Mental health is a topic not many like to discuss. It
can cause people to feel on edge, uncomfortable, anxious and many other
negative emotions. However it is a topic that I feel needs to be talked about,
talked about until it loses this horrible stigma. Not one person should feel
embarrassed about suffering from a mental health problem, but the brutal
reality is lots of people do. Lots of people face these problems completely
alone and never make it out to see the other side. 1 in 4 people in the UK will
suffer from a mental health problem each year. That is a large amount of
people. You may even know someone who is suffering right now, someone who could
even be very close to you. Some people may think that is a ridiculous concept.
That someone you love is going through pain and they haven’t told you. But the
truth is it happens all the time and it will keep happening if the world
doesn’t change their unsympathetic out look on mental health.
If a person were to treat someone with a physical
illness like the majority of the population treat people with a mental illness
then they’d be looked at in disgust. An individual slowly dying of cancer being
told to “man-up” or even just an individual suffering from food poisoning being
told to stop over reacting. Yet if a person suffers from anxiety, then they
should just be able to over come it. After all they just want attention right?
Or someone that suffers from bipolar being told to just act normal, to stop
exaggerating. Do you not think day by day these people already want to detach
themselves from this illness without people adding to it, just reiterating the
fact that ‘their kind’ isn’t accepted in society?
Why does society not accept these people? Why don’t we
help them? Is it due to the large population of people who claim to have a
mental illness, be it anxiety, depression, phobias, personality disorder; the
list goes on. Some people believe that ‘mental illnesses’ are becoming a social
trend. It’s merely just young individuals who are seeking attention due to the
changes their body is going through. However what if it’s not? What if we are
disregarding people that need our help but we are just too blind and arrogant
to see it. Would you be able to forgive yourself if your arrogance got the
better of you and someone you cared about suffered.
I understand sometimes it’s difficult to believe
people or to comprehend that someone you love is suffering and you don’t make a
difference. The truth is you do make a difference; you make a huge difference.
You could be the glue that’s holding that person together. Just because someone
is depressed doesn’t mean they can’t experience happy moments and it works the
other way round too, just because someone is smiling doesn’t mean they’re never
sad or never experience moments of depression or feel anxious etc. The reality
is the people that appear the happiest, may not be as happy as they let you
perceive. These people may be just putting on a ‘brave face’.
People put on ‘brave faces’ for lots of reasons; they
don’t want to attract attention, they’re scared of what people will say/do,
they’re concerned they’ll be judged and shunned. It’s not fair that any body
should feel they have to put on a ‘brave face’ for someone else. They should be
able to turn to someone and let it out. We shouldn’t judge others who are
suffering, we should be there encouraging them to get better, offering our
selves to be a helping hand. It’s easy to just assume that someone is
pretending that they’re mentally ill. It’s easy just to send hate across the
Internet telling them to ‘slit their wrists’ or ‘go die’, but that’s not
humane. That’s disgusting! Who are we to tell someone else to end his or her
life?! To harm themselves?! We have no right. So maybe that person was
pretending to gain attention and I’m not saying that’s acceptable. But what if
right now they’re actually suffering from the abuse they’re getting. What if
right now they’re becoming depressed? What if they only wanted attention from
others because they didn’t get any attention from home? Although they haven’t
done the right thing, do they really deserve these words of hatred? Words can
have serious consequences. And that’s what I want people to understand. Words
have consequences. And people have feelings. Everyone has different levels of
emotion and we should respect that. So please, stop and think before you speak and
judge.
Here is to one step forward. To one step closer to society understanding and respecting mental illnesses. Join me in this stand.
Thank you,
Shannon
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| Remember your health comes before anything! |
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| There's always that one person who states the obvious. |
