Stigma Around Mental Health

 

Since I have got a variety of different social media platforms, which I have been using for a number of years now, and have become more aware about mental health, as well as tackling my own problems with it, I have become increasingly aware about the stigma that surrounds mental health. This isn't a new thing and definitely isn't going to go away over night. It pains me to see that so many people going through these problems are being told that they don't actually have any problems and that it's just in their head.

But isn't that what mental health is? It's called mental health because it's the psychological problems that you have in your brain. Okay, so they're not visible. But so what? 

It's like that saying: 'you don't know what goes on behind closed doors'. Everything could seem to be fine to everyone around you; but you are secretly fighting your own battles with mental health that no one knows about. And that's okay. None of this is your fault.

But it's some of the words that are said and are involved with the stigma of mental health that can hurt people the most. This includes words such as FAKE, WEIRDO, ATTENTION SEEKER; on top of many others. This is not okay.

For someone to say that someone going through a mental health problem is being fake, then that person must have a serious problem. Why would anyone want to make these problems up? Which brings me on to the next word: attention seeker. If you think that someone is claiming to have mental health problems just to get attention then they're really not. For example, if you think that someone is self-harming just to get a bit of attention then you really have no idea what that person is (or was) going through. They self-harm because they have been hurt that much and genuinely feel like there is no other way out. They also believe that self-harming will take the pain away from what has been hurting them and will focus their attention on to something else. And if you're calling that person a weirdo just because they have mental health problems, then I can promise you that they're not. They're dealing with their own battles and don't want to share them with anyone. They're actually a special kind of person who needs to be shown that they are loved and that it is okay for them to speak out about their problems without the fear of being judged: which the stigma around mental health doesn't exactly help.

So I ask you now to quit with your stigma around mental health. It just makes talking about it so much more difficult because people are always going to judge you for it. It's acceptable to talk about your physical problems; so why isn't it acceptable to talk about your mental problems? They're both just as equally important and I think that more people need to talk about it in order to get this message across. You can say as many words about it as you want, but what if one of your family or friends is going through this but they're too afraid to talk to you about it because you think that it's stupid?

Love Beth xx