Mental health. Destigmatised or romanticised ?
By: Emma J.
Tags: Mental Health Awareness, Mental Illness, Mental Health, Psychology

Photo by Dustin Belt on Unsplash

Mental health is a big topic nowadays. Statistics show that 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem at least once in their life. Over the years there have been multiple campaigns set with the task of destigmatising mental health and encouraging people to get help.

Despite all of this, the suicide rate in men remains constant and self harming rates in teenagers and hospital admissions due to mental illness continue to rise. Mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression are now seen as “cute” or desirable. You can see it all over social media. Everyone is always joking about how depressed they are or how socially awkward they are. There are post with quotes like “I think suicidal people are just angels wanting to go home.” Meanwhile, a lot of people aren’t being taken seriously or are afraid to get proper help because they think they are making a big deal about nothing.

Photo by Bianca Berg on Unsplash

It’s always a competition to see who has it the worst. I recently watched a TedEd talk given by a woman with bipolar disorder and many chronic health conditions. She was telling people that despite all she has been through she has achieved so much and that there are a few things that helped her overcome the hardest times of her life.

You would think that after watching a talk like that you would see the comment section full of praise and thanks because she is sharing her story and her experience to try and help others. What I actually saw was people battling it out in the comment section saying how she was a bad person for listing her achievements. Person after person trying to outdo each other saying that their depression was worse than the previous persons. The fact is: It doesn’t matter if your depression is worse than the person before you. It doesn’t make it less difficult for them to experience. Everyone has a different experience and everyones experience matters.

I’ve seen girls get pushed into self harming because they told their friends that they were depressed and their friend said that it couldn’t be that bad because they were already cutting themselves and they have had 3 suicide attempts in the last week . I have seen a girl, with an eating disorder afraid to ask for help because she couldn’t touch her fingers around her wrist, because she wasn’t skinny enough. The people who are supposed to be a support network. For some the most important people in their lives, are pushing them deeper and deeper into a mental illness making them feel worse about themselves for not having it bad enough or for making a big deal about nothing.

I came across a chatroom for anxiety and depression. I wanted to understand and see how people were impacted by this. I decided to chat with one girl with severe clinical depression. She was talking about how it was a part of her identity. I asked her” If you could cure it, would you?” She said no, because it is a part of her identity and it is who she is. This shocked me. I then asked her if she could cure cancer, would she? She replied “Yes, but that is different”

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

We have destigmatised the words anxiety and depression. We haven’t destigmatised the illnesses themselves . People still aren’t getting the help they need, people are still being made even more ill by societies expectations and they are being told to just put up with it because everyone is a little depressed from time to time. There needs to be more help for these illnesses in their early stages, we can’t wait until it gets “ bad enough “ for help. Because it will get to the point where a simple talk between two friends becomes a night in ICU caused by a drug overdose.

Mental illness is an illness and should be treated like one. People deserve the support they need.