EP 306— The Biggest Myths About Mental Health That Hold People Back

Many of us carry beliefs about mental health that feel true—but actually make it harder to cope, heal, and ask for support. In this episode, we unpack some of the most common myths that keep people stuck, from believing you should be happy all the time and that asking for help is a sign of weakness, to thinking your thoughts are always true or that healing should be a straight line. Learn why challenging these misconceptions can transform the way you understand your own mind, build greater resilience, and approach your mental wellbeing with more compassion. If you’ve ever wondered whether the stories you’ve been told about mental health are helping or holding you back, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to and how does that make you feel an Awaken podcast? I'm Jack, therapist and founder of Awaken Online Therapy, and I want to start today's episode with something that I think is incredibly important. Over the last few weeks, we've been talking a lot about practical ways to improve your mental health. We've spoken about the daily habits, the psychological needs, the principles, but today I want to do something slightly different. Because sometimes improving your mental health isn't about learning something new. Sometimes it's about unlearning something that's simply not true. You see, one of the biggest challenges I face as a therapist isn't always helping people manage anxiety or low mood. Sometimes it's helping people let go of beliefs they've carried around for years. Beliefs like I should be able to deal with this on my own, or if I'm struggling, it means I'm weak. The problem is that with these beliefs, they don't just sit quietly in the background. They influence the decisions people make every single day. They stop people asking for help, they stop people resting, they stop people opening up, they stop people trying therapy. And that's why I think myths about mental health can be just as damaging as mental health difficulties themselves. Because if you're working from the wrong understanding, you often end up fighting the wrong battle. So today I want to walk you through some of the biggest myths about mental health. Not to criticize anyone for believing them, many of us have, but because once we challenge them, it often becomes much easier to look after ourselves in healthier ways. So myth number one, good mental health means feeling happy all the time. Let's start with this big one. The idea that mentally healthy people are happy most of the time, honestly, is simply not true. Because if you've ever met someone who seems emotionally healthy, I can almost guarantee they still experience sadness, stress, disappointment, grief, anxiety, and frustration. The difference isn't that they avoid difficult emotions. The difference is they don't see those emotions as evidence that something has gone drastically wrong. Imagine if every time it rained you thought the weather was broken. It wouldn't make much sense. Rain is part of weather. In exactly the same way, difficult emotions are part of being human. Good mental health isn't the absence of sadness, it's the ability to experience sadness without believing it will last forever. It's knowing that emotions come and go. They're experiences, not your identity. Myth number two, asking for help means you're weak. This one breaks my heart because I hear it so often. People tell me I should be able to deal with this myself. And I always wonder, where did we learn that? Because if you broke your leg, you wouldn't think twice about asking for medical help. If your car broke down, you'd probably ask a mechanic. If your boiler stopped working, you'd call an engineer. Yet when our minds are struggling, many of us decide we should somehow fix it alone. And if we can't, we judge ourselves for it. The truth is that asking for help is not weakness. It's recognizing that human beings were never designed to cope with everything in isolation. We heal through connection, whether that's friends, family, therapy, support groups, reaching out isn't admitting defeat. It's giving yourself another source of strength. Myth number three, if you can't see a problem, it can't be that bad. One of the reasons mental health is still misunderstood is because so much of it is invisible. You can look for somebody and have absolutely no idea what they're carrying. I've worked with people who looked incredibly successful. Great jobs, great relationships, always smiling, and inside they felt exhausted, anxious, or lost. That's why we have to be very careful not to judge suffering by appearances. Just because someone is functioning doesn't necessarily mean they're okay. And equally, just because you appear to be coping doesn't mean you don't deserve support. You don't have to completely fall apart before your struggles become valid. Myth number four, time heals everything. Now this one is partly true. Time can help, distance can help, perspective can help, but time on its own doesn't automatically heal. Imagine spraining your ankle. If you continue running on it every single day without treating it, time alone probably won't solve the problem. The same is often true psychologically. Sometimes healing requires reflection, difficult conversations, changing habits, setting boundaries, processing emotions and asking for support. Time creates opportunity, but what we do with that time often determines whether healing actually happens. Myth number five, you have to hit rock bottom before you deserve help. I think this myth stops more people accessing support than almost anything else. People constantly compare themselves, they think other people have it worse, I'm not struggling enough, I'll wait and see if it gets worse. But here's the problem. We would never apply that same logic to physical health. You wouldn't wait until a small infection became life-threatening before seeing a doctor. So why do we do it psychologically? Support isn't reserved for crisis. