Mental Health Challenges Don’t Always Look Like a Crisis

Mental health needs come from a crisis, a trial, or a traumatic experience. 

But do they always?

A more common understanding needs to be that mental health struggles don’t always look like a crisis. 

Sometimes they look like getting up, going to work, answering emails, taking care of everyone else, smiling at the right times—and quietly wondering why you feel so tired.

Anxiety can look like being incredibly prepared.

Depression can look like functioning, but feeling very little while you do it.

Trauma can show up as independence, perfectionism, people-pleasing, anger, shutting down, or always needing to know what is going to happen next. 

In reality, healing looks a lot less like “getting over it” and a lot more like learning how to live a meaningful life while acknowledging what happened to you.

As we head into the joys and stresses of the winter holidays, I want us to remember something important:

Struggling and succeeding can exist at the same time.

Perhaps they often do.

• You can be grateful and still be hurting.
• You can love your life and still have days when it feels incredibly heavy.
• You can be strong and need help.
• You can have faith and still have questions.
• You can be healing and still have triggers.
• You can be helping other people while recognizing there are parts of you that need care, too.

One of the greatest misunderstandings about mental health is the idea that we have to determine whether someone is struggling “enough” before their pain deserves attention.

We don’t.

Pain does not have to become a crisis before it matters.

Everyone matters. Ourselves included.

That doesn’t mean we always matter more or that we always have to put ourselves first. It means our well-being matters consequentially. Caring for our own mental health affects our ability to be present in our relationships, fulfill our responsibilities, and support others when they need us.

Every person matters—to someone, for something, and because of something.

But trauma, rejection, loss, abuse, failure, mental illness, and difficult relationships can slowly convince us otherwise. They can change the way we see ourselves and even make us believe our hardest experiences—or sometimes the struggles we think we shouldn’t be having—define us.

That is why self-worth and hope matter.

Hope isn’t pretending everything will work out perfectly. Nor is it telling someone, “Everything happens for a reason.” Sometimes terrible things happen for no good reason at all.

Hope isn’t asking people to ignore pain and simply think positively. Acceptance of painful realities still matters.

Hope is the possibility that something meaningful can still exist beyond this moment.

And sometimes, when we cannot see that possibility ourselves, we need someone beside us who can hold onto it for a little while.

Little Moments Can Have Big Impact

We also have to be careful not to try to “fix” another person’s challenges for them.

First, we can’t.

Second, when we take over, we can unintentionally overlook the strength and abilities already within that person. Supporting someone is different from rescuing them. Our role can be to walk alongside them while they develop and use the resources, relationships, skills, and strengths available to them.

At the same time, we often underestimate our ability to affect another person’s mental health because we think helping requires expertise, perfect words, or some enormous intervention.

It doesn’t. 

• A teacher noticing the student who has become unusually quiet and saying hello.
• A friend sending the text to the person who has been on their mind.
• A therapist sitting with pain without rushing to fix it.
• A parent repairing after losing their temper.
• A coworker saying, “I’ve noticed you haven’t seemed like yourself lately,” without demanding an explanation.
• A pastor making room for grief instead of immediately trying to explain it.
• A person choosing to listen rather than judge.

These moments may seem small to the person giving them, but they may not be small to the person receiving them.

They communicate worth. Give voice. Create room for hope.

I know this professionally as a clinical social worker, and I know it personally as someone whose own story includes childhood trauma and foster care.

People matter; Relationships matter; Small moments matter; hope matters.

This holiday season, I don’t want to simply “raise awareness.”

I want to challenge what we notice.

Notice the person who is usually helping everyone else. The child whose behavior may be communicating something they don’t yet have words to explain. The person who seems successful but exhausted.

Notice when someone needs compassion—and when accountability and compassion need to exist together.

And notice yourself.

You don’t have to wait until you’re falling apart to acknowledge that you’re tired, overwhelmed, anxious, grieving, lonely, or hurting.

Even when life doesn’t immediately get better, hope can still be possible.

Even when there isn’t a crisis, caring for and calming our minds still matters.

Maybe that is one of the most important things we can remind one another during this season:

You matter. Your story matters. And sometimes one person, one relationship, or one seemingly small moment can help someone believe in possibility again.

---

Want to go deeper? Amber’s book, Finding Hope combines resilience, hope, and coping skills for the adults who care for hard-to-reach kids. It gives you practical ways to build hope in your own life and to help the children in your care find it.