The Stigma of Mental Illness and the Effect of the Pandemic on It

📌Category: Health, Mental health
📌Words: 731
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 02 June 2022

Stigma and discrimination against people suffering from mental illness is a complex and extremely pressing issue that resonates within society and has become an obstacle to increasing awareness and ensuring people suffering from mental health issues get the help they need.

It has resulted in the lack of a supportive community, trouble finding education or work prospects, less access to high-quality health treatment, as well as feelings of social exclusion, loneliness, and lower self-esteem among people with mental illnesses.
Words like “crazy” and “insane” are often flung around without a care when referring to people who suffer from mental illnesses or people who wish to seek therapy. Most people who stigmatise mental illness seem to think of it in black-and-white terms, as if a person can either be “normal” or “crazy”,with nothing in-between, when in actuality there is so much more to mental illness it is a lot more than just two extremes.  Disorders can range and differ in hundreds of ways, including how extreme they are, how they present their symptoms, and how they affect a person's behaviour and daily life Mental health issues have often been considered categorically unequal to issues regarding physical health.This is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the fight to create parity between the way insurance covers mental-health disorders and other medical conditions had been ongoing for years. There’s no doubt that the pandemic brought seismic shifts to our everyday life and how we operate both as individuals and also collectively as a society, we've struggled to understand the virus that has turned our world upside down, we have tried to sort through the seemingly unending stream of information and misinformation that has guided our response and have tried to assess the virus's risk to ourselves, our families and our communities.

Feelings of fear, worry, as well as  stress are normal responses to perceived or real threats, and at times when we are faced with uncertainty or the unknown and hence became quite common during the pandemic, especially during it’s onset when there was no concrete information about how it affected people, how it was transmitted and how dangerous or life threatening it could possibly be. It had an impact on almost every person’s life, daily routine as well as their mental health, and many people who had lived glorious, successful, and stress free lives prior to the pandemic were completely shaken as well. The pandemic continues to wreak havoc on our daily lives, leaving a widening trail of devastation and grief across the globe. However, It did more than just increase the prevalence of mental health issues; it also accelerated positive momentum in our communities to raise awareness about mental health issues and increased accessibility to crucial support and services for those affected. Individuals who never in their wildest dreams imagined they would experience symptoms of depression or anxiety, or any forms of mental illness are now discovering, realising, as well as starting to accept the fact that mental health illnesses can impact anyone at any time, are unpredictable and are far from being a myth.

This caused most people who were struggling with their mental health to realise the fact that now even people around them are managing increased stress, anxiety or other problems regarding mental health as a result of the pandemic, causing them to open up about their own experiences with mental illness and even seek out support from their families, friends and colleagues as well as treatment and services from mental health-care providers.Public perceptions of mental illness are softening and conversations about the topic of mental health  are becoming more frequent, open and inclusive, particularly among younger people. The pandemic accelerated long-time efforts in the professional mental health care communities to destigmatise mental health issues and normalise the search for help regarding your mental health.

‘TIME’ magazine wrote:  “The pandemic is a sort of equalizer, everyone is self-isolated at home and dealing with uncertainty and grief. To some degree, everyone is experiencing what life with anxiety is like. This is the first time many employers and managers are thinking and openly talking about mental health in the workplace.”

The message here is that having a mental illness is not a sign of weakness, but that opening up about your experience and seeking treatment is a sign of strength. The pandemic has helped a large number of people take a step towards the right direction by changing their perception of mental illnesses and making them realise how important it is to increase awareness on mental health.
As the stigma lifts and the culture changes, the feeling of shared trauma and experiences like that of surviving a devastating pandemic are making it easier for people to talk not just about the

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