Mental Health: A Recap

When I think of mental health, I think of a cool, piercing green because it represents the idea of having layers of meaning, in the mind, and how your mental health influences your emotions and actions.

A symbol for mental health would be a puzzle piece because it represents a part of you, a link in your mind. If you're missing one of those pieces, then you're missing one of those links, and that your mental health isn't complete.

This image represents mental health because it shows how the mind is constantly split into different pathways, the down and the upsides of our emotions which are part of our day to day life.
 

I used to think mental health was just about having depression and another mind-related diseases. I thought people who had a low mental health were crazy or really sad and that they weren’t very common.

Now I think mental health is bigger than just that, that everyone experiences the lows and highs of mental health and that having a low mental health is not always easy to tell. 

How did we change our thinking? 

We read a picture book about depression and talked about it, which made me more aware of the issue. We watched a movie which showed a girl who had a very unstable mental health, and we saw how friends and family can help us overcome this. We wrote up blogs discussing different topics within mental health. We observed how other people react based on issues surrounding them which shows how much their environment affects their mental health. We talked about resilience and what we do to bounce back, which made me realise that there are many different ways people can be resilient and that there is no particular way you have to do this.

Resilience

“No matter how far life pushes you down, no matter how much you hurt, you can always bounce back.” 

Sheryl Swoope

JUMP! 

I think this picture represents resilience because it is a metaphor of what I feel I should do when I’m down or depressed. When I’m sad, inside I feel like a crammed curled up ball with everything shut in. To help myself to get over it, I try to spread out, to feel connected and energised again. 

To become more resilient I try to talk to someone about my issue, and listen to their opinions.The hardest part can be getting out of my shell and telling someone about my problem. Usually they can help me put it into perspective. Sometimes I feel so down about it and it seems like I can’t get over it, but I always do in the end. Usually it’s small things which I know won’t matter to me a month later but they do now. To overcome it I try to put it out of my mind, by reading or listening to music or doing something normal to get my mind off it. Eventually I get over it, but it takes time.

My Girl

I recently watched the movie, My Girl, filmed in 1991.
The movie is about an 11 year old girl called Vada and her best friend Thomas J.
Thomas J and Vada are very good friends, as they have only each other. The benefits of their relationship are that they are able to support each other when they have problems and help each other sort out their relationships with other characters in the movie. Vada uses her relationship with Thomas J to be more resilient by him always being there to talk to her and to add his point of view. He's always optomistic and helps her realise that her problems aren't as serious as she thinks. Thomas J uses his relationship with Vada to help him develop a stronger social life; so that he can have someone to talk too.

Vada deals with death and grief by trying to pretend she truly understands the idea of death, while in reality, she doesn't. We see this when she's locked in the room with the dead people her father operates on. Vada overreacts completely, to the point of a nervous breakdown. She blames herself for her mother's death. I think this is an appalling reaction to loss, as it makes overcoming it extremely hard. She should try to get someone to explain to her that this is not her fault. When something happens to her best friend, she spends a whole day grieving, but can't seem too overcome the loss. Finally she does overcome the loss, recovers her father's relationship with her and accepts Shelly as her mother.

Friendship Groups:

Friendship groups (commonly found in schools: in particular girls) are groups of friends you hang out with and play/talk with; often of which represent a group who balance each other out in a range of characters. Not everyone has a paticular friendship group, some people prefer to move from group to group, or have one or two best friends.
Personally, I think finding the right friendship group who accept you and share your values is not always easy, but is incredibly important. Being part of a particular group shows you support them and what they stand for, and that you're prepared to be there for each other.

Death of a loved one can cause feelings of loss and grief. I felt this sense of grief when my grandmother died last year, followed by a family friend with two young children dying of cancer. Only this year, a friend of mine's father died in an accident, causing shock and immense grief for the whole family and all their friends. It became my role, as well as many others, to support my friend through the stages of grief, and to help to cope with the loss.

Hi, I'm Lime, and I'm new to blogger.com

In this blog, I’ll be sharing my opinions about mental health and how it affects me, my peers and the world.

Self-confidence, identity and mental health can be linked to our lives in numerous ways.

For example, I love to play with my cat because he makes me feel happy and comfortable. He is part of my family and identity. He brings my family together and I care a lot about him.