Mental health has been a neglected topic throughout the decades. Unlike a broken bone, a torn muscle or a lingering cough, mental illnesses are harder to detect and measure.
Some people ridicule doctors who label these emotional difficulties as “illnesses” and believe they shouldn’t be treated as a legitimate health concern. They are under the impression that since everyone has struggles in life, people with mental health issues should be expected to overcome whatever they are dealing with just like everyone else…
These people have probably never had a mental illness of their own and can’t even begin to understand the overpowering and nearly unbearable effects that result from them. In reality, someone with a mental illness wasn’t too weak to overcome hardship or incapable of coping with stress. A mental illness is not simply allowing sadness into your life, feeling anxious or experiencing uneasiness; it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that leads to unhealthy mindsets that are beyond the control of the inflicted individual. In reality, these illnesses can involve a combination of biological, genetic and environmental factors.
Mental health patients have compared some of these illnesses to that feeling you get when you miss a step on the stairs, except it's persistent and unceasing. They relate it to an elephant sitting on your chest, a boa constrictor slowly squeezing the life out of you or a tug of war with yourself. People with mental disorders are dealing with lies and deceit cycling through their minds that make mundane tasks and social gatherings something challenging and to be feared.
If you are one of the fortunate people who has never had a mental illness, you should be grateful that you don't have to live with relentless fear or anxiety. You should be thankful you don’t have to repeatedly check and re-check to see if you locked the door, that you don’t feel the urge to purposefully stub one foot after hurting the other just to feel “balanced,” or that you don’t have continuous irrational thoughts consuming your mind.
It's time we put an end to the stigma so many people have against mental health issues and instead, we should become educated on the variety of mental illnesses from which so many suffer. Rather than judging their behaviors and actions, we should try to understand the constant battle going on in their minds that we cannot see or comprehend.
Mental illness is not a cowardly excuse to behave poorly, nor is it something that a person can repress. It is a health issue that is just as valid as any other physical disorder or sickness and its time we regard it as such and treat those who have mental afflictions with patience and understanding.