I grew up not believing in certain mental disorders. I used to think ADHD was just the parents' fault for letting their kid eat way too much candy. I thought eating disorders were stupid because how could someone possibly not want to eat? I thought bipolar disorder was just someone who was too angry when they didn't get their way. I thought OCD was someone who was an overly obsessive germaphobe. I thought depression only occurred when your parents got divorced or someone died. I thought anxiety was only when you were about to do a speech you didn't practice before to your COM 110 class in college. I thought suicide was so stupid because you have people who love you. Now, don't get me wrong, these can be true to a certain extent. But, mental health struggles have a unique way of affecting every area of life.
Here are seven reasons we need to start caring about these struggles.
It helps us understand people
Too often, we know too little about mental health — and it affects our chance to truly help or know someone. We should understand and care about mental health care not because it will "stop shootings," but because it affects everyone and it can help us value and learn the well-being of our friends, family, and society.
Mental health is as important as physical health
Let's take depression as an example. Many wouldn't go to work if they were vomiting, so why should someone go to work if they have postpartum depression? Depression is many times stigmatized. That should not be so, as it is a medical condition characterized by sadness and loss of hope. It is certainly wrong to hide mental illness, as it can be cured. Why should anyone suffer silently when they can get help? We need to accept that mental illness can be, and is, just as difficult to deal with as physical illness, and we shouldn't feel guilty about that.
Stop the stigmatization
Would you be mad if someone called in taking a "mental health day" and you were left doing extra work? Everyone should really evaluate their answer to that question. Mental health affects everyone and it is so important that we take these "mental health days" seriously as if they broke their leg. Stigmatization can definitely be hard to stop. It's what the world has taught us — that we should be strong, that our feelings aren't an excuse not to get on with things. This has become so fixed in our thinking that it's hard to break out of. But, we need to because it's just misinformed and wrong. If we can't stop beating ourselves up for having a bad day, then how can we expect others to stop? It's OK to take a day off and rest when you're having a bad mental health day, just like it's OK to take the day off and rest when you're feeling physically sick.
There is many ill people without care
There is nothing beautiful about mental illness. There are no Instagram worthy pictures or quick fixes. We don't have easily-identified ways to fix all these complex illnesses that often overlap. The stigma associated with the illness has carried over into the care. The sufferers, fault of their illness, cannot often advocate for themselves. Their family members often have their hands full caring for them too. Usually, this leaves the ill without the care they need.
Help the young generation
The world is definitely changing, and there is becoming so much added stress to young children growing up. Due to the stress of modern life, many kids have to deal with sleep deprivation, technology addictions, obesity, increased college debt, the divorce of parents, cyberbullying along with regular bullying, and much more. As their parents and peers do not recognize the early signs of mental illness, these people are misunderstood. Understanding the struggles of the young generation, becoming an advocate, and helping them come to terms with their feelings can help us build up their mental resilience from an early age and prevent to a large extent, illness when they are older.
Make improvements in school education
Most educational institutions are not prepared, nor prepared to meet the mental health needs of their students. They also lack adequate resources to provide good mental health care. Schools have limited health care resources on their sites and, usually, rely on referral networks of clinicians. These schools usually don't have the budget to provide better mental health services. At universities, where students are residing for four years, and not just attending for several hours a day, the most common form of treatment provided by student mental health services is counseling. At my university, there is a waitlist up to three months to get into a recurring service after your first initial appointment. Most kids go to school for their main source of food, socialization, education, and physical activity. By focusing in on school education and making counseling another main source, we can begin to tackle mental illness at its root.
It will help people like me
In 2013, I was sent to a mental intuition (luckily) for anorexia treatment. I was only 13 years old at the time. When I finally returned, the people in my class looked at me very different, including the teachers. Many of my friends stopped hanging out with me and everyone started whispering about me which turned into bullying. I even had to switch schools, so I could escape all if it. I don't mean to have a victim mentality but looking back on this now— how could everyone have been so unwilling to support me in my darkest time? At the same time, even certain family members questioned if I was doing it all for attention. So many people around me were either weirded out to hang with me or they thought I was pretending. When people are hurting, this is the last thing they could ever want to happen. So, help people like me get help without judgment and become open to understanding mental illness.
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