When someone breaks a bone, you tell them to go to the emergency room. When someone has a cough, you tell them to take some medicine. But what do you tell someone who hasn't broken something? Who hasn't got some sort of bacterial infection that can be fixed with some cough syrup? Who has something going on that you can't just "fix?"
The first problem, is the idea that you can "fix" someone's mental health. That neurodivergence is a symptom that you can check off on a list. It's more complicated than that. It's more complicated than a lot of things. Which is understandable. Because it isn't a broken bone. It isn't a cough. It isn't something that you can immediately identify and understand.
The fact of the matter is that mental health is a taboo topic for most people. Even though one in four people live with a mental illness, more than 40 percent of countries in the world have no mental health policy. 46 percent of homeless people live with severe mental illness. A small 41 percent of adults in the US who live with mental illness received treatment in the last year. More than 90 percent of adolescence who die by suicide have a mental illness.
I think a lot about the amount people who would maybe still be here if mental health was like a broken bone. If we could just set someone's brain and return in a few weeks to find it like brand new. If maybe, mental health wasn't something that everyone was so afraid of; if more people would get help when they felt like ending it all. If more people would seek treatment. If more people would stop abusing children with mental illness. If more people would stop mistreating adults who think differently. If more people wouldn't be so consumed with being "normal" that they grow frustrated at their inability to stifle the parts of them that make them different. If mental health wasn't a cookie cutter. If brains were like bones.
The way that society treats mental health isn't working. It's not making anyone feel better. It's not "fixing" anyone. It's not solving a problem. Instead of shoving mental health into a box that is dusty and unopened, we should expand our horizons of expectation. Start by having a conversation. Start by regularizing the topic of mental health. Stop putting mental disorders in the category of "things that can happen to other people, but not to me."
More than just talking with someone who has a mental illness, the most important thing that you can do for someone who is reaching out for help is listen. Don't tell them that they're talking themselves into symptoms. Don't tell them that they're overreacting. Just listen. Be supportive. Offer some tissues. You know, the same way you would listen to anyone else talking about anything else.
Walking away from this article, your goal should be to rethink the way you think about mental health. Next time you feel the urge to call someone "crazy" or "weird" because their brain works differently, stop. Next time you think about mental illness and associate those thoughts with criminality, stop. But most importantly, don't define someone by their mental illness. After all, neurodivergence doesn't mean that someone's brain is broken, it just means that their brain is different. Doesn't make it less beautiful. Don't make it worthless. Just makes it different.
