According to Mental Health America:

• Nearly 1 in 5 or 50 million American adults will have a diagnosable mental health condition in any given year.  46% of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition sometime in their life, and half of those people will develop conditions by age 14.
• Anxiety is the most common mental illness in America.
• 21 million US Adults struggle with Major Depression,  3.7 million (aged 12-17) of youth diagnosed with Major Depression.
• 56% or 27 million of Adults with mental illness do not seek any mental health treatment. 60.3% or 2.17 million youth who do not seek out mental health support.

It is often difficult to identify what it is you need as well as asking for the help.  The thought of therapy for some may feel unnecessary, embarrassing or daunting. It is important to know that talking about our problems and feelings actually makes us feel better! Dr. Diane E Dreher Ph.D. shared that talking helps heal our emotional pain, Neuroscience studies by Liberman (et. all.  2007) and Vago and Silbersweig (2012) have found that labeling our feelings reduces activation in the amygdala which is  our brains alarm system that triggers the flight-or-flight reaction. When we give words to our emotions, we move away from limbic reactivity by activating those parts of the brain that deal with language and meaning in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Liberman et. all. 2007) We become less reactive and more mindfully aware.

You may already have ideas on what you can do for yourself but may need just a little bit of confidence, support or another perspective on things.  At Conklin Clinics, Dr. Ginger Conklin DNP for medication management, Reagan Flamboe LPC-MH and TJ Steckler LCSW  are here to help. Contact us at the clinic to schedule your first step it becoming a better and healthy you!