Preventative Mental Health Strategies

[chaoticidealism]

Just being a human being in the Western world, you have about a fifty-percent chance of ending up with some kind of mental problem sooner or later. It could be when you're very old and you get a stroke; it could be complicated grief; it could be social anxiety disorder; it could be something less common. And being autistic, of course your risk is greater just because your stress level's higher. Maybe you already have a mental illness. So, yes, the possibility of getting a comorbid mental illness is a realistic thing to think about--but it doesn't make much sense just to worry. After all, anxiety is meant to spur you into planning or action, not to just hang around and make you uncomfortable.

You know how, if you want to reduce the chances of things like heart disease or high blood pressure, you get regular checkups, start eating real food, and find out what kind of physical activity you like? Well, there's a mental version of that, which will both reduce your vulnerability to mental illness, and increase your ability to manage and/or recover from one if you get it.

(Physical health, incidentally, does affect mental health. Maximizing physical health gives you maximum resources to do mental things with.)

Lifestyle stuff that maximizes your mental health:

• Having a hobby you enjoy
• Having meaningful social connections (not necessarily a lot of them, or seeing them frequently; it's having the connections at all that's important--yes, they can be online)
• Having a pet you enjoy spending time with
• Working to gain insight into your identity, personality, and thought style
• Working to gain awareness of your emotions and how they affect you
• Managing stress, to keep the level just high enough to motivate you, but low enough so that it dissipates whenever you spend time relaxing
• Spending time outdoors--sunlight has mental benefits as well as physical ones
• Keeping a good sleep schedule, or at least getting enough sleep
• Learning things throughout your lifetime; staying mentally active (it needn't be academic subjects)
• Having purposeful activity to engage in (may be work; may be something else)
• Learning to let things go instead of worrying about them; the past is unchangeable, and once you have learned from it, there's no point in regretting it
• Volunteering, formally or informally; spending time helping other people
• Keeping in touch with family, provided they're not abusive
• Learning to forgive people--without also letting them hurt you (or others) again
• Having a well-defined religious or philosophical belief system; joining a religious organization
• Regularly listening to music you enjoy (seriously; music has mental health benefits)
• Keeping up an exercise program that you enjoy (it has much less benefit if you hate it and feel forced)
• Learning to understand and deal with anger
• Learning to be assertive
• Being able to recognize that you have made a mistake or done something wrong--while also being able to apologize and move on, without unduly punishing yourself for your error
• Learning to recognize inefficient or dangerous coping strategies, and replace them with effective, safer ones (ex. If you drink too much or max out your credit cards when you're stressed, finding another way to deal)
• Learning to identify and solve problems when they occur, rather than assuming they are unsolvable and must be endured
• Keeping a journal; updating a blog; putting your thoughts down on paper in the form of stories, poetry, essays, etc.
• Learning your strengths and weaknesses; learning to accept and understand both
• Not keeping secrets from yourself
• Learning how to accept your own mistakes; learning it's acceptable to make mistakes
• Having some place where you can go to be alone and relax, where work, family and friends aren't allowed to bother you
• Learning to be proud of yourself for your effort and the way you used your skills, not for the way you're judged by others
• Spending as little time as possible (none, if you can) with people who do not accept you as you are
• Learning to identify the times when your feelings are illogical, and don't reflect reason or reality
• Finding out what things you are unconsciously telling yourself; changing them, if necessary
• Knowing where to find help for psychological problems (it needn't be a psychologist; counselors, mentors, and religious leaders can help too), and being willing to start working on the problem before it becomes really overwhelming
• Finding ways to solve relationship problems
• Defining exactly how much you will change to please someone else, and what parts of your behavior, beliefs, and values are inviolate

This is simple prevention... It may not keep you from getting a mental illness; and by itself it probably won't magically make you recover; but in general your resistance goes way up if you do this kind of stuff. I've had several episodes of depression, as well as PTSD; I've had other diagnoses thrown at me that didn't stick because they weren't correct in the first place. Doing things like those on the list above has kept me--literally--sane.

And yeah, obviously what I've described isn't going to actually be possible to do completely and constantly. But then, it's possible to greatly reduce your chances of getting heart disease--even if you do have a burger or skip your workout once in a while. You don't have to be anywhere near perfect to start getting a rather large increase in your mental resilience; anyway, worrying about whether you're working hard enough is kind of counterproductive anyway, because it involves stress and anxiety you really don't need.

Still, there's no shame in having a mental illness, just like there's no shame in having a heart attack; but just like you're more likely to survive a heart attack if you've been living healthy and went to the doctor the second you felt chest pain, you're more likely to come out of a mental illness intact if you practice these sorts of preventative strategies, and go find help when you  first see there's a problem.

Finding a decent counselor, psychologist, etc.: Don't settle for anyone who doesn't:

• Treat you with respect
• Put more weight on your words than on the diagnostic handbook
• Consider you an equal partner in your treatment
• Know, or be willing to learn, how autism affects your experience of life and of mental illness in particular
• Respect your opinions about medication
• Use medication only when it is the best choice of treatment, at the lowest dose possible
• Keep your conversations confidential
• Encourage you to take control of your own treatment
• Reconsider a diagnosis if it can be shown not to be accurate
• Reject stereotypes associated with a diagnosis
• Understand that there is a difference between behavior that is not typical and behavior that is harmful
• Understand that harmful actions and thoughts have a purpose, and simply stopping them will not solve the problem if that purpose is not filled in another way
• Focus on teaching skills, rather than "fixing" what is "wrong"
• Understand that you are the one who knows yourself best, and that no one else can tell you what you "ought" to be feeling
• Understand the basic individuality of people, and the fact that no treatment strategy is ideal for everyone
• Keep clear goals for treatment

Yes, it can be difficult. I consider myself lucky: It took me only eleven counselors, doctors, and psychologists before I found someone who fit these criteria! (It helps if you have some control over who you see; if you're on Medicaid like I am, you usually don't have much.)

So that's about it, I guess... keeping tabs on your mental health is a lot more important when you're already vulnerable. Using some of these strategies to maximize your resilience will help you prevent or manage mental illnesses; and the nice thing about it is that they'll make your life more enjoyable in general.