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Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness month? If you watch TV and don’t skip the commercials (unlike my parents who never watch commercials) perhaps you’ve seen the commercial with the man and woman sitting down for what looks like a meal at a restaurant. The gist of the commercial is for the viewer to understand that a personal struggling with mental illness needs to be able to talk about it if he or she chooses. Don’t stay silent, that’s the mantra for the campaign and I couldn’t agree more.
The statistics from 2011 stand clear: One in five adults struggles with a form of mental illness; one in ten young people will experience a period of major depression. As someone who struggles with depression I cannot tell you how freeing it is to speak openly about it. I’ve always been the kind of person who lives my life like an open book but not everyone is like this. The last thing that a person who is struggling with mental illness, whether it’s depression, anxiety or even bipolar disorder, needs to think about it hiding the darkness that they’re living in; unfortunately, that often what happens. Society has a stigma that comes with mental illness and trust me, if you struggle with it there’s no way around feeling like an outcast, like a woman walking around a small Puritan village wearing a scarlet “A” or in my case, “D,” across her chest.
If you don’t struggle with mental illness how do you support someone who does? That’s a great question and really at the heart of May’s Mental Health Awareness month. There are a lot of really helpful websites out there and I’ll share them with you in a little bit. The theme this year for the month is Community. People struggling with mental illness need a safe and supportive community to lean on. As someone who actually struggles with this, however, I’m going to tell you how I would like to be supported:
Allow me to talk about the bad days; you don’t have to offer any suggestions or “fix” the problem. Just give me a safe place to share who I really am.
Don’t treat me like I’m frail and can’t handle anything. I have good months and bad months. I can handle real life problems; don’t treat me like a frail little bird. Let me make that choice.
Understand that it’s not as simple as “snapping out of it.” When I’m stuck in my depression, whatever the trigger may have been, please know that I don’t like feeling like this and living this way. Tough love is not going to make me snap out of it. It’ll actually make me retreat deeper inside of myself.
Believe that I am not a danger to myself or to you; become educated on what mental illness really is rather than assuming it’s what you see on the big screen or you TV screen.
Visit these websites for more information and to better understand mental illness:
National Alliance on Mental Illness
I didn’t know that about May. I have known family and friends with mental illness and I just feel the best way to deal with it is just being there if they need you but I don’t see them any differently.
I dont have a mental illness but sometimes I feel like I’m going out of my mind!
I did not know that about May, but I highly respect everyone who has depression. I had post-partum depression after my first and I don’t know how some can do this all the time. My hat is off to you all!
Thats an interesting statistic!
Building awareness around mental illness is so important. Thank you for this post!
As someone with mental illness in my family I always want to find the “fix”. It’s hard to remember that sometimes all I need to do is listen.
Mental illness is serious and takes a toll on entire families. NAMI is a great organization that advocates and educates! Its really hard for people to understand until it hits home and even then its hard.
Thank you for this post! I have a mental illness and it although it is so common, it is still so incredibly misunderstood. I can’t wait for the day when mental illness is treated with as much care and understanding as physical illness is.
My husband and my sister both struggle with depression and it has really opened my eyes. There’s so much more to it than just feeling sad, and so much of it that is completely out of the control of the person who deals with it.
I love the support points you highlighted. Many people would instinctively do the opposite of them, yet be totally well meaning.
Thanks for helping spread awareness. We all know someone affected by mental illness, even if we’re not aware that we do. It needs to be more out in the open.
I’m impressed to see a mcn company getting on board with spreading awareness about mental health!
Good for you for being willing to share your experience! If mental health issues were discussed more openly, people would be more likely to get help for their own issues.
Thanks for acknowledging this ad bringing it to people’s attention!
Great post on this topic, particularly the advice portion.
this is such a very important topic, especially with all of the violent outbursts that have been popping up recently. these people are mentally unstable and need help. people need to be far more aware about mental illness and how to help prevent tragedy from happening by getting treatment.
The only thing I don’t agree with is the last statement. People who often struggle with depression can and do have thoughts of suicide. To just blindly take the persons word that they are not a danger to themselves is very dangerous. As someone who has lost a brother to suicide, we watched him struggle with depression a regular basis. He was seeking professional help, and we believed he was getting better. Not everyone who struggles with depression is a danger to themselves, but just to believe that you and yours are not at risk for something like that, in my opinion is just foolish.
Thank you for bringing up this very relevant topic – it needs to be talked about more!
I teach 5th and 6th grade, and we always end up talking about the reality of mental illness (it comes up in social studies). I get so frustrated trying to correct some of the misconceptions they have grown up with! Thank you for sharing.
I really wish our culture could remove a lot of the stigma from mental illness that dramatized TV shows and movies add. When my husband and I were still dating, a friend of mine told me she was worried he would murder me and any children we might have because he has bipolar disorder. I explained to her what the disorder actually was and that just because people on TV are always violent when going through something like this, that doesn’t make it an accurate portrayal. He also had a coworker once tell him that his problem was that he was possessed, which is an incredibly offensive thing to say. I know it isn’t May any longer, but it can still help to think about these things and try to educate people on what they really mean.
Thank you! This is such an important topic.
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