Its All In Your Mind
The Mind is a Powerful and Fragile Thing, Look After Yours
This week is mental health week in the UK and as someone who has for many years worked with some of the smartest people on the planet and who also has a sufferer of schizophrenia in the family then I think I have witnessed some of the incredible things that the human mind can do, for good and for not so good.
I have had the privilege over 20+ years to work alongside some people with brains the size of planets, I have seen them use those minds to solve the insolvable (or so I thought) problems, I have seen them link together thoughts and ideas that would impact many, many people’s live for many years to come. However I have also seen minds unravel and rebel against the being in which they reside when they have been put under too much pressure, whether through work, life or more often than not a combination of both. I have seen great people let down by what they considered to be their greatest asset, something by which they at times defined themselves, because they took for granted that it would always be there for them, that they didn’t have to actively look after it.
I have also seen someone I care about spending many years wrestling with a mind that he never could in fact trust after it first let him down as a young adult, a mind that has over the years lied to him and played games with his senses in, for him, such a very, very real way that every time it happens he has to believe what he is seeing, hearing or tasting is the only truth, despite how very strange that would be at other times.
In both situations it is frankly awe inspiring what the mind can make you believe about yourself and others, as well as incredibly scary, such is the power of our minds well or not. It was a number of years after my relative’s diagnosis before I realised (thanks to talking to him about it, a number of hospital visits and to trying to find out more via mind.org.uk) that the voices in his head didn’t in fact only appear when he was ‘unwell’, but were constant ‘companions’ that sometimes were reasonable, sometimes were not; sometimes he could deal with them and sometimes not, depending on a lot of other factors including medication, amount of company, and how low he felt in himself. Suddenly I was trying to comprehend, and frankly I still can’t, what it must be like to have voices every moment of your life telling you, amongst many other things, that you are evil (and I use that strong word advisedly), that people around you are bad and out to hurt you.
The good news is that those that already know they suffer mental health issues and those that don’t today (but you never know what the future holds) can both do things to keep the mind as fit and healthy as possible and a number of those are the very same things to do to keep your body fit and healthy. The theme for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is around physical activity that can make a big difference to both prevention and recovery.
So in the same way we all learn that if you take your heart for granted and don’t do things to keep it healthy then one day, suddenly, without notice it may fail you, we need to learn the same is true of your mind. We all think it will never happen to us, but guess what, it might! Your intellect, your background, your past history does not protect you from this, so take a few steps today and every day to protect and keep your mind healthy and peaceful. Believe me when I tell you that your mind is a powerful and precious thing, don’t take it for granted, you need to take care of it.
