I’m a Public Health major with a particular interest in Mental Health. I thought my reasons for this was obvious (especially to ppl who know me) but it’s interesting not many people knew this about me. Well anyways, if you dontttttt know now ya know *biggie voice*

So I was in my multicultural health class and we were discussing why there aren’t a lot of mental health resources made available or that are covered under most insurances. This girl said something to the extent that “well I understand why mental health isn’t as invested in like physical health matters are concerned because they are more immediately dangerous to a persons health”
My head snapped up with a quickness and honestly it took a lot of strength and focus to channel my passion to use this moment as a learning opportunity for her instead of just blasting her. Because this is a fairly common belief.

But I found myself rambling. I felt like I didn’t have the right words or enough tools or knowledge to back me up when I told her I disagreed. But I basically told her, because people see an oozing gash of blood on someone’s head or a broken limb, it’s easy to sympathize with that person and take their injuries as ‘real’. Where as with mental health, besides some of the symptoms of disease/disorder you can’t really see the problem with just the naked eye. So because you can’t see the mental warfare it’s assumed this is not ‘real’. We really trust our eyes. In fact we live in a world where seeing is believing. You only believe it because you’ve seen it.

Now this made me rewind to back in the day when I was young and chipper and actually had a few athiest friends. They were smart and witty. And they thought critically of the world. So they’d ask these critical questions or we’d get into these long discussions about how I had no real evidence to prove my God exists. I’d be flustered thinking “just believe me I know!” especially because I knew even less about the bible then than I do now so I really [felt] I had no real tangible evidence. And these convos always left me feeling defeated. Like God’d be disappointed in how pathetically I was trying to represent him.

But like the mental health situation it’s like I started wondering… How do I know this is real? Well I feel like it’s similar to asking a person how they know they’re in love. Your heart just knows.

Yes, there is a physical presence of God in my life. Like I can physically see how I’m blessed if I’m measuring by oh idk the fact that I woke up this morning or that taxi driver giving me a free ride when I was broke and stranded with no money. I know that’s God, however, for the most part it’s because my heart just knows. Because no one has ever seen him.

And when you love someone it’s hard to explain why because it’s like your heart just knows. I was talking to a friend about what God means to me and it was hard. It was like just like they teach you in school the basic essentials in life are food, water, shelter well for me i’d include God. Why? Because I can’t make it through my next breath alone without him. He’s in any and everything and I just feel like a lot of religious ppl go about spreading their faith to others the wrong way. Since we live in this world where seeing is believing just let them see God in you. Light through you. Then it’s up to them to believe if it’s real.