Mental Health Matters: Eliminating stigma around mental health issues key to healing
I started writing my Unruly Neurons blog and writing letters to the editor about mental health in 2018 after fashion icon Kate Spade died by suicide. I read every article I could about it until I found an interview with her sister who reportedly said Ms. Spade didn’t want to seek help because she didn’t want to ruin her brand.
I was surprisingly infuriated. I didn’t mean to judge her — I certainly know what mental anguish feels like and have been suicidal myself — but looking back, I did until I realized it was not her mental illness that ended her life. Stigma killed her.
Since then I’ve made it my mission to normalize depression (and other mental health conditions) through my writing and work with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Greater Corpus Christi to fight stigma. I thought I had made headway until a recent event. A couple events, actually. Because I do submerge myself in all things mental health, it’s easy to feel I’ve made progress, and I think as a whole we have, but it’s just not enough.
Stigma — a set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group have about something — has long been attached to mental illness. It comes from a lack of understanding (ignorance and misinformation) and because some people have negative attitudes/beliefs about mental illness. It doesn’t sound so bad when you define it, but trust me, it can be traumatizing at the least. According to the Mayo Clinic, some of the harmful effects can include:
Reluctance to seek help or treatment
Lack of understanding by family, coworkers or others
Fewer opportunities for work, school or social activities or trouble finding housing
Bullying, physical violence or harassment
Health insurance that doesn't adequately cover your mental illness treatment
The belief that you'll never succeed at certain challenges or that you can't improve your circumstances
And then there are situations like Ms. Spade’s. Stigma is deadly. Some will not ask for help. Others might not take their medicine. Some might reject their diagnoses. Many won’t even have someone to turn to because their family and friends “don’t believe in mental illness.”
This isn’t a small, confined problem.
1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness
1 in 20 adults experience a serious mental illness.
1 in 6 youth ages 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year
50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14 and 75% by age 24.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among children ages 10-14.
It’s the 12th leading cause of death overall in the U.S.
I’ve seen the aftermath and devastation that suicide and stigma leave behind. I’m having trouble describing it, so I won’t.
We — as neighbors, community members, friends, family — have an obligation to each other, to care for one another, to ensure that nobody falls through the cracks, to check on each other.
To eradicate stigma.
If we work together, maybe we can save others. And maybe ourselves, too.
NAMI offers some suggestions about what we can do as individuals to help reduce the stigma of mental illness:
Talk openly about mental health, such as sharing on social media.
Educate yourself and others – respond to misperceptions or negative comments by sharing facts and experiences.
Be conscious of language – remind people that words matter.
Encourage equality between physical and mental illness – draw comparisons to how they would treat someone with cancer or diabetes.
Show compassion for those with mental illness.
Be honest about treatment – normalize mental health treatment, just like other health care treatment.
Let the media know when they are using stigmatizing language presenting stories of mental illness in a stigmatizing way. (NAMI.org)
For more than 20 years, Heather Loeb has experienced major depression, anxiety, an eating disorder and a personality disorder, while also battling the stigma of mental health. She is the creator of Unruly Neurons (www.unrulyneurons.com), a blog dedicated to normalizing depression and is the Affiliate Leader of NAMI Greater Corpus Christi.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Eliminating stigma around mental health issues key to bringing healing
