Are mental health issues caused by laziness?

Blog Post #2

I heard a viewpoint once that people that struggle with mental health, such as anxiety or depression, are lazy. I was quite appalled, and passionately disagreed with that statement. There are quite a few real life examples of how that statement is false.

(Disclaimer: I'm not trying to start an argument. Many of you may even know who made that statement. This post is inspired by thoughts on this statement, and not meant to destroy or pick this person apart.)

Let me take you along in an evening of the life of young Trudy. I don't remember my age exactly, but I was probably around 8-10 somewhere. We were at my grandparents' house having a gathering. It was slowly getting darker and all the kids were still playing outside. The parents sat in the living room inside and I was sitting snug against my moms chair. Not because I wasn't feeling well, or didn't like playing. I just had this awful feeling in my chest. I felt like something horrible was going to happen and I couldn't shake that fluttery anxious feeling.

I was a child.

Children are fairly active and don't have serious responsibilities. I don't think it's fair to call them lazy. (Not the life we lived when I was a child anyway.)

This is an example of mental health being an issue at a young age, when the child didn't have anything to do with those feelings being present. 

Not only do active young children have anxiety, there's many other examples of people struggling with mental health whether they're physically or spiritually lazy or not. 

That post partum mother.

That mom that's already overtired with 5 kids and gets a positive pregnancy test.

That innocent child that got molested at a young age. 

Am I saying that these situations can't turn around and be a beautiful story that glorifies God? Absolutely not. 

But what I am saying is that mental health is so much more than being lazy. I think that laziness CAN cause mental health issues.  Such as basing too many of your actions on feelings, never getting any exercise, and eating like crap. Or letting your life situations get to you and use that as an excuse to be lazy.

But there's so many people that have mental health issues that want so badly to get out of it, but there's too much judgment and stereotype coming from the outside world.

I think in order to understand any of mental health, we need to realize that everyone's experience is different. You may struggle for only a few months, and shout to the world how you got out of it. Someone else may struggle for years. And to summarize it, we need to understand that most of mental health definitely isn't caused by laziness. I hope that we can accept the fact that everyone's experiences are different and show compassion to those who may struggle longer than you.