The Practitioners and Members of #SameHere’s Global Alliance champion the reality – that mental health is not binary.  There is no “healthy” group of the population, vs a “sick group with disorders.”  Instead, everyone’s mental health lives on a “continuum,” or in simpler words, a “Scale” that stretches from “Thriving” to “Sinking,” (depicted above).  This Scale, developed by #SameHere Global, is based on a science called “Polyvagal,” that explains shifts in the health and balance of our nervous system (the balance between our parasympathetic “rest & digest,” and sympathetic “stress,” nervous system responses). It’s a fluid Scale that everyone in the world’s nervous system (and ultimately mental health) lives and moves on, at different points in their lives (or even their days, weeks, months, etc.).  

Factors that contribute to where one is at on the Scale at any given point in time include: Genetic Predispositions, Life Experiences, Physical Traumas, Environment, and Lifestyle, all of which impact our nervous system’s balance and “psychological flexibility.”  This psychological flexibility means – the ability to go from a place “on the right” of the Scale (more dominant sympathetic responses, like “Fluctuating” and “Struggling”), back to places on the left (more dominant parasympathetic responses, like “Surviving,” “Gliding,” and “Thriving”).  So, say you have a traumatic Life Experience, like the loss of a loved one – it would be expected you would spend some amount of time “to the right” – “Fluctuating, or “Struggling.”  But with time and healing, your “psychological flexibility” allows you to move back “to the left” on this Scale. 

There are some of us with a greater genetic susceptibility to nervous system dysregulation (becoming “inflexible” and staying further to the right on the Scale with greater “sympathetic” nervous system activation) and ultimately symptoms that are referred to by many as disorder(s). That being said, it appears as though regardless of our genetics, the challenges that we will all face throughout our lives, as well as how we treat ourselves, make it so that we are all at risk of slipping into the: “Fluctuating” and “Struggling” portions of the Scale for weeks or more.  And, if we don’t take care of ourselves and we become “inflexible,” there may be too high of a sympathetic response for too long, and we are susceptible to falling into a “freeze” state of our nervous system that we call “Sinking” on this Scale.  Think of this as too many programs open on your computer at once, and it “freezing” because it is becoming overwhelmed.  

Our mental health is therefore cumulative (just like physical health and plaque building in our arteries), and we can monitor how that “sympathetic nervous system response” builds over time, with this Scale, how we become inflexible, and how that even leads to that “Sinking” spot. The key is to understand that any of the above factors can manifest all the way to “dysregulation” and “inflexibility,” and that we must know what thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (like you see in the chart above) to look out for throughout our lives.  We must even be proactive so there is less of a chance for us to develop mental health complications when we stay “to the right” on this Scale for long periods of time.  

To check out exercises and modalities that move you “to the left” on the Scale, check out the #SameHere Alliances tab, and the STARR Experts for all that they recommend. You can even get STARR Exercise Cards for your home or office.

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Below please find profiles of individuals with some of the most common symptoms of mental health dysregulation, and the disorders you can be diagnosed with if you go to a mental health professional.  You can see if any of these classic symptoms resonate with you or a loved one. We have also added a page for what we call “The Human Condition” to show how challenges over the course of our lives affect us all. Maybe you haven’t been affected to the point where your symptoms are considered disorder-level, by a professional, or maybe you haven’t ever sought out help leading to a diagnosis, but everyone deals with these similar challenges, which affect our mental health. After the disorder links, you can click to read stories of celebrities and everyday people who have faced similar challenges, themselves. Lastly, we purposely designed this Scale to work for any age group, so that you do not have to discuss labels or disorders with peers, when discussing mental health. If you or your school district or office would like a formal copy of the scale for your classrooms or corporate spaces (or would like to hear about other interactive ways we use the Scale), please fill out the form in the “Programs” section by clicking HERE, and sending us a message via the link at the bottom of the Schools or Office pages.