to think "its impacting on my mental health" is over used

[54321nought]

I just seem to hear this constantly.

I know you can't judge what another person is going through. Every single individual time I hear it, I give the person the benefit of the doubt.

But overall, I just don't think that many people are having their mental health impacted!

I think it sometimes just means " I don't like this situation" /" this makes me anxious/nervous" / " this is annoying"

We have such easy lives, for the most part. Why is everyone suddenly saying that not getting their own way in something or other is giving them mental health problems?

I have cared for a lot of children and adults with mental health problems, I know how painful and debilitating they can be. Its not what I see in people who are telling me "XYZ is impacting on my mental health".

I know some mental health problems might be invisible, not surely not on this scale, when we all have food, shelter, drinking water, sanitation etc, and in places I have lived without these things, people don't seem to be claiming so many mental health problems....

I think it’s a shift in how we articulate. There are mental health problems, and there is mental illness. I think in the past to denote an impact on the former we’d have just said it’s getting me down/I’m fed up/driving me mad. I do think though that some people overuse the term mental health.

Up until a few years ago I’d never heard the terms “service users” or “childcare setting” etc.

Firstly rich people with lovely families kill themselves, so mental health doesn't have to be about getting basic needs met.

Suffering is subjective. For one person slight worry and anxiety might be very distressing and they will do anything to avoid it, for others they would carry on regardless.
I think it's a by product of increased mental health awareness and I'll take that any day from the shame and stigma of previous decades.

Why does it annoy you?

Agree with you. I am sick of the ‘ it affects my mental health’ when in fact it’s just they dont like the response given

There are so man6 people suffering true mental health issues today, they don’t need others jumping on the band wagon

I do not think saying "impacting my mental health" equals " mental health problems" as you seem to suggest. I think it usually means "this makes me anxious/nervous" as you say. Which is fine and useful information to share.

We have such easy lives, for the most part.

Who are 'we'? Are you aware how many people are homeless or in inappropriate housing, how many people rely on food banks to feed their families?

Why does it annoy you?

Because I volunteer for various mental health charities, and it seems to be the buzz words that get people access to charity/NHS resources, and I think a lot of the time the resources are now completely missing their target, because the number of people saying "mental health" as gone up 10x, but the number of people with severe mental health problems has not changed at all, just that they are now sharing resources with 10 x as many people.

But as I said, in any individual case, I will simply take them at their word, both in normal life, and in the capacity of a charity volunteer

I agree with you. People seem to have lost the ability to say "that makes me unhappy/sad/grumpy", it's all "it's impacting my mental health"

@Orf1abc

We have such easy lives, for the most part.

Who are 'we'? Are you aware how many people are homeless or in inappropriate housing, how many people rely on food banks to feed their families?

Yes, thank you, hence " for the most part". There is no correlation between use of food banks and use of the phrse " it is impacting on my mental health" - I kn0ow, I have researched this!

There is a correlation between poor housing and poor mental health, it is a vicious circle, with each one likely to make the other worse.

@MattyGroves

I agree with you. People seem to have lost the ability to say "that makes me unhappy/sad/grumpy", it's all "it's impacting my mental health"

That's exactly what I mean

It's annoying as it's used as an excuse which you cant question , so you end up giving people the benefit of the doubt and end up getting shafted and over time you realise you are being taken for a fool and that person could have done x,y or z quite easily

@midgemagneto

It's annoying as it's used as an excuse which you cant question , so you end up giving people the benefit of the doubt and end up getting shafted and over time you realise you are being taken for a fool and that person could have done x,y or z quite easily

exactly

Unless you can see inside someone’s head you don’t know how things affect their mental health.

As someone who has diagnosed (and medicated and therapised) OCD and depression for the last 17 years I agree with you.

Poor mental health is not a temporary feeling of stress or feeling down which lasts a few days. It is not a feeling of frustration that you can't fly to Italy.

We have been through a hugely difficult 18 months and many people absolutely will be suffering from mental health issues as a result.

But I have seen "it's impacting on my mental health" thrown around quite flippantly on here more than once or twice.

For a lot of people, the use of this term has become a way of getting out of conversations and situations they don’t want to own. By saying this, they are making others sound unreasonable for expecting them to deal with life.

I think it’s the difference between mental health and mental illness. Something can impact someone’s mental health (poor sleep, a stressful work situation, relationship issues, etc) without them having a mental illness.
Just like someone can feel ill or it hurts that they stub their toe or whatever and it doesn’t mean that they are sick or disabled.
I do get that some people might use it as an excuse, but for the most part I think it’s a good thing that people are more aware about protecting their mental health.

Yeah I get what you mean. It's not that I object to people talking about how things make them feel, it's more the generalization of everything under the 'mental health' banner which encompasses everything from feeling a bit low to a full debilitating breakdown so I don't find it particularly helpful...

