In February of 2021, nearly 43% of adults in Mississippi reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Mississippi.
Melody Madaris is President of the board of NAMI - Mississippi and executive director of Communicare, a community mental health center in northeast Mississippi.
She says that during the holidays, seasonal changes may bring on certain mental health struggles like depression.
“Something like Seasonal Affective Disorder is a little more than the ‘winter blues’, it’s a true depressive disorder and it comes and goes with the seasons,” she said. “It’s important for people not to just write it off during this time as just being sad or tired.”
Madaris also says that either isolation from or proximity to relatives can exacerbate mental health issues like substance abuse.
“If you feel guilty or if you are someone who truly is an addict, you use drugs to stop symptoms of something else, whatever that may be. You’re using drugs to stop a symptom of something, and sometimes being around family members does increase that drug use,” said Madaris.
These issues can be made worse during the holidays, Madaris says, by generational divides within families and their differing interpretations of mental health topics.
“I do think that at times, when people who don’t have an understanding of mental health disorders talk to someone struggling, they say things such as ‘you just have to deal with it,’ or ‘get over it’ and that just doesn’t help.”
It's estimated that 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year.
