Knowing when to seek professional treatment for drug or alcohol addiction can be pretty clear. Job loss, a DUI, financial troubles, or relationship issues are often the signs that you’ve hit rock bottom and need to get help.
On the other hand, knowing when to get help for mental health struggles isn’t always as straightforward. Even so, mental health disorders can be just as crippling as addiction, impacting your career, family, relationships, and health. That’s why it’s important to learn how to recognize the signs in your life that indicate it’s time to start looking at mental health treatment options. At The Blanchard Institute, we’re here to provide the education and knowledge you need to make the best decision for both your health and your long-term future. For many, that can look like seeking outpatient mental health treatment.
Mental Health Advocacy: A Growing Struggle
If you think you may be struggling with your mental health as you’re reading this, know that you’re not alone. It’s a growing issue across the United States. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), more than one-fifth of adults in the US had a mental illness in 2020. That’s 52.9 million people. And the number of adults with mental illness increased by nearly 30% from 39.8 million in 2008 to 51.5 million in 2019.
The youth mental health crisis has grown, too. From 2009 to 2019, the number of high schoolers who expressed persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 41%. Suicide death rates among teenagers also increased by 62% from 2010 to 2020. In the fallout, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association all declared child and adolescent mental health a national emergency.
Why It’s a Good Idea to Get Professional Help
Like many other people in the US, mental health challenges can negatively affect your life, too, if you don’t address them. You may have learned to tolerate your mental health disorder or even ignore it as a private, unseen struggle. However, the problem will only get worse if you don’t address it. And the effects of your struggles may eventually hurt other areas of your life, including career, relationships, and finances, as well as the lives of others you love most. In the long run, untreated mental health disorders can result in:
- Unnecessary disability
- Unemployment
- Substance abuse
- Homelessness
- Inappropriate incarceration
- Suicide
- Poor quality of life
SOURCE: National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Research from The World Health Organization (WHO) even shows that people with a severe mental health condition die 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population. On a wider scale, untreated mental illnesses can negatively impact your community, too. In fact, the economic cost of untreated mental illness is over $100 billion each year in the US.
Because of the potential ramifications of mental health disorders, it’s key to get help before they worsen. These kinds of challenges are not something you can simply overcome on your own. Trying to white-knuckle through life with a mental health disorder only leads to more challenges. However, getting the right help from inpatient or outpatient mental health programs can make all the difference in a mental health disorder’s long-term impact, as well as your quality of life.
What to Expect From Mental Health Treatment
The idea of getting help from mental health outpatient programs or other professional treatment facilities may seem daunting. It’s not something someone would know a lot until they have to seek help. What actually goes on at a treatment center and how can this type program actually help? For starters, inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers specialize in treating your mental health, unlike other medical facilities. They’re staffed by medical and clinical professionals who are experts at addressing mental health disorders. These facilities (like ours here at The Blanchard Institute) are capable of treating a wide variety of mental health disorders all in one place, including:
- Bipolar disorder
- Major depressive disorder (including high-functioning depression)
- Anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder
- Schizoaffective disorders
- Co-occurring disorders like alcohol or drug addictions
Inpatient and outpatient mental health programs will offer personalized treatment plans, usually starting with trauma-informed care to address your mental health disorder’s root causes. This often involves utilizing both evidence-based treatment and innovative, holistic therapy for mood disorders and other mental health issues.
Psychiatric medications can also be prescribed as a supplemental tool alongside therapy to help you better engage with treatment. Some medications may help you more easily regulate your emotions and thought patterns, shares NAMI, while others can ease symptoms of mental health disorders (like depression, for example).
Advanced treatment alongside medications combine to make it easier than ever to get proper help for mental health issues. As mental health disorders are becoming increasingly common in the US, societal awareness and mental health advocacy groups have led to advances in care that make access to help even more doable. The digital space has produced the likes of telehealth therapy sessions, online clinical assessment tools, and mental health apps to make treatment increasingly accessible, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). New approaches like single-session therapy training and focused brief group therapy are also helping practitioners reach more people and reduce waitlists.
Mental Illness Stigma and Other Barriers to Getting Help
Despite all the advancements in professional mental health treatment and resources, many people are still struggling to get the help they need. But why? Some of this stems from the age-old mental illness stigma that still permeates our culture. For many people, mental illness is inaccurately seen as a sign of weakness, explains UNC Health Caldwell. As a result, many people don’t want to seek help, as they believe they’re supposed to be able to snap out of their struggles on their own. They don’t want to be perceived as having something wrong with them by seeking treatment.
Yet even if we all focused on breaking the stigma of mental health treatment, other barriers would remain. Some people simply live in denial that they have a mental health disorder at all. Others may choose not to seek help because they are unaware that treatment really can help improve their lives. Then there’s a lack of access to mental health care, which is still one of the main barriers today. For some, this lack of access is due to a limited number of mental health care providers. According to the AAMC, it’s estimated that 129.6 million people in the US live in one of over 5,900 federally designated mental health care professional shortage areas.
On the other hand, this lack of access to care can also be due to costs. According to the APA, the inability to afford mental health care was the top reason for people not receiving mental health services in 2018. And even if people have insurance to help cover the costs, they often find it difficult to locate a provider in their insurance network, AAMC reports.
No Time Like the Present to Find Mental Health Treatment Options
Breaking the stigma of mental health treatment starts with understanding that mental illness isn’t a sign of weakness. Rather, choosing to face and overcome your mental health struggles is actually a sign of strength. There’s no reason to keep sitting on the sidelines if you have an untreated mental health disorder. Now is the time to get help. In fact, choosing to seek treatment early in your struggles can also save you from further pain down the road, such as substance abuse, unemployment, and other long-term issues mentioned earlier.
Just like with addiction, however, you don’t need to wait until something happens that forces you to start looking at your mental health treatment options. Instead, it’s best to address any problems you’re seeing now before they become even bigger problems. If you can relate to any of the following challenges, it may be time for you to partner with a mental health treatment program, like ours at The Blanchard Institute:
- Difficulty maintaining employment or managing daily routines
- Experiencing social withdrawal/avoidance due to anxiety or depression
- Difficulty managing stress or emotions
- Experiencing passive suicidal ideation
- Recently participating in non-lethal self-harm
Your Voice of Hope at The Blanchard Institute
If you’re ready to start your journey of healing, our specialized Mental Health Program at The Blanchard Institute is ready to come alongside you and be that voice of hope. Taking a family-centered approach to outpatient mental health treatment, we provide both full-day partial hospitalization (PHP) and half-day intensive outpatient (IOP) programming in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Our goal is to provide the support, flexibility, and comprehensive care you need to navigate your mental health recovery well and become your highest and best self. We also offer dual diagnosis treatment programs for any co-occurring addictions you may be experiencing, as well as family support programs for your affected loved ones.
Mental health is a journey, and so is recovery. Strength, community, and professional direction can make all the difference in how you move forward. If you’re ready to achieve lasting healing, call us now to get started.