MENTAL HEALTH

Introduction: Unraveling The Stigma

'My mum says I can't come out with you tonight! I'm so depressed.'

'One moment he's fine; the next he's yelling at me! I swear he's bipolar!'

'I can't stand mess. I have, like, OCD or something.'

'Look at her. She's so anorexic.'

Which is worse: the silence or the scream?

* * *

Hi, hello and welcome. As you already know, this book is about mental health. Personally, I myself am neurotypical, meaning I do not have any mental illnesses. Strange that I should be writing this introduction, you might think. But perhaps not.

Mental illnesses are very prevalent in our society. One in four adults experience a mental health problem in any given year. It is the leading cause for days of absence and suicides in the UK. Chances are you know a lot of people that have or have had a mental illness, whether or not they've told you about it.

The thing is that mental illnesses are often invisible. When you see someone with a cast on their leg, it's immediately obvious that there's something wrong with it. Not so with the mind. And yet the brain is an organ just like any other, and being so complex there area lot of processes that can get disrupted.

But because mental illnesses affect the mind like few somatic diseases do, a stigma has built up around it. It's difficult to point to depression the same way you can to a cut on your arm. People who have never experienced it or don't understand it become resistant to the idea that an illness can affect what you feel and what you think.

It's important that neurotypicals are aware of the reality of mental illness, so that we can support our friends, family and colleagues who are living with such a reality. We need to together create a culture in which people can talk freely about the struggles they face, without being confronted by incredulity or discrimination. I believe that this also includes not trivializing or romanticising mental illnesses in everyday conversations by reducing them to something that they are not.

An increased awareness of mental illness also means better treatment. Three in four young people (under the age of sixteen) who have a mental illness have not told their friends about it because they are afraid of the reaction. And yet experts stress that support from friends and family is key in aiding recovery and/or living with it.

Having seen the effect that dealing with a mental illness has had on friends and family, I am determined to aid them by raising awareness about the personal impacts it has had on their lives. Of course, all I can share is what I've learnt and what I imagine. If there are any topics you feel that you could share your experience of - whether about you or someone you know, whether it be a particular incidence, an ongoing event or something else - I would gladly welcome your contribution. Just email us at projectawesomesauce@outlook.com

LTAC!

- mynameisnotholly