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is ask for help while things are still manageable. It's much easier to prevent a fire than it is to rebuild a house. Myth number six, your thoughts always tell you the truth. Our brains are incredible, but they're not objective. They're constantly interpreting the world. Sometimes very accurately, sometimes not. When we're anxious, our brains tend to overestimate danger. When we're depressed, our brains often underestimate hope. When we're stressed, our brains focus on problems. That's why one of the healthiest habits you can build is learning to question your thoughts rather than automatically believing them. So ask yourself, is this a fact? Or is this my mind trying to make sense of how I feel? That question creates psychological flexibility, and flexibility is going to help protect your mental health. Myth number seven, healing is linear. I wish this one were true. It would make life much simpler. Unfortunately, healing rarely looks like a straight line. Most people improve, then they have a difficult week, then they improve again, then something stressful happens, and immediately they think I'm back to square one. But usually that's not the case. Progress isn't measured by never struggling again. It's measured by how you respond when life becomes difficult. Think about learning to drive. Making one mistake doesn't mean you've forgotten how to drive. It means you're still learning. The same is true emotionally. Myth number eight, looking after your mental health is selfish. This one I particularly see in parents, carers, and people who spend their lives looking after everyone else. They believe putting themselves first is selfish, so they give and they give and they give, until eventually they have nothing left. Here's the reality, you cannot consistently pour from an empty cup. Looking after yourself isn't taking away from the people you love, it's allowing you to keep showing up for them in the long term. Rest isn't selfish, boundaries aren't selfish, recovery isn't selfish, they're simply necessary. Myth number nine, mental health is something you only think about when you're struggling. Imagine only brushing your teeth once you had a toothache. Most of us understand that prevention is better than cure. Mental health works in exactly the same way. The habits that protect your mind are often the same habits you build before you desperately need them. Things like sleep, movement, relationships, hobbies, boundaries, purpose. They're not emergency interventions, they're maintenance. And maintenance often prevents much bigger problems happening later down the line. Myth number 10, you're broken. I want to finish with this one because I think it's the most damaging myth of all. So many people quietly carry the belief that there's something fundamentally wrong with them, that they're different, that everyone else has figured life out, that they're somehow broken. But after years of sitting with people in therapy, I can honestly tell you this. I've never met someone who didn't make sense once I understood their story. That doesn't mean every behavior is healthy, it doesn't mean we don't need to change, but it does mean that most of us are responding in understandable waves to the lives we've lived. You're not your anxiety, you're not your depression, you're not your trauma. You're a human being who's trying to make sense of difficult experiences, and that's a very difficult thing to do. So if you take one thing from today's episode, let it be this. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to better mental health isn't what we're feeling, it's what we've been taught to believe about those feelings. The myths we've explored today don't just influence how we think, they influence whether we ask for help, whether we rest, whether we open up, whether we believe change is possible. So over the next week, I'd encourage you to ask yourself one simple question. What belief about mental health have I been carrying that might no longer be serving me? Because sometimes healing doesn't begin with changing your life. Sometimes it begins with changing the story you've been telling yourself about your mind. As always, thank you so much for listening. And if you have found this podcast useful, feel free to rate us five stars on your streaming platform of choice. It really does help us reach more people. I've been Jack, and this has been And How Does That Make You Feel an Awakened Podcast, and I'll see you at the next one.