Mental Health Awareness Month

Every year, millions of Americans are faced with the reality of being diagnosed or living with a mental illness. We join other organizations to recognize May as Mental Health Awareness Month. This year, our mission is to increase the dialogue and conversation around mental health and the mission of the Church.

2022 NOT ALONE

The AACC’s theme for Mental Health Awareness Month is “Not Alone.”

We ask you to help bring awareness to and through your local church that anyone struggling with mental illness can find the support, appropriate and quality care, and hope they need to live healthy, fulfilling lives. Together, we can continue advocating to raise awareness, fight stigma, and provide support for those with mental illness and their loved ones to let them know they are not alone.

Join us by sharing the graphics below and using the hashtag #NotAlone throughout the month of May.

To highlight what we are presently seeing, Mental Health America’s “The State of Mental Health in America 2022” study revealed:

  • In 2019, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 19.86% of adults experienced a mental illness, equivalent to nearly 50 million Americans.   
  • Over half of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling over 27 million adults in the U.S. who are going untreated.
    • In Hawaii, the bottom-ranked state, 67% of adults with a mental illness did not receive treatment.
    • Even in Vermont, the top-ranked state in the U.S., 43% of adults experiencing a mental illness were not receiving treatment.  
  • The percentage of adults with a mental illness who report unmet need for treatment has increased every year since 2011.
    • In 2019, 24.7% of adults with a mental illness report an unmet need for treatment.  
  • Suicidal ideation continues to increase among adults in the U.S. 4.58% of adults report having serious thoughts of suicide, an increase of 664,000 people from last year’s dataset.
    • The national rate of suicidal ideation among adults has increased every year since 2011-2012.
  • Rates of substance use are increasing for youth and adults, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 7.74% of U.S. adults and 4.08% of youth had a substance use disorder in the past year.
  • 15.08% of youth experienced a major depressive episode in the past year.
  • Over 2.5 million youth in the U.S. have severe depression, and multiracial youth are at greatest risk.

We believe we are only at the tip of the iceberg of what is to come, but will only know once more statistics are presented. Please join us in praying for all those who serve on the mental healthcare continuum and those who have the courage to seek help.

No matter where you fall on the spectrum, your voice and care are needed for such a time as this. Our prayer comes from 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (ESV), “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”