Please Stop Equating Mental Illness With Mass Murderers

Mental illness.  When you hear those words, what do you think?  Who do you picture? Do you think of the news stories in which those who may or may not have a mental illness do horrific things?  Or, do you think about your neighbor, friend, and/or family member?  Because, odds are, someone very close to you has or will have some form of mental illness.

What is mental illness, then?  According to the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI), "Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life." 

The prevalence rate (or the rate at which people are diagnosed) currently resides at 5-6% for those diagnosed with a clinical (as in, long-term) mental disorder (source: NAMI). Despite the high prevalence rate,  negative perceptions of people who have mental illness still exists, including: violent and in need of regulation (per the NRA) and faking it to get attention (something that we often hear, unfortunately).

It's distressing to go through a period of high anxiety and/or depression only to have those around you - who should be your support group - run away in fear/confusion or tell you that what you're feeling doesn't exist. Allie at Hyperbole and a Half does a great job of showing this in her most recent post on depression.

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When I was pregnant with my first child, I got very sick.  So sick that I lost weight and had to have several rounds of IV's in order to have some nutrition running through my veins.  When people heard about my so-called morning sickness their reactions ranged from, "Try this, it will help!" (it didn't) to "if you just tried to think positively..." (which, SURPRISE, also didn't help).  It was painful to be puking all day long and know that people thought I was faking it.  But when I went to my physician, they didn't question my condition - later diagnosed as hyperemesis gravidarum - and, in fact, gave me great information regarding how to survive the however many weeks I'd feel like crap.

The internet has helped disseminate information about the condition I suffered through. In my other pregnancies I felt much more supported by those around me.  Rather than distrust for what I was experiencing, people expressed sympathy.  It was great.

Sadly, my experience with mental illness has been vastly different.

Talking to a physician about what I'm feeling is awful.  Typically it involves convincing them that I'm not lying, that I do indeed have massive anxiety all the time and that I'm not just trying to get drugs.  Or that I really do feel down and like I want to just disappear all the freaking time.

When I've shared with people that I am mentally ill, they react in ways that lead me to believe I am doing something wrong.  The self-shaming on top of what I'm already feeling is too much.  I've learned to just hide my illness from people because hiding it is easier than having people look at me odd or act differently around me when they discover what should be an innocuous fact.

I feel the stigma of mental illness quite profoundly.  I feel it when I hear the NRA and/or people in the US Congress suggest a registry for mentally ill (top of page 3).  I feel it when I hear of another news story in which a mentally ill person committed a violent crime, despite the fact that people without mental illness commit violent crimes more often than those with mental illness. I feel it when people around me casually misuse mentally ill to describe those with whom they disagree and/or don't understand.  It's hard to exist in a society that thinks you should be locked up just because your brain is wired differently (not wrongly) than those around you.  It's even harder when you know your job, your relationships, your well-being are in jeopardy when people discover your secret.

And how do we stop it? I don't know.  Bravery is great until you face hatred for disclosing an uncomfortable fact about yourself.