About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S., or 43.8 million people, experience mental illness in a given year.
Mood disorders, including major depression and bipolar disorder, are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youth and adults aged 18-44.
Despite the overwhelming number of people who are affected by mental illness, most of society chooses to remain in a glass bubble, floating away from reality. People with mental illnesses are either labeled as “crazy” and avoided like the plague, or ignored and expected to shake themselves out of this never-ending “phase” that they have been going through their whole life.
We need to learn to stop stigmatizing mental illness.
By labeling these people as crazy or pushing them to the side and pretending they don’t exist, we are not helping and are making our struggling peers grow up in isolation and in pain.
We need to recognize that people with mental illnesses are just that—people. They are not their illness. Ever heard of intersectionality? It means that your identity is made up of more than one element of your life.
Can you imagine just being labeled by one thing?
Simply being seen as a woman and nothing else? You’re a millennial and that’s it. You’re white and that’s it. This is what mentally ill people have to experience every day. The first step to improving their situation is to recognize that their illness does dehumanize them, so we shouldn’t either.
And we have to stop looking towards the media for accurate descriptions of what a “mentally ill” person looks like. No mental illness is the same. When people hear the words “mentally ill,” they usually picture Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest…
Or maybe even Logan Lerman from Perks of Being A Wallflower…
All of these movies depict different mental illnesses and so we must recognize the variety of disorders that there can be. Just because someone suffers from a mental illness does not mean that you’ll find them muttering to themselves with mascara running down their face.
Furthermore, more people are affected by mental illness than we think! This is usually because many people choose to hide their symptoms in hopes of appearing “normal” and “fitting in.”
We encourage these fake smiles by treating mental illness like it doesn’t exist. Hiding is not synonymous with disappearing, and forcing friends to deal with their problems on their own only makes things worse.
Lastly, we need to remind ourselves of all the contributions that people with mental illnesses have made to society. Remember this guy?
Our president who abolished slavery. Kind of a big deal. Or this guy?
Maybe him?
These people made incredible impacts in the world, and didn’t let their fear of being judged or labeled get in the way of their dreams. But not everyone has the courage to speak up about their illness. So help out and stop labeling your friends, appropriating their identities, and stepping into the home-y ignorance you’ve become accustomed to, and make a difference.