We used to think of people with psychological disorders as “crazy” types tucked away in
institutions, barely able to speak a coherent sentence. No more. Since counseling
“mainstreamed” in the late-1900s, psychological treatment has become commonplace. People visit their dentist, their doctor, and their therapist, not because they’re necessarily doing terribly, but because they need some help along the way. Some of us need help with the two most common mental disorders, anxiety and depression. Anxiety affects close to 20 percent of Americans every year, and depression, the leading cause of disability, affects close to 10 percent. If we consider the whole lifetime of a person, those rates are much higher. The point: Many, many average, everyday people struggle with these two disorders. If you do, you’re not crazy, weak, or irreversibly damaged. You’re on a healing journey.
Many who suffer with these two disorders never receive treatment. For example, over two-thirds of Americans with anxiety never receive treatment for it. We can attribute this to a complex array of factors. To mention a few:
Stigma– People feel ashamed and self-conscious about mental health problems.
Cost– Not all insurances cover behavioral health, and self-pay can be exorbitant.
Accessibility– Due to distance and fear of disclosing personal issues with a stranger,
finding help can be a difficult process.
Social stretching is going a little outside of one’s isolative comfort zone toward connecting with other human beings. See, people with depression and anxiety tend to withdraw socially. Their inner turmoil makes them feel as if no one in the world will understand. They feel walled off, caught up in storms of pain and fear that others can’t see. Loneliness and desperation well up. They begin to tell themselves stories like, “No one understands.” “I’m alone.” “No one cares.” “I don’t matter.” Social stretches pull us out of these loneliness-reinforcing behaviors into connection. A smile at a stranger here. A conversation with a forgotten friend there. It’s amazing how quickly we feel human again.
Here are examples of social stretches you can do on a daily basis. Modify them to personally suit your situation and expand on them.
Tell a cashier you like her hairdo,
Strike up a conversation at a bus stop,
Wave at neighbors,
Let people go first in line and smile,
Ask a service person their first name and use it,
Ask for directions and thank the person,
Call message a friend just to say hi,
Bring a small gift to a neighbor,
Reach out to a helper-type and offer to pray for them.
One important key to implementing this strategy is that social stretches can be small. It’s the baby steps we take that accumulate into giant leaps. Try implementing a social stretch every day and see if it doesn’t lift your spirits!
(Submitted by Betty Dean. Used by permission from www.lifeandhealth.org. Courtesy of LifeSpring – Resources for Hope and Healing Stuart, VA)
