As a society, we have become conditioned to find anything we can to identify ourselves and others. Our skin color, our hair texture, or class status, and the people around us all tell us who we are. When it comes to mental illness, it is almost as if nothing else about a person matters. In the mental health industry, and in society as a whole, we have put people with an "abnormal" diagnosis in a harmful box.
Most of us are not aware of the struggles a person with a diagnosed mental illness really goes through on a daily basis. For most, it is difficult to start the day and be a part of society. Not only do they deal with the symptoms, but they also deal with the shame they feel associated with their diagnosis. Open up the doors to the outside world full of prejudice and negative stigmas and they end up feeling like rejected members of society.
The phrase "mental Illness" pertains to words like schizophrenic, bipolar, depressed, psychotic, sociopath, autistic, down syndrome, and crazy. We associate mental illness with all the movies we've seen with an insane asylum and violent killers or the heartfelt depictions of people with learning disorders. We reference the "True Life" episodes we've seen on MTV, where they discuss someone with a type of mental illness. Images and representations like this makes us feel like we know everything we need to. It's almost as if society has come to believe that we know exactly what mental illness is and what it looks like.
That has never been farther from the truth. Before adulthood, 1 in 10 children will experience major depression, demonstrating that the very people who make up our future experience hardship along the way. Additionally, 1 in 5 adults in America has experienced a mental illness, making it much more common than most realize. When we educate ourselves rather than assume, we can develop an understanding and a level of sensitivity for people with mental illness.
We need to know that there is no one cause of mental illness, and therefore, there is no one type of expression. For some people with major depression, it comes in waves, which makes them unable to cope with life or feel completely helpless. Being diagnosed with mental illness is not always the hindrance it is made out to be. People with a diagnosis are able to benefit from their symptoms by being able to relate to others in a unique way while also using a new perspective when performing daily tasks. For example, a person with autism may not learn math curriculum the same way as other students but they may have the ability to work with the curriculum in a new way that allows them to succeed.
Rather than letting the world deny those with mental illness their agency as normal citizens, we need to support them through activism, education, and contact. Only through these mechanisms can we promote the acceptance of mental illness rather than normalize the marginalization of those who are different.
