CJ Anderson

Professor Allison Fernley

English 1010 435

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Mental Illness: The Facts and the Fiction

Mental illness is a perplexing topic. Unlike other controversial subjects, such as abortion

or gun control, coping with mental illness doesn’t have two sides that can banter about which

public policies are more effective than others. Mental illness is much more complicated than that.

It has many different faces, causes, side effects, and varying levels of severity. Not many people

know how to deal with it, and that scares us. We decide to tuck it in the corner to handle at a

different time because we have much more important things to deal with. No one seems to

realize how important the mental health conversation really is. Over 10 million adults suffer

from some sort of moderate to severe mental illness. These people can be your friends,

neighbors, classmates, even your own family. The question we should be asking ourselves isn’t,

“how do we stop this crisis?” but instead, “how can we help those with debilitating mental

illnesses?”

Although there doesn’t seem to be one correct answer, there are countless things we can

do to help. One thing we can do is end the overwhelmingly negative stigma surrounding mental

illness. It is considered essential by Kate Fusillo and many other sources that the way to reduce

this stigma is to end the disconnect between the truth about mental illness, and the words that

come from our mouths. It has become common recently to relate slightly stressful situations to

mental illnesses. If your girlfriend didn’t want to come over, you say she’s bipolar. You say,
“I’m going to kill myself” when the barista didn’t get your name right on your coffee cup. It is

true that some suffering from mental illness use these jokes to cope with their pain. Regardless of

your intentions, this is only adding to the stigma of mental illness, and making it more difficult

for those who need treatment to get it.

Along with this, the conversation surrounding mental illness has developed a form of

complacency over the years. According to Hannah Parkinson, the conversation only seems to

revolve around relatively minor forms of mental illness. Depression and anxiety are

commonplace these days, especially with the rise of technology, but the conversation seems to

exclude the more life threatening versions of mental illness. Those who are incapable of

retaining healthy relationships, either romantic or platonic, because they are a danger to

themselves and others. The illnesses that never get attention, such as severe depression and

anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, personality disorders, PTSD, and others that

people tend to view as scary or violent.

No one seems to talk about these because they are still socially unacceptable. When you

admit to someone you have depression, they assume it’s automatically manageable until they are

driving you to the hospital from overdosing on medications or slicing your wrists in the bathtub.

When you tell a significant other that you’re bipolar, they don’t expect how truly debilitating it is

on you and your relationships. Hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, constantly reliving a tragedy

over and over again regardless of how much you want it to stop are common experiences among

these severe illnesses.

Now, this doesn’t mean all mentally ill individuals are dangerous. Trump has incited

panic in the hearts of many people across the nation when he stated mentally ill individuals are

the direct cause of mass shootings. In reality, this isn’t necessarily true. Numerous studies have
found that there isn’t a direct link between mental instability and violence; it is much more

complex than that. 60% of mass shooters suffer from a severe mental illness, (Paulton) but that

doesn’t mean that all mentally ill individuals are violent. As Colin Dively puts it, “Those who

have a mental illness are actually more than 10 times more likely to be the victim of a violent

crime than the American population, let alone the perpetrator.” If we stopped the negative stigma

surrounding all those with mental illness, we would reduce the likelihood of someone taking

matters into their own hands and becoming violent. This isn’t a perfect solution; it’ll take time to

mend the rift and some will still slip through the cracks. But many children who lash out only do

because they feel as though they do not fit in with society.

Other people such as Lloyd Sederer explain that the way to helping those with mental

illnesses is to understand their behavior. Sometimes those with illnesses cannot express how they

are feeling or what they need, and tend to get frustrated. The easiest thing to do in these

situations is to be understanding and patient. They are trying their hardest and they will feel

extremely thankful if you helped them through this and let them know that they are loved and

supported.

There are others who believe that the approach to helping mentally ill people should be

more involved than just choosing our words carefully and reducing stigma. Some, such as our

president and members of the Heritage Foundation, believe that bringing back involuntary

confinement mental health institutions is the answer. Tanner’s article titled, “Tread Carefully on

Mental-Health Reform,” goes into detail about why these facilities should not be put back in

place. There is so much disagreement about what constitutes commitment into these facilities.

Some will commit transgender individuals believing they are mentally ill, which will only

increase the already skyrocketing amount of suicides within the community. Homosexuals used
to suffer through “conversion therapy” where they would be punished for not finding the

opposite sex appealing. Women would be committed for being too independent and defying

orders from their husbands. This misguided information as to who should be committed was one

of the reasons why these facilities were taken away to begin with.

Along with fallacious confinement of individuals, the conditions were horrendous and the

treatments disproven. Electroshock therapy used to be the “cure” for any mental illness, which

was disproven years ago while still in effect in these institutions. The rooms were not cleaned

regularly and the living conditions of their patients were deplorable. This was due to crass

judgement from the staff viewing the patients as less than human, and the government wouldn’t

give an adequate amount of money to allow these institutions to be functional. To put it shortly,

involuntary confinement facilities are not the way to go. There’s too blurry of a line to make it

happen without causing a great deal of trauma and concern.

It shouldn’t be so incomprehensively difficult to find adequate support and guidance

when dealing with the trauma that comes with the various mental illnesses. We should take

mental illness seriously, but not from a place of fear. It should come from a place of concern for

the individuals’ health and happiness, as well as the safety of them and others. The more we fear

them, the less likely it is that they will get the help they need and truly deserve. We are still

human beings, and we have the right for our voices to be heard and to feel accepted in society.
 Work Cited:

Dively, Colin. “Op-Ed: Mental Illness Is Not a Scapegoat.” DeseretNews.com, Deseret News, 16

Mar. 2018, www.deseretnews.com/article/900013160/op-ed-mental-illness-is-not-a-

scapegoat.html

Fusillo, Katie. “Opinion: Mental Illness Shouldn't Be the Butt of the Joke.” The Arizona State

Press, 28 Sept. 2018, www.statepress.com/article/2018/09/spopinion-dont-use-mental-

health-terms-casually.

Parkinson, Hannah Jane. “'It's Nothing like a Broken Leg': Why I'm Done with the Mental

Health Conversation.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 30 June 2018,

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/30/nothing-like-broken-leg-mental-health-

conversation

Paulton, Meridian M. “How Public Policy Is Failing the Severely Mentally Ill.” The Heritage

Foundation, Heritage Foundation, 18 May 2018, www.heritage.org/public-

health/commentary/how-public-policy-failing-the-severely-mentally-ill

Sederer, Lloyd I. Improving Mental Health : Four Secrets in Plain Sight. Vol. First edition,

American Psychiatric Publishing, 2017. EBSCOhost,

libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nleb

k&AN=1610239&site=eds-live.

Tanner, Michael D. “Tread Carefully on Mental-Health Reform.” Cato Institute, the Cato

Institute, 28 Feb. 2018, www.cato.org/publications/commentary/tread-carefully-mental-

health-reform.