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Bella: What do you think the role of psychological health is in maintaining physical health?

 

Sherry: I think that um if you don't the mental health to go outside to exercise, then you're not gonna get physical fitness. With people who have, let's say depression, obviously a lot of the time they struggle to find the energy to leave the house, much less maintain healthy fitness levels for like the average person.

 

Bella: That's true! Mind-body connection and you can see it manifested for sure in depression yeah like your mind feels bad so your body feels bad and then like when your mind feels bad you do behaviors that make your body feel bad. Like stress leads to bad behaviors which leads to more stress which leads to sickness. Alright, uh do you know what mental health is, and what is mental health to you?

 

Sherry: Well, yeah I do know what it is it's a state of psychological health that a person goes through. And what it is to me is [sighs] if I had one word it would be undervalued but it's tied to most things and so I feel like it's important for everyone to maintain or at least take steps to maintain and that it should be more valued in society as it is.

 

Bella: I do agree, so this question is very like an extension of that, how important do you think having access to mental health care is?

 

Sherry: Very

 

Bella: Yes, do you think that you personally have adequate access to mental health care?

 

Sherry: No [both laugh]

 

Bella: Yeah, unfortunately that's like pretty accurate for most Americans. Shoutout the US healthcare system.

 

Sherry: Shoutout. And an F in chat for American citizens [both laugh]

 

Bella: Uh, yeah because it probably cost me like 1,000 dollars to get, with insurance, to get diagnosed with anxiety. It was like an hour long appointment

 

Sherry: And that's not even including like the cost that medicine costs for people in order to manage their mental health

 

Bella: Yeah, I still have to pay for my antidepressants and if I didn't have insurance they would cost 100 and something dollars like it's ridiculous. Anyways, um what conditions or situations do you think mental health care is necessary for?

 

Sherry: Hmm. That's difficult. I have a strong belief that everyone could benefit from a therapist because daily life carries a lot of strife and difficulty

 

Bella: I do agree

 

Sherry: But it's obviously people with depression or people going through gender dysphoria, or people with anxiety, or people who have gone through trauma obviously all apply for that but I do think it should be more generalized than it currently is.

 

Bella: Agreed. So these are some scenarios that we kind of adapted from a mental health survey that kind of like address the severity of a situation, I know you kind of said everyone but we'll just go specifically into these. Would you recommend seeking mental health care if you or someone you knew uh was experiencing stress or a change in lifestyle? 

 

Sherry: I'd say it depends on how much it's impacting your life but in general yes

 

Bella: Okay! This one is a little more severe but would you recommend seeking mental health care if you or someone you knew was experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm? What about visual hallucinations or hearing voices that weren’t there?

 

Sherry: Absolutely

 

Bella: Yeah, that seems uh pretty pertinent situation

 

Sherry: I've had a handful of friends who have suffered through such things and improved through therapy so

 

Bella: Yeah, and especially those type of things can get way worse if you don't seek help so always important

 

Sherry: Mhm

 

Bella: Do you think you would be able to recognize a mental health or emotional problem in a friend or relative?

 

Sherry: That's difficult. To an extent, it relies on how much trust they put on you because someone could be suffering through auditory hallucinations and unless they tell you they're hearing something you have no idea.

 

Bella: That's true and a lot of people depression can like keep it lowkey. Yeah, so ideally but it can be difficult. Right? Okay. Have you ever seen a mental health professional, why or why not?

 

Sherry: I haven't um lack of scheduling, um worry about cost

 

Bella: Worry about cost? Yeahhh that's a really valid concern I think that's a big issue for a lot of people. Would you ever consider going to see a mental health professional, why or why not?

