Pain. Confusion. Fear. Uncertainty. Rejection. Depression. Anxiety. Suffocation. Descriptions of mental illness often employ such terms, and not one of them does justice to the reality.
The topic of mental health is especially relevant at this time of year, given the deployment of psychiatric disorders as a plot device in many Halloween horror stories. The same narrative appears in the way that we often attempt to understand social ills like crime and poverty according to our own fear and ignorance regarding mental health. Interpreting a quality, characteristic, or thing as terrifying and evil allows us to condemn and discard it, instead of investigating what about it threatens us. As a society, we are inclined to turn away from things we do not understand. We try to describe people we categorize as mentally ill as evil, dangerous, people who have a proclivity for violence and harming others, using mental illness as a means to revile. We translate our disgust into a way of justifying our own lack of concern, using difference to discriminate. This often holds true for those affected by mental illness of any kind, as our lack of knowledge often causes us to oversimplify, reduce, and ignore the problem to pacify our own fears about our own failure to understand.
How should we best work to overcome this stigma? First, we need to recognize that the topics and issues we place under the header of “mental health” are located in the experiences of individuals. “Mentally ill” is itself an inadequate term, one that does not fully account for the diversity of experiences and multiplicity of needs of those labeled as such. Some people diagnosed with mental disorders or individuals with what we might define as abnormal mental states are able to live full and happy lives, and their lives and experiences should not be delegitimized. In other cases, mental illness is a real and present problem, wreaking havoc on an individual’s relations, career, and health. In relating to people experiencing what we define as mental illness, we need to be clearly aware that no two cases are identical, and that treatment should reflect this multifaceted reality. The primary goal in any treatment regimen addressing mental illness, trauma, and distress should be giving those faced with these difficulties the power to define and inhabit their own lives.
Secondly, we need to put in place structures that provide assistance and support, both to help individuals and to combat general apathy or prejudice that can compound the struggles already faced by those working through and suffering from mental difficulties. On campus, Furman offers a counseling service, available to all students, that offers care for issues ranging from depression, anxiety, and excessive stress to emotional trauma. In Greenville County, programs like the Greenville Mental Health Center and the Carolina Center for Behavioral Health serve the Greenville community by offering services geared specifically to the treatment of mental illness. These programs are a step in the right direction, offering personalized care to tackle the problems that can be caused by mental illness at the source, and lead us toward a path down which mental illness is not just addressed after a crime or a breakdown.
Mental illness can catalyze serious social problems like substance abuse, homelessness, and crime, so attempts to support those with mental illness helps to both improve the lives of individuals and the life of a community as a whole. Any attempts to address these corrosive and painful conditions require us to address the mental states of those individuals trapped in such cyclical and destructive circumstances. In addressing the issue of mental illness politically and in our own lives, we have to consider the rehabilitation of criminals, the realities of a national education system that teaches and relies on behavioral norms, and socio-economic environments that leave few opportunities for those labeled as abnormal or different. Our understanding of those problems should always be informed by the impact mental illness has on driving people into situations in which they make harmful decisions. By reframing the debate in this way, mental illness stops being an element contributing to problems and becomes a way of creating solutions.
Finally, mental illness is not just an abstract medical category or general social problem and is not just something in movies or stories; it is something that touches all of our lives in real and personal ways. It is often too easy to overlook because the symptoms are not immediately apparent, but the hurt we cannot see is sometimes the most painful. Mental health matters because it directly affects everyone — family, friends, the person sitting next to you in class, the person you pass on the street. Moreover, a study from the CDC suggests that up to 50 percent of the population will experience some form of mental health problem in their lifetime, and another study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that in 2009 almost 5 percent of the population experienced a mental illness that impaired their ability to function. The most terrifying numbers are the tens of thousands of people who successfully commit suicide each year, the hundreds of thousands who hurt themselves, and the silent millions who struggle with suicidal thoughts. Mental illness is a real and pressing problem, and we can respond to mental illness in ways that give people the freedom to live fulfilling lives and power over their own identities.