HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

Around the world, near­ly one bil­lion peo­ple live with men­tal ill­ness­es. Every 40 sec­onds, some­one dies from sui­cide and de­pres­sion is now recog­nised as a lead­ing cause of ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty among chil­dren and ado­les­cents.

All of this was true, even be­fore COVID-19. Now, we are see­ing the con­se­quences of the pan­dem­ic on peo­ple’s men­tal well-be­ing, and this is just the be­gin­ning. Many groups, in­clud­ing old­er adults, chil­dren and peo­ple with ex­ist­ing men­tal health con­di­tions are at risk of con­sid­er­able medi­um- and long-term ill-health if ac­tion is not tak­en. Yet many of these ac­tions are pur­sued in the dark or pa­tients seek­ing help are still heav­i­ly stig­ma­tized.

Sad­ly, these sig­nif­i­cant stig­mas at­tached to men­tal health con­di­tions, much re­ly on old-fash­ioned think­ing and out­dat­ed as­sump­tions. As with many things in life, the more in­for­ma­tion we are armed with, the less like­ly we are to al­low myths to colour our opin­ions.

In or­der to say that it is okay to talk about men­tal ill­ness, we must first re­mind our­selves that men­tal ill­ness can af­fect any­one, is not the re­sult of char­ac­ter, per­son­al de­fects, or poor up­bring­ing and are treat­able. When we can ac­cu­rate­ly point out, name and de­fine men­tal ill­ness, we can have a com­mon vo­cab­u­lary to talk about it. By defin­ing, we de­mys­ti­fy it.

It is up to us, the com­mu­ni­ty, the health care pro­fes­sion­als and the me­dia to ed­u­cate oth­ers and set the record straight.

Here are some of the com­mon mis­con­cep­tions peo­ple make and what you need to know.

MYTH 1. Evil spir­its cause men­tal ill­ness­es – FALSE

In the not-so-dis­tant past, so­ci­ety shunned peo­ple with men­tal health con­di­tions. Some peo­ple be­lieved that evil spir­its or di­vine ret­ri­bu­tion were re­spon­si­ble for men­tal ill­ness. Al­though this way of think­ing has been ex­tri­cat­ed from so­ci­ety in much of the world, it still casts a long shad­ow.

MYTH 2. Men­tal health prob­lems are per­ma­nent - FALSE

A men­tal health di­ag­no­sis is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a “life sen­tence”. Some peo­ple might ex­pe­ri­ence episodes, be­tween which they re­turn to their ver­sion of “nor­mal”. Oth­ers may find treat­ments, med­ica­tion or talk­ing ther­a­pies; that re­store bal­ance to their lives.

MYTH 3. Men­tal health prob­lems are a sign of weak­ness - FALSE

This is no truer than say­ing that a bro­ken leg is a sign of weak­ness. Men­tal health dis­or­ders are ill­ness­es, not signs of poor char­ac­ter. Sim­i­lar­ly, peo­ple with, for in­stance, de­pres­sion, can­not “snap out of it” any more than some­one with di­a­betes or pso­ri­a­sis can im­me­di­ate­ly re­cov­er from their con­di­tion. If any­thing, the op­po­site is true: Fight­ing a men­tal health con­di­tion takes a great deal of strength.

MYTH 4. Hav­ing a men­tal ill­ness means you are “crazy.” - FALSE

It's plain and sim­ple, hav­ing a men­tal ill­ness does not mean you are “crazy.” It means you are vul­ner­a­ble. It means you have an ill­ness with chal­leng­ing symp­toms, the same as some­one with an ill­ness like di­a­betes. While men­tal ill­ness might al­ter your think­ing, desta­bi­lize your moods or skew your per­cep­tion of re­al­i­ty, that doesn’t mean you are “crazy.” It means you are hu­man and are sus­cep­ti­ble to sick­ness and ill­ness, the same as any oth­er per­son.

MYTH 5. Psy­chi­atric med­ica­tions are bad - FALSE

Peo­ple tend to be­lieve that psy­chi­atric med­i­cine is harm­ful or they be­lieve that psych meds are sim­ply “hap­py pills” and “an easy way out” for those with men­tal ill­ness to avoid deal­ing with their prob­lems. Again, this is sim­ply not true.

For many with men­tal ill­ness, med­ica­tion is nec­es­sary, just like it would be for a di­a­bet­ic tak­ing in­sulin. For some in­di­vid­u­als with men­tal ill­ness, med­ica­tion is need­ed for sur­vival. For oth­ers, like those who have mild to mod­er­ate de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, or AD­HD, med­ica­tion can help ease symp­toms, so they can func­tion nor­mal­ly. And hav­ing reg­u­lar ther­a­py com­bined with med­ica­tion can great­ly im­prove one’s qual­i­ty of life.

Let's change the world to­geth­er one step at a time.

In sum­ma­ry, men­tal health con­di­tions are com­mon, but treat­ment is avail­able. We must all work to­geth­er to re­move the myths and stig­ma at­tached to men­tal dis­or­ders. Al­though so­ci­ety’s un­der­stand­ing of men­tal health is­sues has come on leaps and bounds com­pared with just a decade ago, we still have moun­tains to climb. It’s im­por­tant that we pre­vent so­ci­etal con­structs from fram­ing peo­ple as vi­o­lent or “crazy” for hav­ing an ill­ness that is be­yond their con­trol.

Look out for HEALTH PLUS every Tues­day for more in­for­ma­tive and health­ful ar­ti­cles. If you have any ques­tions or con­cerns re­gard­ing this top­ic, please email Guardian­Health­Plus2020@gmail.com