I am no stranger to mental illness.
This sentence alone has the power to scare people, to make people want to shut a conversation down or quickly change the subject, and to force people to think about their own mortality. Mental illness is not something that can be comfortably talked about by the majority of the world, and that needs to change. According to The Kim Foundation, an organization with a focus on reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness and that works to help people with mental illnesses find help, 26.2% of adults 18 and older "suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder."
From the perspective of the 2004 U.S. Census, this translates to roughly 57.7 million people. That number is much too high for the world to pretend that such illnesses do not exist. Too many lives are affected, too many people are left without the proper care and too many people suffer in silence because of the stigma attached to mental illness.
It's easy to understand why there is such a great fear that comes with openly speaking about mental illness. Mental illnesses aren't easily understood themselves, even by those who have them (maybe even especially by them). Mental illnesses usually come attached with the labels "crazy" or "weak." Additionally, acknowledging mental illness means acknowledging the fact that we, as humans, are not invincible, that we are not a perfect species and that sometimes we can't even trust our own minds. Furthermore, mental illnesses are just scary in general. They can make people feel as if they have no control over themselves or as if there is something fundamentally wrong with them. I know this because I personally have dealt with such issues in the past. It's still hard to talk about, I'll admit, but I want to do so for the sake of my argument, which is the encouragement of open discussion of mental illness.
My junior year of high school wasn't the easiest. Like most teenage girls, I was insecure about some things here and there, but over time these insecurities began eating away at me. I began picking apart every little thing about myself, tearing myself down constantly. I compared myself to my friends, wishing that I was as skinny, intelligent or pretty as them. I couldn't look in the mirror without being disgusted at the girl looking back at me. Ironically, I ate to fill this feeling of emptiness inside me and needless to say, this only made me feel worse.
I'm not sure exactly what triggered this action, but one day after a particularly large binge, I forced myself to vomit. This behavior became a regular occurrence, binging to fill the emptiness, then purging, only to make that emptiness greater. To me, it was a way to gain control. Over the next few years, I slowly overcame this vicious cycle of binging and purging. My friends were there to talk to me whenever I felt badly, and it took a lot of conscious effort on my part to find other ways of gaining control and ridding myself of whatever poisonous thoughts were in my head that caused me to want to hurt myself in the first place. My new year's resolution for 2015 was to officially stop those past behaviors, and I'm proud to say that I've been successful thus far.
I've also had loved ones affected by mental illnesses. My best friend, who has battled depression since a young age, is truly one of the strongest and bravest people I know. She has overcome too many obstacles to count, and I am beyond proud of where she is now.
The point of these anecdotes wasn't to search for pity by any means. I wanted to tell those stories to say that I know mental illness sucks. I know it hurts and I want people with mental illnesses to be able to speak up and get the help they deserve. According to a 2013 poll by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 60% of adults with mental illnesses did not receive any mental health services. Those services include medication, therapy and hospitalization. While there are a variety of reasons that adults do not seek treatment for mental illnesses, fear of speaking out about their illness plays a large role in this decision.
Often times, people who are depressed are told to simply get rid of whatever is making them feel depressed. People with bipolar disorder are labeled as crazy. People with schizophrenia are written off as insane. People with eating disorders are labeled vain attention-seekers. These words and phrases need to stop being thrown around immediately. Mental illness is not something to be taken lightly or just shrugged off because people think those with mental illnesses are "just being dramatic." By removing these stigmas, allowing people to speak about their mental illnesses and actually listening to what they have to say, we can encourage them to get the treatment that they need and we can sleep easy knowing that they are doing so without fear of being judged. First Lady Michelle Obama once said, "At the root of this dilemma is the way we view mental health in this country. Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg, or your brain, it's still an illness, and there should be no distinction." I wholeheartedly stand by this statement.
On the other hand, listening to somebody talk about their mental illness can be a scary thing, too. It's not easy to listen as a loved one describe something so personal as the innermost workings of his or her mind, especially if that mind has been affected by a mental illness. However, even if you can't fully understand someone's illness, it's not difficult to just listen to what they have to say. Listen if someone wants to talk. Chances are, it took a lot for that person to admit that he or she needed help or wanted someone to talk to in the first place. The last thing that person needs is for his or her problems to be brushed aside or to feel unheard. It's hard enough to convince yourself that you truly have a mental illness, and that person should not have to convince you as well. Remember to listen with an open heart, an open mind, and most of all, with open arms.
Actress Glenn Close, also founder of BringChange2Mind—a campaign to erase the stigma surrounding mental illness in support of her sister, Jessie, who has bipolar disorder—summed up this stigma quite well when she said, "It is an odd paradox that a society, which can now speak openly and unabashedly about topics that were once unspeakable, still remains largely silent when it comes to mental illness." I firmly believe that through open-mindedness, eagerness to learn about mental illness, and willingness to listen to those who struggle with mental illness, we can finally erase the unfair stigma surrounding mental illness.
