Mental health and hygiene

One of the worst things about mental illness is how it seeps into so many parts of your life, affecting even the most mundane things, like showering and brushing your teeth.

And we often struggle to talk about this part of mental health. One of the reasons why we struggle to talk about it is because hygiene is moralized when it shouldn’t be.

Practicing hygiene is a good thing because it can prevent disease and help us care for our bodies. But unfortunately, we often associate a lack of hygiene with poverty, laziness, homelessness — all things we, as a society, discriminate against.

What this means is that there’s a lot of shame around hygiene. This shame can fuel both obsessions with hygiene, and the stigma surrounding mental illnesses that make it hard for us to practice basic hygiene.

But why is this? Why does depression make it so hard to shower? Mainly, studies say that major depression is often characterized by diminished interest in activities, as well as fatigue. In other words, you probably have little motivation or energy to maintain hygiene while depressed.

The physical symptoms of depression, such as physical pain, can also cause people to avoid showering. Depressed individuals will also experience physical pain, along with their depressive symptoms, causing them to not feel physically able to care for their personal hygiene needs.

In addition to depression, anxiety disorders and sensory processing disorders can make it difficult to shower and maintain personal hygiene.

Individuals with sensory processing issues may struggle to shower because the temperature or the actual physical touch of the water is physically painful for them.

The mental illness we most commonly associate with cleanliness is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Pop culture’s depictions of OCD, like in “Monk,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Glee” mean we often think of people with OCD as fastidious, super-organized germaphobes who are convenient punchlines for thoughtless jokes. Those who have OCD may have difficulty attending to personal hygiene in a fluid manner, for they may feel the need to perform certain hygiene rituals repeatedly (such as washing hands a certain number of times) before moving to the next task. Excessive scrubbing till skin turns raw and washing with harmful detergents as measures to maintain personal hygiene are not unheard of.

Ultimately, is it important that all aspects of ourselves are healthy and that includes our minds. Yes, we should all practice hygiene for the sake of public and personal health. But if your mental health is making it tough to take care of yourself, you shouldn’t feel ashamed about reaching out for support.

Stay Safe!

Maya Ribeiro SHARP