This is
still a very sensible topic and in many ways admitting to have a mental illness
is still a big stigma. In my opinion even more of stigma than admitting to having AIDS or
any other transmitted disease. The question is why?
I am certain there might be a lot of different ways to
approach that question or better the answer to that question, but I have my
very own theory.
First of all with a mental illness you don't really
see the symptoms. Most people perceive only things they can grasp. With most "physical" illnesses this can include visual things e.g. a rash or an injury or things you
can measure with blood tests etc. In most of the cases with mental illnesses
you don't have hardly any of these options for testing. So everything people can see
is the patient's behavior and that is part of the problem. At least it seems you can only see the behavior, since
mental diseases are sometimes caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, but that is
a different matter.
As children we were taught: You can control your own behavior!
If we assume that is right, then the consequence is to wonder, why people with
mental diseases don't simply pull themselves together and that is where the most
common misconception happens. When you have a mental illness no matter if it is
depression or something else you cannot control your behavior, which is why it
is an illness.
Take depression as an example. People not understanding
the background of the illness say things like: "So you are sad,
what about it? We all are from time to time, just pull yourself together!"
This sounds cruel, but trust me I have heard people following this line of
argument and worse often enough. They just don't understand that you cannot pull yourself
together. There is no way, if you are suffering from depression. People
suffering from this kind of illness are sad without a reason and sometimes even feel
like crying and don't even understand why. If you are just sad, there is a
reason, because something has upset you, but with depression there is none, at
least no emotional reason, the sadness is just there. So the question has to be: How do you cheer yourself up, if the sadness has no apparent
reason? The answer is: You can't! Having suffered from depressions myself I can
assure you that it is one of the toughest things you can experience, because of
how helpless you are, when fighting something you cannot understand without
help. Of course you learn how to deal with it, through therapy and on short term medication can help, but you need help, one way or the other.
What people have to understand is that your behavior
is usually more of a reaction than a mere action. Usually you get angry, when someone
teases you and you get happy when something good happens. So if you want to
avoid getting angry you can avoid people who tease you and usually this is the
end of the story. But if your reaction happens without a trigger than there is
no way you can control your reaction, because you cannot avoid the trigger.
A very different illness is OCD, obsessive compulsive
disorder. I think this is probably one of the worst things that can happen to
you, because of the way it is often portrayed in the media and by ignorant
people. Often enough people suffering from this disease are ridiculed for cheap
laughs on TV or in the movies. To be honest seeing that sort of things makes me
sick, as people suffering from OCD have enough of a hard time battling the
condition, without having to worry about what other people might say or think if they find out.
We all have cravings and urges and should understand that
sometimes fighting them is beyond our strength. Take a simple example: Have you
ever suffered from chicken pox? Then you know it itches gravely and you are not
supposed to scratch. I remember when I had chicken pox that suppressing the
urge to scratch was almost impossible. Now imagine having a much stronger urge
to, let's say wash your hands. While you know the chicken pox does eventually
go away an OCD doesn't simply go away. The people with this condition hardly cannot surpress their urges, although those
urges are sometimes even destructive, for instance some people feel the need to wash their hands with bleach to
keep them REALLY clean.
There are many mental diseases, some of them graver
than others. While some can be managed in daily life, others require
institutionalization. Of course I am no doctor and this is merely scratching
the topic but my point is that mental illnesses are very real and that people
literally suffer from them. Having a mental illness doesn't have anything to do
with being weak or undisciplined; often enough people suffering from mental
illnesses are among the strongest people. So people with mental
conditions don't deserve our reproach or ridicule, they deserve our help and
our compassion, to give them the strength to fight their condition.
