Mental Health #1

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

Remember your health comes before anything!

There's always that one person who states the obvious.