is born with a heart disorder how is that different from being born with a mental disorder?
Embarrassment is nothing to do with being fault or blame. Embarrassment is about perception. And people perceive mental disorders different to heart disorders.
August 4, 2017 10:13 am at 10:13 am #1332656PosterGirlParticipantRY is right, people aren’t open about anything that isn’t perfect because it might ruin their own shidduch, or their siblings or kids.
We all have to keep up the perfect plastic image so we can marry plastic perfect people and then have all the skeletons fall out of the closets on our heads when we are looking for a shirt.
SURPRISE!!! You married a human being!!!August 4, 2017 12:25 pm at 12:25 pm #1332736TheGoqParticipantSo yekke2 anti-semites think we jews don’t deserve to live maybe we should just kill ourselves?
August 4, 2017 12:29 pm at 12:29 pm #1332741TheGoqParticipantwhat you are saying now is that people may think there is something to be ashamed about but that’s not what you said you said there is shame in having such a condtion please choose your words more carefully.
August 5, 2017 9:41 pm at 9:41 pm #1332906ChortkovParticipantSo yekke2 anti-semites think we jews don’t deserve to live maybe we should just kill ourselves?
Wow, that was random!
I guess I’ll explain myself one more time, and if you don’t want to get it, you don’t have to. Nobody is saying that public perception is correct or that you should care what other people thing. I am explaining a basic human phenomenon called “embarrassment”. It is an uncomfortable self conscious feeling where one feels exposed and degraded, or a loss of dignity. This is caused by what other people consider acceptable or normal; if in public perception one is “abnormal”, this leads to that feeling.
Of course, if you have the strength of character or emotional fortitude to be fully rational that you have done nothing wrong, that nothing is wrong, and you don’t care what other people think about you, אשריך וטוב לך. Most of us are humans, however, and embarrassment is a very real thing.
You are right that the term “shame” was used incorrectly.
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