As Halloween approaches, and as we pass World Mental Health Day, I feel as if it is important for the topic of the portrayal of mental health to be discussed, specifically in the media and how that then affects societies beliefs. While I’m by no means a mental health professional, I do have quite a bit of knowledge regarding mental illnesses and the way they can affect people.
Mental illnesses are not black and white. Just because you think you know what mental a mental illness looks like, does not mean that if someone doesn’t fit in that mold— the mold that you perceive that that specific mental illness to fit— then they do not have one. That is most definitely not the case. Just because you believe a mental illness does look a certain way, that that person has one. Mental illnesses take many different shapes and forms and affect everyone differently.
Mental illnesses portrayed in the media are severely dramaticized in order to make the form of media come across as more “appealing.” For instance, in video games and television shows that categorize under the “horror” genre where persons having mental illnesses are incorporated, these forms of media insinuate that mental illness is scary and persons having one are often depicted as violent. Statistically, people with mental illnesses are in fact more likely to not be violent. They are also often depicted as being unkempt, and strange in appearance and behavior. These inaccurate depictions cause people to fear those with mental illness as the media may be their only “exposure”— for lack of a better term— to those individuals. Today, especially, whenever an issue arises where a person acts violently, because of the way persons having mental illnesses are depicted, it is always tied back to mental illness.
Because of this, I urge you to do the following:
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If you do not know someone with a mental illness, do not allow someone else to improperly inform you.
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Understand that not everyone you perceive as strange has a mental illness and not everyone who has a mental illness is automatically strange.
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Don’t support the type of media that perpetuates the stigma around mental illnesses.
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Don’t dress as a person having a mental illness for Halloween— this one is just absolutely disrespectful and a mental illness is not a costume.
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Don’t refer to individuals with a mental illness as the “mentally ill” or by their specific mental illness— a person with Schizophrenia is not a “Schizophrenic”. Their entire identity is not defined by their mental illness.
As always, thank you for reading! More content to come!
xoxo,
Alliah ♡