Counseling services to psychiatric care
Mental health disorders are becoming more prevalent in the United States, with an estimated 21 percent of adults affected.
According to a 2023 study by Mental Health America — The State of Mental Health in America 2023: Adult Prevalence and Access to Care — 55 percent of those suffering a mental illness have not received any treatment.
Mental Health America is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance the mental health and well-being of all people living in the U.S. through public education, research, advocacy and public policy, and direct service.
Local mental health experts say there is help available regardless of the severity of the illness, with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.
Michelle Myles, director of crisis services at Acenda Integrated Health, said there is a difference between a mental health disorder that interferes with a person’s daily life and a mental health issue that is more easily handled.
“There a lot of people who have a low level of anxiety about standing up in front of people and giving a speech, but that would not be diagnosed as a mental health disorder because it really doesn’t affect their everyday functioning — it doesn’t make them late for work every day, it doesn’t affect them eating or drinking — so that’s different than someone with generalized anxiety disorder where it maybe is a little bit more severe where the person does have trouble with getting up in the morning or sleeping at night, their mind is racing, they cant concentrate,” Myles said.
Health care professionals recommend counseling as a way to cope with both mental health disorders and issues. A counselor can provide subjective advice.
There also are many support groups that meet once or twice a month and address anxiety, depression and grief. There also are divorce groups for children and adults.
“It helps to just talk about it and know other people may be going through something similar,” Jennifer Bailey said.
Bailey works as a program supervisor for the Shore Family Success Center. Located in Rio Grande, it focuses on providing resources to families in need. Bailey now helps people who struggle with their mental health even though she used to really struggle herself.
“I have been on and off with anxiety since college. It got really bad a few years ago when we moved out of state. I just noticed I was feeling very disconnected from life in general. I wanted to sleep all the time. I felt very numb. Nothing was making me sad but nothing made me happy, either. I was truly disconnected from everything,” Bailey said.
She said her husband noticed she just wasn’t herself, and when Bailey returned home to visit, her brother described her as a zombie.
“Things were bad for me during the day and then they would get better for me at night. At the time I was on medication and it just wasn’t really helping,” Bailey said. “I just told my husband ‘I can’t do this anymore’ and that’s when we went to the hospital.”
Before Bailey sought help, she and her husband decided it would be best for them to move back to New Jersey.
“We didn’t have a support system where we were,” she said, noting she moved in with her sister and received help from her mother taking care of her children while her husband commuted to work every week in Virginia. “It was so nice knowing my kids were being taken care of when I couldn’t do it.”
While in the hospital, she learned a lot about how to cope with depression and anxiety.
“There were group meetings every day and I learned a lot of grounding techniques and even learned about music therapy. I just learned ways to recognize when my body was feeling anxious and overwhelmed and what I could do to alleviate those feelings,” Bailey said.
Out of all the things Bailey tried at the hospital, she said the most beneficial was the grounding techniques.
“I would go outside and find five things I could see and five things I could hear — just using my senses. This just got me out of my own head. It would help me focus more on being in the present, and usually by the time I got to the fifth thing I would just forget what I was doing because I would get distracted by everything that was happening around me,” Bailey said.
Her advice to others who are struggling would be to seek help.
“So many people that you wouldn’t even think may be struggling with mental health actually are. The more people I meet and talk to, the more I realize so many people struggle with it,” she said.
Bailey thinks it’s important to be open about her struggles.
“I will talk to anybody about my mental health journey because I feel like so many people need to know that others struggle with their mental health. Just being able to talk to somebody and confide in somebody at the end of the day could just be enough,” she said.
There is even help beyond therapy such as seeking a licensed physiatrist. Those who are suffering a mental crisis should contact a local screening center.
Cape May County’s screening center is located in Cape Regional Medical Center and can be reached at (609) 465-5999. The hotline is staffed 24 hours every day of the week.
Those who are having issues with everyday functioning or struggling with a mental health disorder should call an outpatient provider such as Acenda.
By CAMRYN SCHULTHEIS/For the Sentinel