I’m sure you’ve heard the statistic “1 in 4 people have a mental disorder” before, but do you really know what it means? It means that one out of four people struggle with something that they have little control over, yet society often believes that mental health disorders are shameful, dangerous, or self-inflicted. There is a stigma associated with mental health disorders that we, as a community, need to learn to eliminate so that those one out of four people no longer have to feel like their feelings aren’t valid or something they should keep quiet.
Many people believe that mental health disorders are over exaggerated and self-inflicted, and all that one has to do is just stop thinking about it or move past it. When you judge someone for having a mental disorder, it’s the equivalent of telling someone with a disease to “just get better” or telling someone with a broken bone that they can heal themselves if they “only think positively.” People aren’t afraid to talk about the amount of times they’ve broken a bone or have gotten stitches, but the moment someone says “I have depression,” everyone goes quiet, as if depression, or any other mental disorder, is an uncomfortable topic better left unspoken. A mental health disorder is something you can’t often call in sick to work for or fix easily with over the counter drugs like when you have a headache.
Most people don’t know how to react when someone says they have a mental disorder. One of the main reasons why stigma exists is because people don’t understand exactly what it means to have a mental disorder. Due to this naivety, people often believe that those with mental disorders are different. However, just because someone needs the help of a therapist or medication doesn’t make them different. We are all human, and we all seek help in different aspects of our lives. When someone you know has a mental disorder, the best thing you can do is treat them like a normal human being because that’s what they are. You don’t question someone who needs a doctor’s help to relocate a shoulder or cure a disease.
The fight against stigma still has a long way to go, but each person that learns more about what a mental disorder is and the importance of acceptance brings us another step closer to the end. Do the best you can to support the people you know struggling with a mental disorder, whether it’s a friend, a family member, or even yourself. We take physical issues seriously, so why can’t we take the mental ones seriously too? Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
