The truths no one told you about
Despite the fact that 1 in 5 Canadians will experience some form of mental illness in their lives, and in spite of the increasing prevalence of mental health problems amongst adolescents and university students, we are, as a society, dangerously unaware of what mental illness really is.
While mental illnesses are discussed in high school curriculums, we lack an in-depth education on the many realities of these illnesses. Students are given textbook definitions of depression, eating disorders, and anxiety disorders, but nobody explains to students what it feels like to have any of these afflictions. Rarely do people talk about the everyday inconveniences that accompany mental illness.
A similar issue exists in media portrayal of mental illness. Television and film provide us with attractive characters that suffer the most stereotypical symptoms of depression. While these aren’t necessarily inaccurate, they are a narrow view of life with a mental illness. Not every person who is depressed stays in bed all day or experiences falling grades. Not everyone with an eating disorder will skip each meal. Mental illness is not always so obvious.
Mental illness is a topic that needs to be discussed further. Often, when we hear the word “depression,” we picture someone who is too sad to get out of bed, who doesn’t go out, and is have trouble keeping up with school or work. This is true for some cases, but is also not true for all. Many people who are depressed still function on a very high level and get done what they need to get done, but they suffer through it all. Excluding those cases from the public discussion is harmful because their mental illness fails to be recognized, and it is even harder for the sufferers to recognize it themselves. Unfortunately, many people go undiagnosed for long periods of time because they don’t match up to the media portrayals of the illness.
Not only do we need to discuss mental illness in more depth, but we also need to broaden our focus to all mental illnesses. While many people have heard of depression, anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, other illnesses, such as social anxiety, dermatillomania, trichotillomania, and body dysmorphic disorder are less well known. This is problematic, especially for those suffering from less publicized illnesses. Sufferers who do not realize that what they have is a mental illness might think they are the only ones in their situation and blame themselves for their symptoms. It is not always possible to recognize a mental illness in oneself or in a loved one if no one has heard of the illness. This can lead to a long delay in being diagnosed, making an illness potentially more difficult and increasing the duration of suffering.
We have been painted a very simplified and easily categorized picture of mental illnesses. We are not told that we will often not know why we are sad if we have depression, or that we will think we need to drink more at a party to be able to socialize if we have social anxiety, or that consistently checking for reassurance from friends and family is a sign of OCD. Mental disorders are not just about washing your hands at specific intervals or being sad. This issue is how these illnesses and disorders interrupt our daily lives and make even little tasks seem impossible.
A lot of work needs to be done in terms of recognizing mental illness and helping others to be able to discern their personality from pathology.