The Stigmatisation Of Mental Health Disorders

A state of being forgotten and destroyed; an evolutionary fear we all possess as human beings. But to unwillingly be confined to self-destruction on a daily basis due to your own thoughts is what it truly means to be driven to complete and utter oblivion. To fear the presence of a situation which has not yet happened whilst, at the same time, mourning the absence of a positive thought you’ve never had the privilege of being accustomed to. It is both to feel absolutely everything and yet virtual nothingness all at once. To claim, however, that this sufficiently summarises what it is like to experience mental health issues such as depression and social anxiety would be an incredibly fitting representation of the society we live in today and the unfortunate oversimplification of mental health issues that exists as a whole. To many of you, my what may be perceived as ‘extreme’ description of depression may have seemed somewhat pretentious but what is often forgotten is that the very nature of the illness itself lies in its relentless extremity and longevity. Now, I enjoy exaggerating just as much as the next person (believe me, ask my boyfriend) but depression is not a ‘phase.’ It is not a rainy day in an otherwise clear-skied month. It is Katrina. It is the void you want to fill and yet, all the same, the feeling of reluctance to fill it. It is a growing, serious matter not to be trivialised. Waking up to find the newsfeed of practically all of my social networking sites flooded with the unfortunate Jolie-Pitt split was incredibly disappointing; the fact that nowhere near as much light was shed on these celebrities whilst they were battling depression, respectively, is a significant problem; we as a society relish scandal. Don’t get me wrong, I too am grateful for the countless number of Jennifer Aniston memes which have rendered my Mondays at work bearable. But it is crucial that we remember to address and generate the demand for real issues such as mental/neurological disorders which affect 1 in 4 people around the world, at some point in their lives. The World Health Organisation has predicted that by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability worldwide – and yet what I find to be most depressing about that notion is the stigma that still exists with mental health issues to this day. The leisurely use of labels such as ‘psycho’ and ‘nut-job’ are the perpetuators of the stigmatisation of these very severe mental health issues, when numerous studies have in fact linked mental health to creativity. Many of the greatest minds to have ever existed (such as Nash and Einstein) have undergone a mental health issue of some sort. To have merely defined these individuals by their disorders would have meant to rid society of several technological advancements, awe-inspiring novels and life-altering scientific discoveries. To have eliminated their mental disorders completely would have essentially meant depriving them as well as ourselves of their brilliant accomplishments. Admittedly, we have all occasionally fallen victim to Frankie Boyle’s brilliant but dark sense of humour but even he crosses the line with mental health issues. By exceeding that line he is only fuelling the social stigma that already exists. We unfortunately live in a world with an individual like Donald Trump running as a candidate for president; one whom has ignorantly claimed a ‘troubled-teen’ like Lindsay Lohan would be ‘the best time in bed’ due to her ‘rocky mental health.’ I realise that to start discussing the many wrongdoings and sayings of our beloved Donald, would require an individual article altogether but if this doesn’t cement the need for a change to the stigmatisation of mental health, then I don’t know what will. Perhaps it is easy for those who are not aware of the detrimental effects mental health issues have on individuals everyday, to ridicule it. That’s why we need more people to educate themselves on the matter. As Philip Wylie once said, ‘determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion.’

Here's a funny photo of Donald Trump just because.