Stigma 5: Mental Illness and Heart Disease

One of the many stereotypes associated with heart disease is poor mental health. Given my personal experience coupled with research, I have found that this is not an unjust assumption, but it does not always have to be this way.

To be diagnosed with an illness that annually causes 1 in every 33 deaths worldwide (CDC, 2024), according to the article "Heart Disease Facts" by the CDC, is no laughing matter. It is a heavy load, whether diagnosed as an adult or a child.

The diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, no matter the intensity, is alarming. It usually requires at least monitoring and often a change in lifestyle. This can be a difficult adjustment and often accompanied by dire uncertainty about the future for the patient. This fear of the future is common in both people who were born with congenital disease as well as those who develop it later in life. Unfortunately, this uncertainty leads to anxiety and depression, which can potentially further impact heart health.

This is why monitoring one's mental health and one's cardiac health are often connected as one aspect of one's health and well-being usually has a direct correlation to the other.

An example of this, which I have experienced, is a lowering of oxygen levels due to anxiety and depression. This leads to mental confusion and brain fog which is also a symptom of heart problems. Thus, I confused one for the other and assumed that my heart, which had recently had an episode of arrhythmia, was compromised.

Thank goodness, it was only tricks played by my anxiety. However, it proves a point to treat one aspect of one's health with as much care and understanding as the other because both can impact you in one way or another.

Heart disease inevitably impacts the future of someone diagnosed with the illness. That cannot be ignored. However, the degree of anxiety and likely depression of facing that future is anxiety, and depression can lead to a lowering of standards when facing that future and thus can lead to an equal lowering of its quality.

Be brave, and despite the shaking, fear, and intense uncertainty the heart disease causes, do not let the anxiety win because if it does, it only makes it worse because it has a foothold in your head.

Respect your heart, but don't let it control your mind.