How does the stigma related to mental health affect the willingness to seek required help?
As May is Mental Health awareness month, I decided to write an argumentative report on a special topic of mental health. Let’s all imagine, in our communities if the people were judged and blamed for suffering from cancer or other deadly medical conditions. Luckily, this doesn’t happen in the real world. However, people with mental health issues are treated differently. When I look around , I have noticed that several youth , adults I personally know and their acquaintances have been seeking help to find inner peace. But it pains me to see that the suicide rate continues to increase and people still hesitate to seriously think about their wellbeing. In the near future, I hope to pursue a career in psychiatry and become an activist to combat the epidemic of mental health. For my English argument essay, I decided to dig deeper on the discrimination of mental health and why people have been hesitant to seek required help? I am not a psychiatrist, but given my interest in the topic I did some research to learn and inform other people.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) , health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity”. Mental health is often ignored in the community. In the past few years, the burden of mental health illnesses have significantly increased, resulting in disability and death. This mental illness epidemic has been worsening in recent years due to the lack of awareness on the importance of mental wellbeing and stressors of the recent covid pandemic . According to the Center of Disease Control, 1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year. Similarly, 1 in 5 children at some point in their life will suffer from a mental illness. The number is estimated to increase in coming years if we don’t act now. Due to the lack of awareness and hesitancy to accept the diagnosis, the interventions for mental illnesses often get delayed. People battling mental illnesses are scared to ask for help due to inaccurate representations and stereotypes in our society and social media. People suffering from mental health issues are isolated from the rest of the world because of the fear of being judged and labeled as an abnormal person.
Stigma, is defined as a mark of disgrace from the community or by a person and usually begins with inaccurate or misleading media representations of mental illnesses. This may contribute to increased stress and lack of better understanding of mental health issues . According to the American Psychiatric Association, A review of studies on stigma shows that while the public may accept the genetic or medical nature of a mental health disorder and the need for interventions and medications, people still have a negative point of view on mental illnesses. Such media representations of people with mental illnesses can influence wrongful assumptions. A study published in April 2020 looked at a popular film, Joker, where they portrayed the protagonist who has been diagnosed with a mental illness who becomes violent. Authors have claimed that Joker has exaggerated a stereotype of people suffering from mental health to become crazy and aggressive. Overall, the inaccurate portrayal of mental health has created a fear for people to question their inner thoughts and the mental wellbeing of people. This has led to a major decrease in the confidence to reach for support.
Likewise, as stigma has been created through the inaccurate stereotypes, people who have been suffering from the inner battles of mental health are ashamed of feeling “abnormal”. When there is a belief system of people suffering from a mental disorder being “abnormal”, inner stereotypes are created which further wound their willingness to ask for help. According to the National Institutes of Health, stigma is public, private and institutional. When someone is dealing with stereotypes within themselves, they think that they are ¨dangerous”and ¨to blame¨. Discrimination plays an important role in this situation. Furthermore, inner stereotypes lead to poor self esteem resulting in people fearing themselves and their community. When inaccurate portrayals of mental illnesses pop up on social media, it causes fear and reduces the self esteem of people dealing with mental illnesses. This causes them to isolate themselves from others resulting in worse outcomes. Access to mental health services has been challenging. The healthcare systems and the Congress has been cutting and ending the funding for mental hospitals resulting in less access to care for people who are unable to afford them .Therefore, people with unstable mental health are unable to take care of themselves resulting in significant increase in suicides and unlawful activities . Overall, the key factors contributing to worsening mental health problems are inaccurate portrayals in the media, stereotypes surrounding such portrayals leading to self discrimination and a lack of access to resources.
Some may argue that the community doesn’t have a connection to the discrimination against people with mental health. But upon close examination, surveys conducted by the Mayo Clinic have shown that people who have no personal background of having a mental illness admit that they feel uncomfortable interacting with people with a mental disorder. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have claimed that people in society have the belief that people suffering from a mental illness are unable to act or function like “normal” people in society. These inappropriate attitudes have led to a vicious cycle of stigma and cutbacks in federal funding for mental hospitals that has further worsened the situation for people struggling to maintain their mental wellbeing. This leads to the belief system that they will never be “normal” towards society when this is not the case.
As the mental health crisis continues to surge, there is an increase in discrimination and stigmatization around mental health every day . In today’s society, people with mental illnesses are reluctant to seek help resulting in being disconnected from their families , and becoming victims of bullying. Not getting help from healthcare providers could be related to the government policies related to insurance that makes access to care impossible as a lack of health insurance makes it difficult for people to recover their treatment expenses. Some may argue that they would rather tell people they have committed a crime than admit their mental wellbeing, but on closer examination, this is due to the shame of mental health that surrounds the community. When people have this attitude, it causes people to have a fear of how they feel and makes it difficult for people to ask for help. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), suggests that in order to end stigma, people should be more inclusive of others’ with an aim to promote acceptance of neurodiversity in the community . According to both mental health advocates, Patrick Corrigan and Amy Watson, there are a few approaches to end stigma specifically when people are hesitant to speak up. Protesting is an important tool for ending discrimination. It includes advocating groups correcting inappropriate portrayals of mental illnesses in two ways. One, by stopping the media from reporting inaccurate accounts of mental illness and the other is a message to the public to end the belief of trusting negative comments spread around the community. Studies from Corrigan and Watson indicate that when there is a lack of awareness around mental health, people don’t have a better understanding of mental illnesses and are more likely to spread and promote discrimination. This shows that fighting an inner battle, is less powerful to not only themselves, but to the majority of people suffering, and today’s society which brings out a message to not be aware of today’s modern issues. Overall, the important part to remember is informing people in the community about this topic, or speaking up in social media will decrease the discrimination of mental wellbeing that has been set for years.
In conclusion, as our communities become more aware about the importance of mental health, there will be a decrease of stigma related to mental illnesses. There is a need for efforts to change the perspective about mental health and to reduce discrimination by having access to reliable information and resources. This change in perception will eventually end the hesitancy to get required help.
Works Cited
“Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Apr. 2023, https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/index.htm.
Borenstein, Jeffrey. “Stigma, Prejudice and Discrimination against People with Mental Illness.” American Psychiatric Association, Aug. 2020, www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/stigma-and-discrimination.
“Stigma and Discrimination Research Toolkit.” National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH),www.nimh.nih.gov/about/organization/dar/stigma-and-discrimination-research-toolkit.
Committee on the Science of Changing Behavioral Health Social Norms. “Understanding Stigma of Mental and Substance Use Disorders.” National Library of Medicine, National Academies Press (US), 3 Aug. 2016,
Mayo Clinic . “Mental Health: Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness.” Mayo Clinic, 2017, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/mental-illness/in-depth/mental-health/art-20046477.