Losing a Mental Health Battle: Warning Signs You Should Never Ignore
- Ann Maria Thomson
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Understanding What It Means to Lose a Mental Health Battle
Imagine having a friend who suddenly avoids conversations about their life, work, or daily experiences. You might assume they are growing distant, uninterested, or forming new friendships. Rarely do we pause to ask, “Are they okay? Are they silently struggling?”
Now imagine your sibling staying in bed for days. Before asking what’s wrong, the situation may quickly be labeled as laziness. This is how losing a mental health battle often goes unnoticed—hidden behind assumptions and labels.
Why Mental Health Battles Are Different
Mental health struggles are not a lack of strength or effort. They are internal battles that affect thoughts, emotions, behavior, and physical health, often silently and gradually.
Most of the time, instead of even trying to understand what others are going through, we come up with our own explanations and labels to define their condition. Have you ever thought about the fact that your friend or sibling might be losing their mental health battle?
Every human faces their own battles. That battle could involve fighting hard to earn good pay at the workplace, struggling to find a suitable flat, and so on. While these battles are common and often are resolved over time, one’s battle with oneself is one of the hardest wars to face. When an individual wrestles with his/her own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, their fight doesn’t get restricted to a single aspect, as in a financial crisis (where the concern is only related to money), it affects every aspect of an individual’s well-being.
Mental health battles cannot be resolved as quickly as other battles. The journey to healthy mental wellbeing is a long one, where sometimes even the destination is unknown to the person. Individuals try to fight back as much as they can to hold their ground; however, beyond a certain point, their resources are depleted, preventing them from fighting back and experiencing serious consequences. Recognizing the signs that someone is losing their mental health battle is essential for timely intervention.
These indicators often emerge gradually, signaling a deepening crisis that may involve depression, anxiety, or other mental health disorders. Families, friends, and even individuals themselves must be aware of these warning signs to ensure support and recovery.
Emotional Warning Signs of Mental Health Struggles
Persistent sadness or hopelessness dominates daily life, making life painful with no moments of joy. They become highly irritable, turning minor frustrations into explosive reactions, while mood swings create emotional rollercoasters. These mood swings are not normal and are short-lived; instead, they are extreme, prolonged, and result in disruptive changes in their behavior. Feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem, or excessive guilt become a part of everyday life, fostering a sense that everything is one's fault.
Behavioral Changes That Signal a Deeper Struggle
The most common behavioral change is social withdrawal. Social isolation intensifies individuals' withdrawal from friends and family, canceling plans or avoiding contact withexcuses like fatigue, work, and so on. They stop doing activities that they truly enjoy in their lives, such as dancing, going out with friends, talking, and more. This loss of interest marks anhedonia, a core depression symptom. Another behavioral change involves substance abuse. The use of substances may rise, with alcohol or drugs serving as coping mechanisms, which may make the individual feel better temporarily, but in the long term worsen their existing condition and pave the way for other complications.
Physical Signs Linked to Mental Health Battles
When a person’s energy levels, sleep, and appetite change to an extreme and unusual level, it is a call for help. Changes in sleep include insomnia, oversleeping, or restless nights, leaving them tired the next day. Appetite changes include either total loss leading to weight loss (different from weight loss dieting) or overeating resulting in weight gain. This can lead to eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating disorders. They experience fatigue, making basic tasks like self-care feel overwhelming.
Cognitive and Mental Functioning Decline
The impaired functioning of cognitive activities is another area of concern when it comes to mental health disorders. Reduced concentration, along with memory lapses and foggy thinking, reduces the quality of their work and decisions. Future planning is affected, changing from years to days, reflecting the deep despair of the person. They may avoid stimulating environments due to heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as lights, sounds, or crowds.
Severe Risk Signals Requiring Immediate Help
While considering high-risk signals that require immediate intervention, psychosis and self-harm become dominant. Psychosis or detachment from reality emerges through paranoia, delusions, or dissociation. Self-harm thoughts or attempts signal danger, demanding immediate intervention. Apathy erases motivation for self-care or participation in life, making life harder for these people.
These symptoms don’t exist in isolation. They are interconnected, often amplifying each other in a vicious loop. For instance, poor sleep fuels irritability, which drives isolation from friends and family and deepens thoughts of unworthiness. These symptoms persist for weeks and months, disrupting functioning at work, school, or home. Often, subtle cues like reduced texting or talking, or lack of participation in activities, develop gradually and are overlooked by those around the individual until a crisis hits.
How Cultural Factors Influence Mental Health Expression
Cultural factors play a significant role in how individuals express their underlying mental health concerns. In a patriarchal society, where men are viewed as dominant, men often avoid mental health discussions, hiding vulnerability through anger or withdrawal. Women who are mostly burdened by domestic responsibilities are shunned from expressing their mental health concerns, and these concerns are termed as ‘part of being a woman.’ Reduced academic performance, regular physical complaints, and absenteeism from school are warning signs of mental health concerns in children.
What You Can Do If Someone Is Losing a Mental Health Battle
Open your eyes and look around. Spotting these signs is necessary to provide early treatment before the worsening of the condition. Look out for that friend's subtle disengagement or family member's exhaustion, or your sibling’s constant moodiness.
Acknowledge that they are going through something, instead of labeling it as part of life or laziness. Such terms prevent the person from getting the help that they require.
Book an appointment with a psychologist. They are professionals whose expert guidance and therapeutic approaches are key to the healing journey. At Koott, we have a group of experts, trained specifically in different disorders and across the life span, to ensure the best possible care for our clients.
Recovery demands a holistic approach. Therapy alone is insufficient; other changes are also essential to ensure healthy mental well-being. Exercise boosts endorphins/happy hormones, healthy nutrition counters fatigue, breathing techniques and mindfulness practices reduce obsessive rumination and improve concentration, peer support groups or engaging in shared activities create a sense of belongingness, strengthening emotional connection, and combating isolation.
Your attention to these signs paves the road towards a better tomorrow. Mental health battles can be won with the right interventions and support. Koott supports you in your war, and you are not alone. We are here with you, for you, fighting your battles every day to live a healthy, bright, and fulfilling life.
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