To say that mental illness is not an easy subject to talk about is an understatement. It took me about six minutes just to come up with the first sentence of this article. It’s a hard subject to face because it comes with a lot of negative images: self-harm, suicide, violence, insanity, and other various things that society deems bad. When people look more closely, however, it’s clear that those images represent such a small portion of a really big demographic in America.
The demographic is large: According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) approximately 18.2% of the adult population in America experiences some kind of mental illness in a given year. Amongst people aged 15-19, this figure rises to 21.4%. These demographics make up a substantial percentage of the population in America, and yet for many mental illness is treated as something that is bad or scary. Mental illness itself is not scary, it’s the statistics on treatment that are truly staggering. Amongst adults with serious mental health issues, 62.9% sought mental health services in the past year. The figure drops to 41% when talking about cases that are not deemed serious. Treatment is a major issue in this country, because whether it’s lack of money or fear of judgement, people are not seeking help which causes more problems than it solves. People afraid of being grouped into the bad stereotypes should realize that the bad stereotypes often are derived from cases where people don’t seek help or don't receive the proper help. Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, and it can be remedied with support and guidance, but to receive either first one must admit that they are having problems.
This is not a new admission, but I fall into this demographic. In May of 2016 I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. It didn’t come as a shock to me because I had been having problems with both of them for the better part of high school. Through a chain of events leading into high school I went into panic mode and more or less went completely isolationist. I cut myself off from socialization with new people and I quickly felt as if I was the only person without friends. Quickly I was recommended to a counselor at Brebeuf who definitely made things easier by having me start to talk about and work through my problems. Even as things got better for me, I knew there was something that just wasn’t quite right. I’d sometimes wake up feeling off and would go through my days just trying to get to the end. I’d sometimes get really anxious and I didn’t know why. Finally, as the stress of the college process and my mother’s hospitalization came to a head, my mom recommended I see an outside professional, which I agreed to do.
To say that getting help changed my life would be an understatement. To say getting that help was easy is a different story. The same roadblock that keeps many people from pursuing help is the one that got in my way: I would tell myself “I don’t need help; I can figure it out on my own.” I was not the first, nor will I be the last, to think this. However, getting help made a world of difference for me. Getting help made it easier to see my issues from another point of view, and to see in what ways I was being shortsighted in some of my behaviors. Additionally, it helped me to be more self-aware, and to be able to recognize when I was having a breakdown or was having an off day and being able to map out what I might have to do differently that day.
I won’t play any games and say living with mental illness is easy. It is hard some days. Some days it’d be so easy to just take the L and watch Friends in my bed and eat some marshmallow fluff. Unfortunately, life doesn’t afford people with such luxuries. Some days are definitely going to be harder than others, and over time it becomes easier to recognize these days and create a routine to handle them. For me, it meant asking more people for hugs than usual and going to get a couple donuts for breakfast. It’s different for everybody, but it’s manageable and it certainly doesn’t mean that days have to be complete wrecks.
Mental illness is one of those things that is to a large extent whatever you make it: If one seeks treatment, tries things of their own to combat minor episodes, and realizes that it isn’t taboo to be mentally ill, then mental illness most likely doesn’t have to be a huge problem. It’s so manageable, and all a person has to do is to go to a friend and start the conversation. It isn’t easy, but trust me, it pays dividends.