 

Sherry: Absolutely. Um it's I have thoughts of having certain um things like ADD or ADHD-PI um and also as someone who doesn't prescribe to the gender binary getting anything like hormone treatment or any of those things is dependent on talking to a therapist for it to be legal a lot of the time

 

Bella: Really? I didn't know that

 

Sherry: Mhm

 

Bella: I guess that makes sense because you probably have to be diagnosed with like gender dysphoria

 

Sherry: It's treated as a mental illness in some places and I think it was recently made not

 

Bella: Yeah, I remember hearing about that in psychology. Alrighty, who do you think needs mental health care? Do you think that some people need it more than others? I know you kind of touched on that a little bit but

 

Sherry: Yes to both. Obviously certain people are in need of urgent or consistent care while other people could use it if they're like you mentioned, stressed or going through a difficult patch or even just a monthly thing to check and see if they're okay

 

Bella: True...Why do you think mental illness or issues with mental health occur? For instance: a chemical imbalance in the brain, perspectives on life, experiences with others, etc.

 

Sherry: So why do they occur? [Bella nods] I think a lot of it has to do with a chemical imbalance, especially triggered by genetics, except for obviously with trauma in which that is caused through events in life and I'm sure certain things can trigger other things I know that there are mental disorders that only occur after things happen. Sometimes it's something like puberty, or sometimes it's something like actual mental trauma that triggers an awareness of things that were not there before. So I think obviously it's important for some people, you know it just depends - as most things do.

 

Bella: It's complicated huh cause I remember talking about in biopsych in like that um PTSD is obviously in some way correlated with experiences in your life, because you know you have to go through something traumatic. But there's kind of a theory about um, I think they originated it with depression but it has to do with you kind of have to have both a genetic predisposition and you have to have to have um the trauma or the trigger um for it to happen.

 

Sherry: Hmm

 

Bella: So, people who have the genetic link and don't go through trauma don't get it usually but people have both usually like pretty much all the time get it. But then again, people who go through trauma and don't the genetic link have much lower chances of getting it.

 

Sherry: Yeah

 

Bella: So that's why a lot of people who do go through trauma can actually bounce back because they don't necessarily have a genetic predisposition to depression...or like other things too like they found some genetic basis to PTSD, to ADHD, to things like that where you have a certain gene variation like lengths of each like individual like chromosome things like that. Really minimal things that can make a huge difference, I thought that was really interesting.

 

Sherry: That is interesting!

 

Bella: Do you think age and mental health care are related in any way?

 

Sherry: Hmm. That is an interesting question. I think age impacts the culture people went through and how willing people are to seek mental health. I know people my age are more inclined at the very least to take mental health seriously. And they sometimes struggle to actually obtain it though due to legal guardians. I have a friend whose parents don't believe that therapy does anything and so since that is an issue it's harder for them to get the help that they need. So I do think it [age] impacts peoples views towards it as well as like just cultural parts, where you live, the life you live, and I'm sure in some part like political leanings

 

Bella: Yeah

 

Sherry: But I- it's a complicated question

 

Bella: It is. Certainly some relationship but it's not always clear how it works and that's kind of what I'm trying to figure out. Um, has your attitude about mental health changed with age?

 

Sherry: Hmm.

 

Bella: You are young so, it is difficult to know [both laugh]

 

Sherry: Yeah, I think the only thing that's changed is my awareness of it because when you're like 8 years old you don't have many thoughts towards people. And I think the older I get the more I have met people that suffered through mental health issues, like I [sigh] I have one friend that tried to commit suicide and ended up in a- the hospital for that and I have one friend that suffers through auditory hallucinations and I have one friend who suffered through childhood trauma and now suffers through PTSD symptoms they're trying to get stuff for

 

Bella: Yeah

 

Sherry: And obviously my brother suffers from a lot of ADHD symptoms so the older you get and the older the people around you get the more inclined you are to meet other people who

 

Bella: Yeah you just have more experiences with people who struggle with that

 

Sherry: Mhm, and by that virtue it has changed but you could make the argument that that's just experience over age or is there even a difference so

 

Bella: That's true I guess if you're in old person and you just hide in your house your whole life maybe you would never actually change your perspectives on mental health but it's your experiences in like the- like

 

Sherry: Or at least you don't know the name for it

 

Bella: Yeah, you never know yeah like some type of something that could [laughs] I don't know, culture is interesting. Anyways, I think that's all my questions, thank you.

 

Sherry: Awesome

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