World Mental Health Day is October 10th, and there are more reasons than ever that we should be having a conversation about mental health and mental illness.
We cannot continue to go around ignoring the statistics.
We cannot continue to pretend that it is an non-issue.
We cannot continue to add a stigma, and worsening the problem.
It's time to talk. It's time.
The statistics surrounding mental illness are growing so steadily that it is alarming; and as painful as it is to see them climbing, they need to be discussed- not ignored.
In America, 1 in 5 adults (or a crazy 18.2%) experience mental illness in a given year. Building on from this, 1 in 25 experience mental illness so seriously that it substantially interfered with their life, work, or other major activities. And it doesn't just stop there- any person of any age is susceptible to mental illness, and the statistics prove this as well. Approximately 1 in 5 children aged 13-18 have experienced a mental health problem during their life, an overwhelming 13% of these were under the age of 15. The second leading cause of death for people ages 15-24 in the United States is suicide; and of these people 90% have a mental illness.
It exists.
So, even if you aren't affected by it — some of your family and your friends are, even if they may not have told you. And there's a reason for this- an overwhelming stigma on mental illness.
There are many ways to tackle mental illness- and as time goes on, we are finding many great ways to do this- medications, treatments, and correct diagnoses. Every single year we become more educated and more aware about mental illness- but this does not mean everything is fixed. We are knowledgable, but we don't talk. We still don't talk about mental illness.
Why is there even a stigma on mental health? Is mental illness stigmatized because it is not always visible? Is it stigmatized because the name suggests a pitfall or something wrong with us? Is it because we are trained to believe it is a negative personality trait to be mentally ill?
For me, I believe it is all of this — the term mental illness has been portrayed and interpreted in a detrimental way over time. We do not see it for what it is- a chemical imbalance, a psychiatric disorder, something we cannot help, but rather as something that it is not- a lack of control of our brain; something that terrifies us as humans so much that we prefer not to even talk about it.
But we have to stop doing this. We cannot continue to sweep mental illnesses under the rug and forget about them; they are very real, and they are very much an issue in the world today. Mental health disabilities are an illness- hence why they are named as such. They are just as real and just as significant as any other illness- and Kevin Breel once said it better than I ever could, he said:
"When we break our arm, everyone runs forward to sign the cast. But when we have depression, everyone runs the other way."
There is nothing wrong with struggling with mental health; plenty of us are. What is wrong is that we do not talk about it; we let people suffer in silence, or we pretend that mental illness is non existent. Right now, those suffering from mental illness tend to do so alone. We have made it too scary to talk about it, too stigmatized to get help, and we have made every individual have their own fight, instead of fighting it with others. If mental health did not have such a negative connotation, we could make some very big differences in our society.
So — let's talk.
I have struggled with mental illness throughout my life but it wasn't really until last year, my freshman year of college, that it started having a very detrimental impact on me. I struggled mentally— feeling unimportant, constantly overthinking, constant worrying, feeling on edge, having problems sleeping, struggling to focus and do well at school, and feeling very debilitated. But I also struggled physically — shaking, having visible panic and anxiety attacks, losing touch with reality, feeling like I was choking, sweating, chills and hot flushes, and even heart palpitations. I was terrified.
I'm now in my sophomore year of college, in regular counseling, regular visits with my doctor, and doing so much better in every aspect of my life. But I'm not fixed — my mental health is something that I am learning to live with, learning to cope with, as I was able to get the help I required. But not everyone is so fortunate, and people out there are still struggling.
Just as I was writing this article today, I had a lady who sits next to me in my lecture inform me about how mental illness does not exist— and how people need to become more resilient, and "get on with their lives." Mental illness is not made up. It's not an adjective, or a lifestyle, or even an identity. It's a struggle, its an illness, it's real.
It's time to talk.
#WorldMentalHealthDay
