Taking Control of Mental Illness-We Have the Freedom to Find the Answers!

Can we do anything about our mental illnesses? We are told that they occur because of our genes, the environmental influences we were around growing up, our personality traits, our disposition, and the way we live our lives. If we have stress or no stress, we are told, if we have all these determinants piled up in our personal history, we are more likely to have a mental illness. Some psychiatrists tend to stick with this thought. This then being put across as the absolute truth of science. Of course, this stirs up a feeling of low self-esteem, doubting and helplessness in who ever it may be that is suffering with the illness. We are then turned to adhere to the idea that medications are the only answers to mental illness, which is a curse nature has bestowed upon us.
We feel a loss of freedom when we have a mental illness. Discovering we are tied to the emotional issues of our life and that we cannot dispose of them; we feel we can no longer think freely.
Our bodies bear the burden of stress created in our minds. The freedom that is lost brings up a sense of fear or a feeling of being helpless and not able to cope. These feelings allow insecurity to dominate. We then lose confidence in our own worth. Our self-esteem lowers. With a deficiency in our confidence and self-esteem, comes an inability to make decisions that are appropriate. All these conditions in compass a person suffering with a mental illness. When seeking help a mentally ill person already has lost - confidence, self-esteem and sense of freedom.
Sometimes there is a tendency to make the person dependent on medication, instead of helping the person become independent and gain back the freedom they have lost.Medication definitely plays a role in controlling the condition of an illness. But does it improve the quality of life permanently? A person needs to take responsibility for their own well being, to improve their quality of life; which can ivolve medication and then maybe not. Living in a free society, we have the freedom to continue to suffer or to find answers to minimize our suffering. Somewhere deep inside we must find the strength to reach out and search for those answers!