Have you ever met someone who doesn’t believe that mental illnesses exist? Do you know someone who thinks that taking medication and seeing a therapist is just a form of “attention seeking”? Sadly, this is just one point of view that severely damages the lives of those suffering from mental illness. Mental health is a topic that should be as widely spoken about as any other health condition. Here are some misconceptions we can all work together to break.
Mental Conditions are Uncommon
Many of us know someone who has suffered from some form of depression or anxiety. However, some think you can just “get over” mental illnesses over time (which is an entire issue in itself). This type of thinking discredits a person’s illness and their suffering entirely. As a result, people are left with the incorrect belief that “true” mental illness isn’t very common. Someone might say “So and so was depressed for a while, but that doesn’t mean she has depression”. Obviously this statement is oxymoronic and reveals that many individuals refuse to comprehend the reality of mental health in our society.
1 in every 5 Americans, or roughly 42.5 million adults suffer from mental illness in some form or another each year. That is a simply staggering number. In addition, around 17 million children in the US are also suffering from a mental condition, but less than 35% of them will receive treatment. Of course, some of this will be due to financial reasons such as a lack of health insurance. Although, much if it does have to do with the mental health stigma. Just to give a little bit of perspective, 70% of children in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health condition. This proves that many young people suffering from a mental health issue might not be receiving the type of treatment they deserve.
Mental Illness is “Infectious”
I particularly love this interview with Goutham Menon, professor and director of the University of Nevada, Reno School of Social Work. In it he says “I had a moment when I was growing up when I told my granddad that I wanted to do social work and work with the mentally ill, and he said, “Don’t do that, because you’ll become mentally ill.” It’s those types of misconceptions and beliefs that exist in society that create problems for people in terms of what they actually want to do and what is in their heart.”
He’s absolutely correct with this line of thinking. Studies show that people believe they can “catch” someone else’s mental illness. One such study examined 45 undergraduate students and their thoughts regarding mental conditions. They were asked a series of questions in relation to many mental conditions including alcoholism, anorexia, major depressive disorder, hypochondria, tourettes, autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. It turned out that 56% of these folks believed that an individual who associates with an alcoholic on a regular basis is likely to become an alcoholic themselves – just by being around that person. They believed the same about other illnesses such as anorexia, major depressive disorder, and hypochondria. However, they did not feel the same about conditions such as tourette’s, autism, and schizophrenia.
Whether or not people truly believe that others can “catch” someone’s mental illness remains unclear. The fact of the matter is, our society does attach a stigma to certain mental conditions. It seems that some are much more taboo than others. For example, alcoholism remains to be seen as a choice instead of an illness. Meanwhile, something like autism is very much seen as a medical condition. Although, research does show that sufferers of alcoholism are also regularly linked to multiple mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.
Mental Health is a Choice
Continuing from the previous point, evidence seems to point towards the fact that people believe mental health is a choice. In the above study, the term “infectious” more or less points towards individuals choosing to adopt someone else’s way of life. We’ve all heard our parents say “I don’t want you hanging around so and so they are a bad influence on you”. Well, the same can be said for mental health stigmas. This is to say that people believe that a person can turn their mental illness on and off depending on their company and essentially what they are saying is “mental illness isn’t real”. They are saying “If your friend acts this way, you will want to as well”, which needless to say, is an absolutely ludicrous statement about mental health.
Although some sufferers of mental illnesses do go through peaks and valleys in regards to their mental health, many others will consistently suffer for most, if not all, of their lives. Mental illness is a daily battle that many have to face. Just because a person is able to live a comfortable life in tandem with their mental illness, does not mean that it does not exist. They have simply found a way to combat their condition on a daily basis. However, this isn’t to say that many others will not recover from their mental illness, because it has been proven to be a treatable condition.
If you are able to take one piece of advice from this, I would suggest that it be “open your heart and mind”. Mental illness is real and it’s affecting much more of the population than we realize. It’s costing people their relationships, their jobs, their overall ability to function as a regular member of society. It’s time to stop looking at mental health as an inconvenience and start treating it like the disease that it is.