Destigmatize Mental Illness

Psychological well-being is often associated with very negative myths. Therefore, destigmatizing mental illness is not an easy task. You must first start questioning your own thoughts about mental health.

Then, once you overcome the stigmas and the myths associated with it, you will see everything from a healthier and objective standpoint.

Basically, it’s about not focusing on mental illness and their negative traits. To do this, you have to approach these situations in a way that you have never done before.

But first, let’s define what destigmatizing mental illness means, who is an important part of the process, the challenges associated with it, the origins of the stigma, and how to encourage destigmatization.

Destigmatizing Mental Illness

Destigmatizing mental illness means looking at it from a new perspective. People are basically trying to see mental health in a different way.

Therefore, destigmatization means giving mental health the importance it deserves while recognizing the disorders associated with it from a different point of view.

The origin of the stigma surrounding mental illness

The stigma attached to mental health has evolved over time through various mechanisms. In fact, the stigma is the result of fears, myths and stereotypes that made it acceptable to discriminate against people who suffer from mental illness.

Even in ancient times, people separated mental health from other health issues. Mental illness was often perceived as negative (for example, people associated it with being possessed by a demon).

Other times, however, it was associated with the fact that whoever had a mental illness was a genius or an artist. However, today people still look down on people who suffer from mental problems as a result of those ancient myths.

On the other hand, physical health has always been more visible. But now society is slowly discovering how important psychology is when it comes to physical health issues and how the two are related.

Moreover, health is composed of psychological, social and physical well-being according to the World Health Organization.

For example, today many other health organizations have attempted to preach the importance of mental well-being as a fundamental aspect of overall health. For example, people’s perspective on mental illness has gradually changed.

The Challenges of Destigmatizing Mental Illness

To reduce the stigma of mental illness, we need to start by debunking some myths:

• “Mental health is not important.” Health is multidimensional. If you pay attention to each of its parts, your quality of life will improve.
• “Anyone who suffers from a mental illness is a genius.” This myth comes from a time when people believed that madness was a sign of intelligence.
• “People who suffer from mental illness are aggressive, unstable and dangerous.” Although mental disorders affect behavior, emotions and thoughts, not everyone with a mental disorder has these characteristics. While they can sometimes have a hard time controlling their behavior, this doesn’t always happen, even with every disorder. Mental illness can affect people in different ways.

• “Mental health does not affect physical health.” Several aspects of mental health can affect physical health because these two aspects are closely related. A clear example of this is stress.
• “You are your disease.” People often label a person with a disease as part of their identity. They look no further than their depression or schizophrenia.

These myths, born of ignorance, can ultimately fuel discrimination, either because mental illness is seen as something to fear or because it is not considered important.

What can  you do about this?

What can you do to help destigmatize mental illness?

• Work on your empathy. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes to see what others are going through. Don’t just believe in stereotypes and prejudices.
• Be open to learn more. Looking beyond what you first thought about this topic, being open to new perspectives, and trying to understand how mental illness works can be helpful.

• teamwork. By collaborating with other people from different fields, you will be able to see health from a multidimensional perspective.

In fact, the biggest challenge could be to see people suffering from mental illness as normal. What you also need to understand is that health is a global concept in which several factors play a role. Therefore, you should try to avoid just believing the opinion of others in order to dispel the myths.

Who can best help?

• organizations. They can help by running campaigns that help reduce the risk of mental illness and promote mental health, by implementing new laws and policies, and by working with the community concerned to understand the problem.

• People suffering from mental illness and their families. They can help by promoting mental health as an important topic and debunking myths about it.
• Mental health professionals. They can help by explaining to people what mental health really is.

Promote Mental Health

To reduce the stigma, you can intervene in several circumstances, such as:

• Media: The aim is to promote the concept of mental health from a more realistic and positive perspective.
• Diagnosis:  Reasonably using diagnoses to avoid stereotypes.
• Healthcare:  Promoting effective healthcare for mental illness.
• Supportive Systems:  Clarifying and debunking some myths and providing proper treatment to people suffering from mental illness.

• Take legal action:  Combat discrimination and violence related to mental health.

While it is important to use politics and communicate information properly, these measures do not guarantee long-term changes. Therefore, everyone should start trying to better understand and support people with mental health problems. Destigmatizing mental health is a collaborative effort.