By: Stacia Strong
Published: May 17, 2021
Copyright 2021 WITN. All rights reserved.
GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) – May is Mental Health Awareness Month and mental health provider Integrated Family Services is highlighting the importance of taking time to take care of your mental health, especially after what’s been an incredibly tough year.
Community Liaison for the organization, Keith Hamm says we should shift our way of thinking about mental health. He says, “Mental health is not all that different than your medical health, it’s just a different part of your body.”
Hamm says so many of us deal with stress, anxiety, and even depression on our own thinking that these issues aren’t bad enough to reach out.
“What people need to realize is, that I may be feeling depressed more than normal today but I don’t rise to that level of those folks who need help, well part of dispelling the stigma is realizing that at some point those folks who do need help were where you are today,” explained Hamm.
Hamm says if people experiencing stress, anxiety, and depression reached out they could get help that will allow them to manage how they are feeling and dealing with things.
Integrated Family Services and many other organizations offer help to those in need at any level of distress. “Get help early, where you can get some help and get things more on an even keel,” said Hamm.
It’s with that in mind that Integrated Family Services is hosting a 3-day virtual event focused on all aspects of mental health and the mental health crisis that many communities are dealing with right now.
Hamm explains, “Trying to help people make the right connections to the right people at the right time and that seems to be a huge breakdown in what’s happening as far as the mental health crisis, people just don’t know where to go or when to go there.”
The event begins next Tuesday, May 25, 2021 and is free for anyone to join. You can register for the event here, Facebook-Integrated Family Services.
Mental health experts strongly encourage anyone in need to reach out for help, and to never be afraid to ask for help. They say there are resources available and many of them are free.