Follow Us on Google
Melancholy
I lied and said, I was busy
I was busy
But not in a way most people understand.
I was busy taken deeper breaths
I was busy silencing irrational thoughts
I was busy calming a racing heart
I was busy telling myself I am busy.
Sometimes, this is my busy –
And I will not apologize for it.
(A poem by Cecil Spring-Rice 1828)
The ability to adapt is central to being emotionally fit, healthy, and mature. An emotionally fit person is one who can adapt to changing circumstances with constructive reactions; a person who can enjoy living, loving others, and working productively.
In everyone’s life, there are bound to be experiences that are anxious or deeply disturbing, such as sadness of losing a loved one, or the disappointment of failure. The emotionally fit person is stable enough not to be overwhelmed by the anxiety, grief, or guilt that such experiences frequently produce.
Like the poem quoted at the beginning of this write up, where the culprit found solace and escape valve by telling people that he or she was busy. The sense of his or her own worth is not lost easily by setback in life, rather, you can learn from your own mistakes.
Even the most unpleasant experience can add to one’s understanding of life. Like a Reverend Sister who told me of her particular posting in a hospital. She had to metaphorically grow a thick skin in order to overcome and subsume the emotional trauma of the daunting posting.
Emerging from a crisis with new wisdom can give a sense of pride and mastery. The emotionally fit person can listen attentively to the opinion of others, yet if your decision differs from that being urged by friends and relatives you will abide by it and can stand alone if necessary, without guilt and anger at those who disagree.
Communicating well with others is an important part of emotional fitness. Sharing experiences, both good and bad, is one of the joys of living. Although the capacity to enjoy is often increased by such sharing, independence is also essential, for one person’s pleasure may leave others indifferent.
It is just as important to appreciate and respect the individuality of others, as it is to value our own individual- preferences, as long as these are reasonable and do not give pain to others.
Communication should be kept open at all times. Anger toward those who disagree, may be an immediate response, but it should not lead to cutting off communication, as it so frequently does, particularly between husbands and wives, parents and children, members and congregations.
It is unfortunately common for parents to launch personal attacks, when children do something that displeases them. The child, or any person to whom this is done, then feels unworthy or rejected, which often makes him angry and defiant. Revenge becomes uppermost and communication is lost. Each party feels misunderstood and lonely, perhaps even wounded, and is not likely want to reopen communication. The joy in a human relationship is gone, and one’s pleasure in living is by that much diminished.
The same principle used in dealing with others can be applied to ourselves. Everyone makes mistakes, has angry or even murderous thoughts that can produce excessive guilt. Sometimes there is a realistic reason for feeling guilty, which should be a spur to take corrective action.
Differentiate clearly between thoughts, feelings and actions. Only actions need cause guilt. In the privacy of one’s own mind, anything may be thought as long as it is not acted out; an emotionally fit person can accept this difference.
As recently as 200 years ago, it was believed that the emotionally ill were evil, possibly by the devil. Their illness was punished rather than treated. The strange and sometimes bizarre actions of the mentally ill were feared and misunderstood.
Beginning in the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud made significant steps toward understanding mental functions. Since then, a number of physicians, psychologists and scholars have made major contributions to the area of mental health. Today mental disorders are no longer called madness but are viewed and evaluated in the same way as physical disease. Many are treatable, using technologies similar to those used for physical disease.
Most people occasionally experience spells of anxiety, blue moods, or temper tantrums, but unless the psychological suffering they endure or inflict upon others begins to interfere with their job or marriage, they seldom seek professional guidance.
There is no existing scientific standard for determining when an eccentric pattern of behavior becomes a mental illness (madness). Norms vary from culture to culture and within each culture. Norms also change from generation to generation.
How can a determination be made as to who is mentally ill? No temperature reading, no acute pain no abnormal growth can be looked for as evidence of a serious problem. Yet there are warning signs and among the commonest are these:
•Anxiety that is severe, prolonged and unrelated to any identifiable reason or cause.
•Depression especially when it is followed by withdrawal from loved ones, from friends, or, from the usual occupations or hobbies that ordinarily afford one pleasure.
•Loss of confidence in oneself.
•Undue pessimism.
•A feeling of constant helplessness.
•Unexplainable mood changes and swings.
•Rudeness or aggression that is without apparent cause or due to a trivial incident.
•An unreasonable demand for perfectionism, not only in oneself but in ones loved ones friends, business associates, and often from things or situations.
•Habitual under achievement, especially if one is adequately equipped to do the work one is called upon to perform.
•Inability to accept responsibility, often manifested by a recurrent loss of employment.
•Phobias.
•Unreasonable feelings of persecution.
•Self-destructive acts
•Sexual deviation.
•A sudden and dramatic change in sleeping habits.
•Physical ailments and complaints for which there are no organic causes.
If one or more of these warning signs occur frequently or in severe form, a mental illness may be present and professional help should be sought to evaluate the underlying problems.
•Always be medically guided.
Please follow me on twitter @DRSUN.
