Real Life Real Faith Men of Faith July/August Issue | Page 21

Hurley’s Mental Note…
“Mind” Your Business
As a mental health professional I see a lot of things that would make most people cringe at the
sight. The sight of what you may ask? Extreme cases of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual), drug
and alcohol addictions (which are listed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM), which is known in the mental health world here in the US as the Mental
Health Bible, as forms of mental illnesses), generational curses, very poor living conditions,
homelessness, legal issues (felonious backgrounds), unemployment issues, etc. Typically, mental
health and these conditions unfortunately tend to cause the other. It’s either that the before
mentioned cases lead to mental illnesses or having mental illnesses lead to the before mentioned
cases. My 18 years of experience have afforded me the opportunity to learn so much about
mental health…and the amazing thing about it all is I am still learning. All the various forms of
mental illnesses, the signs and symptoms of these illnesses, what may cause them, and what
happens if they go untreated are all the areas that a mental health professional have to be
knowledgeable of because it drives how we approach each case…and we have to approach each
case, each client/consumer that we work, with on an individual basis. Speaking of "what happens
if they go untreated"...that is what I want to touch on with this article. More specifically...being
that this magazine is for men...we want to explore this matter as it pertains to the “typical”
mindset of most men. How we think and how such things as our egos and pride serves as barriers
to our ability or desire to ensure that we are being “mind”ful of our own mental health.
Let’s look at depression for instance. In a previous article I wrote about the risks of not treating
depression. Let’s revisit these risks.
 Prolonged personal suffering - Untreated depression produces personal distress of
varying levels of intensity.
 Worsening of symptom - With untreated depression you stand the chance of it
becoming worse. Depression can go from mild depression to major depression…and
yes there are different levels of depression!
 Risk of suicide - Yes…depression causes some people to contemplate suicide and for
some they follow through with the thoughts of suicide with actual attempts at suicide.
It was discovered through my reading that international research in various countries
has repeatedly shown that almost 80% of people who have committed suicide have
had uncontrolled depressive illness at the time of their death. This illness is very
serious and shouldn’t be taken lightly.
 Damage to relationships - Relationships become strained when depression becomes
untreated for a variety of reasons such as the person becoming more withdrawn, more
irritable, less able to do their normal tasks, and usually markedly less interested in
normal sexual activity.
 Damage to children - Children are sponges. They take in what’s in their
environment. There is widespread research to indicate increased risks of anxiety, poor
self-esteem and other physical and psychological symptoms in the children of parents
who are depressed, including young babies whose mothers have untreated post-natal