I am sure that at some point in your life you have had to seek some type of medical help for a physical problem you were facing. In acute cases we act quickly without much time for contemplation; we need stitches; we get them, we break a bone, we get it cast. In chronic cases, treatment could involve an extensive process of healing or sometimes require a life long protocol to manage specific the issue. One common thing is most of these cases is that we generally feel comfortable to speak freely about them, we readily seek out treatment and ask questions. If we know someone going through a health challenge we offer our care and support however we can without judgement.
All that being said my question is: why, why when it comes to a mental health challenge do we treat it so differently? We don’t talk about it, we often don’t readily seek treatment because of self shaming and guilt. Often this can be because the times we are brave enough to open up a little we end up wishing we hadn’t because there is such a strong stigma attached to “mental health issues” that people often colour you a certain way, or judge you as being “weak minded”, “self centered”, “attention seeking” or just plain “lazy”. People can speak of mental disorders in hushed tones as if a terrible scandal has taken place. Some may question the person’s faith or moral character because they struggle with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or ADHD etc. Parents even, may refuse to seek help for a child because they themselves are afraid of the stigmas or they simply pass the child off as “bad”, “hard to manage” or “rebellious”(especially in cases of ADHD because often these kids have a really hard time learning from previous mistakes), or because they “knew someone with depression and it looked like “XYZ” and so there is no way that there child is depressed...which is kinda like saying someone couldn’t have cancer because they can’t see the tumor.
So why do we not respond the same as in any other health/medical issue? Is not the brain a physical organ? Does it not ultimately control all of our body’s physical functions? Why is depression labelled as an “emotional problem” but say, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, is not?
I ask these questions just as much to myself as anyone reading. Because the truth is as much as we all wish the stigma was nonexistent it is alive and well. If you struggle with mental health you can already feel very isolated from everything you care about, to risk the possible conscience or subconscious recoil people are likely to have when/if they “find out”, can seem extra daunting to say the least.
I can appreciate people not being able to understand if they have not experienced a mental struggle however I don’t believe that this can be used as an excuse to not productively support someone. Do you need to have cancer to lend your support and care to a friend? Do you need to have had a chronic disease to be able to listen and appreciate the impacts on their daily life? I don’t think so...maybe I can’t fully appreciated someone else’s cancer on a experiential level but I can sit back and go “wow, you are so bad ass, somehow you manage to keep up with all the normal life things on top of all this. You are a fighter!”
Because there is such a strong stigma surrounding mental health many of us have to be our own cheerleaders...which can be a huge challenge because our mind can be our worst enemy. It can get stuck on negative thought patterns that are extremely difficult(and sometimes impossible) to overcome[without treatment], it berates us and plays mental comparisons to belittle our struggles. We are terrified of seeking help because we think we should be like everyone else and believe(or have been told) “there is something really messed up about people who struggle with mental illness”. Or we think we are just inherently flawed, lack the willpower to change, or maybe we really are just plain ol’ stupid. While the real problem lies within our physical brain and without treating that how can change take place? If someone is legally blind, can telling them to “try harder” make their vision any better?
Now I am not saying we don’t take responsibility for our thoughts or emotions, on the contrary I believe if we could break down the stigmas surrounding mental health and demystify the physiology of our brains by creating awareness around how they work and what could be either over/under working in certain “disorders” this could actually increase the number of people who seek treatment. I know that is the only thing that has ever given me the courage to step into a Dr’s office and admit, out loud, my struggles.
If I hadn’t I would have kept on thinking that I needed to hide my “dirty little secret”...until the next time I just “couldn’t go on like this” and made certain I wouldn’t..
So the next time you think someone with a mental illness is “weak minded” or somehow “lesser” in someway in comparison to you….I hope you remember this and ask yourself: do you have that same thought when thinking of your friend struggling with cancer? The man down the street that is paralysed from the waist down? The woman you met at work this week who is recovering from Lyme disease? The blind person you often see walking to the coffee shop every morning with their faithful service dog? Are they weak? Or do they simply have challenges that they have had to work around in life? Challenges that they have been able to find assistance and support for? Can they somehow help themselves less than than the person who ends up having to call into work sick because they have had another massive panic attack that has their body completely drained of energy, the child struggling in school because whenever they try to focus on what their teacher is saying their brain physically shuts down, or the woman who every single day wakes up feeling numb and dead inside and yet somehow manages to make it through another work day just to come home and crash again….if that’s not enough combine all three because often mental disorders like company.
Why am I saying this? To get attention? Have you feel sorry for me? To make myself feel better? No - but because I don’t want to be part of the problem anymore. I don’t want silence to prevent people from getting help, I don’t want the stigma to gain more momentum or power over anyone. I also don’t want us to define ourselves by our mental health issues or feel sorry for ourselves because we may struggle in this area…if we do that, we have given in to the stigma.
If you are struggling with a brain issue - you deserve as much help as anyone. You are not fundamentally broken, you may just need “glasses”.
Most people wake up and tackle the world, we battle ourselves and then tackle the world with whatever we got left. We are not “weak minded”...we are warriors!
#letstalk but then take action and get healthy from the brain out!
