I find that when we hear the words "Mental Illness", we immediately tend to associate them with insane asylums and movies like "Split" or "Sybil". The reality is that mental illness doesn't have a "face", a "movie", or a "theme". Mental Illness can look like me, it can look like you, it can look like the person next to you in line at Target. The truth is that we are surrounded by people who suffer an invisible illness. I want to take some time to just talk about mental illness and the realities that I see every day.
Whether you suffer from a mental illness or have never experienced one before, I hope that this post will make us stop for a moment and really take stock of whether we are part of the problem or part of the solution. I've had clients come in, talking about missing work due to an extreme depressive episode or some other mental illness episode. They describe how their bosses and coworkers treat them after such an episode. Then they describe what it was like when they had the flu and missed work. Unfortunately, the reactions to these two illnesses were very different. The message is that people who suffer with a mental illness should be able to power through their episodes, while people who suffer with a physical illness can miss work in order to get better. I'm not naïve. I know the thoughts that go through people's heads. "Anyone can fake a mental illness.", "They're using it as an excuse." So on and so forth. At least with the flu, a doctor can write a note, prescribe some meds, and confirm that you, indeed, have the flu. Another aspect of mental illness versus physical illness is that it’s not contagious in the way a virus is. People will naturally be more self-protective when someone has a physical illness because who has time to get sick! However, with mental illness, it’s an illness that can’t be “caught”. So when we aren’t directly affected by something, our compassion goes way down.
The good news is that awareness for mental illness is rising. More and more movements are bringing to light the barriers and struggles people face when they suffer from a mental illness. The bad news is that we have a long ways to go. There’s still quite the stigma attached to mental illness, mental health days off, therapy and necessary hospitalizations.
I don’t want to rant on a soap box this whole time. What I would rather do is just encourage anyone reading this to do some introspection. Ask yourself the hard questions:
“How do I react when someone talks about suicide?”
”What are my thoughts when a coworker or employee takes a mental health day?”
”What feelings come up for me when I learn someone has been hospitalized for a mental disorder/episode?”
”How often do I use words like “crazy”, “insane”, “nuts”, etc when discussing someone who might or does have a mental disorder?
These questions aren’t meant to create shame in anyone. These questions are meant to help us identify our own biases and inner thoughts on this topic. The truth is that we hear a lot of different things when it comes to mental illness. When a crime is committed, the media is quick to discuss any disorders that person may have if that information is available. Movies and tv shows almost always connect crime to mental illness. And while it’s very likely that many criminals do suffer from some kind of mental illness, the downside of this is that the “face” of mental illness has become that of criminals and felons. When in reality, the “face” of mental illness is more often ordinary people who have been dealt a hard blow, a rough hand, or genetic compositions that lead to mental illness.
At the end of the day, my greatest hope is that mental illness will one day be treated the same as physical illnesses. I don’t want to normalize mental illness in the sense that we just accept it and do nothing about it. Yes, we need to raise awareness of the fact that mental illness can be just a debilitating as a physical illness and can be just as dangerous. But on the other side of that coin is this: we must normalize treatment for mental illness. The goal is mental HEALTH. Just like how we began raising awareness on what cigarettes cause and then encouraging people to stop smoking. Or how much sugar affects us and can lead to obesity and other issues. We raise awareness on the conditions while normalizing the “cures” or the treatments. If someone gets diagnosed with Diabetes and then says “well this is how I am. I’m just going to keep eating sugar like normal,” we immediately have a reaction to that. We see the danger in that. The same needs to be said for mental illness. Once we are diagnosed with something, our response doesn’t need to be “well this is just the way I am.” Our response needs to be focused on what to do in order to alleviate the symptoms of that mental illness. Raise awareness of the condition. Normalize the treatment!
Until Next Time!
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