Effects of trauma and adversity on mental health

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It

affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress,
relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every
stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with
the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to
their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that
underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build
relationship and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right.
And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development.

Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a

complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next,
with varying degrees of difficulty and potentially very different social and clinical
outcomes.

Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or

natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer
term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashback, strained relationship,
and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea.

Mental health problems affect around one in four people in any given year.
They range from common problems, such as depression and anxiety, to rarer
problems such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Good mental health means being generally able to think, feel and react in
the ways that you need and want to live your life. But if you go through a period of
poor mental health. You might find the ways you’re frequently thinking. Feeling or
reacting become difficult, or even impossible, to cope with. This can feel just as bad
as a physical illness, or even worse.

Mental healthy people have a positive self-image and can relate successfully
to other most of the time. They are able to handle life’s everyday challenges and
changes, as well as its trauma and transitions-loss of loved ones, marriage
difficulties, school problems, the challenge of retirement.

Unlike the short-term difficulties people may experience occasionally in life,

severe and persistent mental illnesses are diseases of the brain that have
psychological, biological and sometimes situational causes. Just like physical
illness, they range from mild to severe. Fortunately, most mental illnesses have
become much better understood in the last 20-30 years and most can be
successfully treated. Help ranges from counseling, to medication, to support groups
and other types of supports.