It's like if someone had had a long drive or spent the day carrying heavy things around or whatever, they'd usually say 'this is making me feel tired/achey/stiff' rather than 'this is impacting on my physical health' unless they had some pre-existing particular condition like a bad back or something that means that thing was particularly difficult for them. Whereas increasingly when talking about a transient feeling/mood that will normally pass, I do think people say 'this is impacting on my mental health' (or talk about 'wellbeing' which automatically makes me think of healing crystals and wafty ladies) rather than using the more descriptive words 'anxious', 'sad', 'grumpy' or whatever that actually help you understand how the situation is actually affecting them. I don't really know why, maybe people feel it's taken more seriously/is more 'proper' to say 'mental health'...?

@sst1234

For a lot of people, the use of this term has become a way of getting out of conversations and situations they don’t want to own. By saying this, they are making others sound unreasonable for expecting them to deal with life.

How do you know this though? See to me what you're saying sounds like the same old dismissive, toughen up shite that's been trotted out for years.

Surely it's better to listen to people when they tell you they're not coping than to judge them for it? We have enough crap in our world, no need to make it that much more unpleasant.

I do agree with you for the most part. I work in a job which deals with lots of very mentally unwell people, and then also the people who use it as an excuse. But both are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

I think most recently I'm staggered by the sheer volume of "health anxiety" popping up. Clearly a pandemic has bought a lot of these to the forefront but honestly I just cant believe how many people claim to have it

I think it's a by product of increased mental health awareness and I'll take that any day from the shame and stigma of previous decades.

Fundamentally yes: I'd take over-use of it over the stigma any day and if this is a byproduct of people being more aware then I'll take this.

But that said I do think it can be a bit of a get-out-of-jail-free card for when people a) can't be arsed to do something or b) want an excuse to be irritable or controlling but can't own it.

Example a) colleague who is a drunk but who frequently pulls "mental health days" which are actually hangover duvet days. I actually think mental ill health and alcoholism often go hand in hand so its symbiotic but the output of it is other people have to pick up the slack because she doesn't know where to draw the line.

Example b) neighbour who I have a fraught relationship tried to get me to pay for something in her flat because she didn't like the noise that her plumbing made and that was "affecting her mental health". So that was my problem, somehow.

Obviously its preferable for people to be able to share mental health issues than not to be able to talk about them at all. But "it impacts on my mental health" sometimes becomes a reason not to get around to dealing with the mental health problem, instead of a constructive way to move forward with it.

Surely it's a continuum, though?

A very bright light that causes me a headache is - however temporarily - impacting my physical health (or feeling of physical wellness). Crohn's disease or cancer is a physical illness. They're both still impacts on your physical health, even if on a massively sliding scale.

I see it as a (mostly harmless, and usually useful) byproduct of the awareness that everyone has mental health, good or bad, that we're able to articulate that things impact our mental wellness or lack of it daily, even in tiny ways. My neighbour has a baby that cries all night (bless her) and I am getting very little sleep because of it - that's impacting my mental wellness because I'm tired and irritable and have been sleep deprived for 2 months. It's not the same as me being diagnosed with a specific mental illness but it's still useful to me to be able to identify that as something that's affecting me mentally, even if it's only in a very small way.

It gives people the language to say "this is having an impact on my mental wellness, and that is something worth identifying" - it doesn't mean "every single thing that affects my mental wellness is on a par with a severe mental illness" in the same way that you wouldn't equate a cold with pneumonia but they both impact your physical wellness and it's perfectly acceptable to identify, work around/tackle/treat, and acknowledge the impact that both colds and pneumonia have, even if they're not equal.

If someone can treat their mental wellness as a continuum in the way we do physical wellness, there's a chance that someone will go "X makes me a bit anxious and that impacts my mental health, so I'll do Y to stop it getting worse", in the same way we might say "Jogging hurts my knees so I won't do it because I don't want a torn meniscus".

I am glad you have nothing to do with mental health care. Because you seem to be lacking in understanding and compassion.

@50ShadesOfCatholic sounds spot on to me.

Added to that I would have thought as someone 'involved in mental health' you would understand that many people try and hide the true impact. Also that often it is something 'small' which pushes peoples mental health.

Also why is it a competition? Because so and so is 'more' ill than than does it mean my mental health doesn't matter. Do I only have anxiety and PTSD not schizophrenia therefore my mental health doesn't count?

I think people recognise triggers and are more aware of self protection.

@Purplelion

Unless you can see inside someone’s head you don’t know how things affect their mental health.

I agree totally

I've spent the last six or seven weeks working while fighting what I just thought was being angry/grumpy/sad/overworking or whatever words have been used in this thread. The culmination of me NOT taking notice of my gradually declining mental health was a panic attack and inability to stop sobbing or speaking coherantly while trying to explain my feelings. I'm now off work (a job I usually love) because of this.
I would agree that at times 'having anxiety' is mistaken for 'a bit anxious about one thing', but a result of people saying this constantly, is what just happened to me. -Too scared that I would be thought of as making it up to deal with it. Now I'm really unwell.

I sometimes think some people confuse mental health with always feeling happy. Sometimes it's actually healthy to feel sad or worried. It's a healthy response to a difficult situation.