Essay on How Stigma and Discrimination Effect Mental Illness

In today's world mental health is both highly known but still manages to remain unknown.

There are tons of people with mental issues, and there are just as many that pretend to suffer from the same issues. And pretending to have these issues brings on a much bigger issue, most of the time these people that fake these mental illnesses still have some form of an illness. But when they are faking another mental illness and get help for it, they aren’t getting help with their real issue. And all this causes issues for the people that actually have the disorders that other people are faking. It is a full circle, but it becomes an issue when these people that are faking, make it into their whole personality and lifestyle. They make it harder for people with actual issues to come forward because they feel that their situation is less severe. Or in worse cases when these people fake a disorder like tics or adhd, they set a certain example for what it's “supposed” to look like and there is no certain way that either of these disorders looks like because they are on a spectrum.

A bonus to the new generational quota, is the fact that mental illness is not as nearly taboo and ignored as it was in the past. It is still ignored to an extent that it should not be. But it has gotten better. The main issue is that it is still not talked about enough, or taken seriously. Nobody wants to talk about the issues. To address the issue in the above paragraph, about faking disorders; The correct term for the illness that these people have is Factitious disorder, this and Hypochondria go hand in hand. Hypochondria can be referred to as health anxiety, when you are so worried about your health you make simple symptoms into big issues out of fear. Many people suffer from both these conditions but go untreated. More than 200,000 people are diagnosed with Hypochondria a year. There are no clear statistics that I can find on Factitious disorder, mainly because it goes undiagnosed in a lot of patients as quoted here; “This is a difficult mental disorder to identify and treat. It is thought that about one percent of people admitted to hospitals are diagnosed with factitious disorder, but it is probably under-reported.”

There are many reasons people don’t get diagnosed or go untreated for their mental illness, from lack of notice to preference. There are many reasons for the cases that go unnoticed or ignored. Such as stigma, and the general lack of education about these illnesses and what to do to seek help, and maybe most important and to blame; bullying or harassment. “Public stigma involves the negative or discriminatory attitudes that others have about mental illness.” After generations of stigmatization by their peers, people with mental illness have begun to inwardly stigmatize themselves. “Institutional stigma is more systemic, involving policies of government and private organizations that intentionally or unintentionally limit opportunities for people with mental illness. Examples include lower funding for mental illness research or fewer mental health services relative to other health care.” In the instance of people that are supposed to help people with these illnesses, they are also victims of astigmatism in the fact that they don’t believe the person about their illness and just try to “ignore” it. Because it was considered taboo or a touchy subject for such a long time.

The major issue with handling mental illness today, is a lot of people don’t know how to help people deal with it, or they just don’t care. “It is estimated that, among children under 18 years old in the United States, approximately 16.5 percent had at least one mental health disorder. Of these children, about 49.4 percent did not receive needed treatment or counseling from a mental health professional.” And many schools claim to treat kids for their mental health problems, and some do but not enough. And they don't teach about subjects that teach you to take care of yourself mentally. “During the 2017–18 school year, about 51 percent of public schools (or 42,200 schools) reported providing diagnostic mental health assessment services to evaluate students for mental health disorders (hereafter referred to as “diagnostic services”; In contrast, fewer public schools (38 percent, or 31,500 schools) offered mental health treatment services to students for mental health disorders (hereafter referred to as “treatment services”.” Mental illness needs to be addressed a lot more than it is, and schools need to teach about these illnesses and give these kids their support.

In conclusion a lot of people suffer from mental illness and that can’t ever fully be cured, because as humans that's just the way our brains work. We learn and see the world under the effect of our illness and most of the time you have to hit rock bottom before you can advance. But if people were willing to try to help others and learn about this subject it would greatly lessen the severity of the symptoms and effects of the illnesses. Mental illnesses don’t need to be seen as bad, or that the person isn't “all there”. It needs to be seen as just another part of life that we have to push through to survive. We all suffer from mental issues at one point in our lives, all of us.