How do I know if I have a mental health problem?

We all experience disappointments and times when we feel hopeless, lonely, sad, and worried about the future, and overwhelmed. But if these feelings don’t go away easily and start to interfere with your daily life, and you feel helpless and can’t enjoy anything, this might be a mental health problem.

Factors that can affect mental health

Our mental health is affected by things that happen throughout our life, particularly if we have experienced a difficult childhood. We’re most likely to experience depressed mood or anxiety if we are in a situation where we feel trapped and can’t see a way out. Especially if we feel rejected and not good enough.

What can I do?

It can be difficult to see a way forward, but we can change how we think about them. There are some unhelpful and more helpful ways of thinking. With practice you can learn to change the way you think, which can help to improve your mental well-being.

Here are some examples of how to change the way you think.

Something feels like a disaster.
Ask yourself: Is it really a disaster?
Try to think: It’s a difficult situation and I can work out some things to do.

Everyone around you seems perfect, but you are terrible.
Ask yourself: Am I being too harsh on myself?
Try to think: nobody is perfect, but I’m good enough.

I should, I must.
Ask yourself: Am I putting unreasonable demands on myself?
Try to think: I can do my share, but I don’t have to do it all

You only see the downsides of situations
Ask yourself: Am I focusing only on negative aspects and overlooking any positive ones?
Try to think: I can see that there are some problems, but there are probably also opportunities in this situation

I always or I never, or everyone
Ask yourself: Aam I overgeneralizing? Just because it happened that way in the past doesn’t mean it will happen again.
Try to think: That happened once, how can I make it different this time?

This can be difficult to do on your own and takes practice. If you continue to feel depressed or anxious most of the time most days and your low mood affects your daily life, see a GP or mental health professional or call one of these free and anonymous helplines.

We thank all collaborators that contributed to the development, production, translation, promotion and dissemination of these videos.

CRE WaND expert panel (content creation and script development): Dr Mridula Bandyopadhyay, Dr Karin Hammarberg, Professor Jane Fisher, Professor Martha Hickey, Professor Flavia Cicuttini, Dr Karin Stanzel, Dr Helen Brown, Dr Heather Craig, and Ann Macrae

Media production company: Punchy Media

Research translation and dissemination partner: Jean Hailes for Women’s Health

Funding partners: Victorian Government – Department of Health, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)