Have you ever wondered about the
difference between the terms mental
health, mental distress, or mental illness?
The language out there can be confusing
and sometimes even conflicting. When we use phrases such as mental health issue,
mental wellness, or mental problem, no one really knows what we're talking about.
Using the correct language not only
helps us to intervene more effectively,
but it also reduces stigma. We've got a
tool to help everyone get on the same
page when it comes to talking about
mental health. We like to think of it in
terms of a pyramid with these four
different states.  Everyone falls
somewhere on the pyramid, with more
people on the bottom and less at the top.
In the bottom category, we have no
distress or no problem.
Everything's going fine and we're
generally enjoying ourselves. We may be
spending time with friends, attending
school, or even sleeping. One level up, we
have mental distress. Mental distress
refers to the everyday problems that we
encounter. These are things that irritate
us, things we're worried about, or problems
that come our way. For example, we might have an upcoming presentation to give; or,
we may have had conflict with a friend
or had a flat tire.  When this happens, our
brain sends us a signal.  It's called the
stress response. Our stress response is
the basis of resilience and adaptation.
Once we successfully solve the problem,
the stress response usually goes away
because we developed the skills we
needed to adapt. We don't want to go out
of our way and protect ourselves from
these normal stressors of everyday life,
because problem-solving through these
stressors is how we ultimately develop
resiliency and the capacity to become
successful adults. But often times in
life, we're faced with problems in our
environment that are simply too big for
us to quickly solve or deep breathe our
way through. That's what we call a mental
health problem...which is the third level
up in the pyramid. Mental health problems are serious events, such as a parent
dying, having a divorce in your family, 
moving to a new country without
sufficient resources.  Mental health
problems may keep us up at night. They
may cause intense emotions and they may last for a long period of time. But
remember, they're normal. These are
difficult times when it's important to
reach out to others for help.
Mental health problems may require the
support of friends, family, counselling,
or just time . The top of the pyramid,
reserved for the fewest number of people,
is a mental disorder
or mental illness. This includes
diagnoses such as clinical depression,
clinical anxiety, or bipolar disorder.  A
mental disorder is very different than a
mental health problem. This is where we
see something going on in the brain;  a
perturbation of usual brain functioning.
This is where evidence-based medical and
therapeutic treatment is needed by
specially trained professionals. Remember,
the pyramid is not a continuum.  Mental
distress does not necessarily lead to a
mental health problem or to a mental
illness. In fact, we can even be at each
level of the pyramid at the same time.
For instance, someone can have ADHD, a
mental disorder; be grieving the loss of
a loved one, a mental problem; have an
upcoming exam that they're worried about, mental distress; and, sometimes you can
just forget all about it and feel fine.
All of these levels or components of the
pyramid are part of our overall mental
health.  We need to make sure that we
don't define good mental health as never
having a bad mood. Good mental health
includes a wide variety of emotional
states. There are times when we are
frustrated, indifferent, happy, sad, lazy,
joyous. These are all parts of life and
normal fluctuations in our mood. If a
person has a mental illness, it doesn't
mean that they lose their mental health.
So let's start using the correct
language because it really does matter!
Depression is not the same as feeling
sad, and ADHD is not the same as being
hyperactive. When we speak from a common
framework, we're reducing stigma and
building the foundation for better
mental health care for everyone:) To learn
more, check out teenmentalhealth.org.
