Mental Health Awareness Month, Breaking Down the Stigma

You have likely heard it is mental health awareness month, which is fantastic that it is starting to get more popularized. However, this post is going to be more about the stigma around personal mental health than a general awareness message. Mental health in the United States is very misunderstood and misadvertised in the media at large. When there’s a tragic event, a teenager who’s struggling, or someone struggling with substances, people are quick to blame mental health. While it is certainly present in a lot of these concerns, this unfortunately reflects how we tend to treat mental health in our society. We treat it like it’s a problem that troubled people have and rarely go beyond that. This ends up affecting our views when we struggle with mental health, especially when meeting with leaders or other therapists it’s very common to hear some variation of, “I shouldn’t be here. I must be messing up.”

In reality, needing therapy is not a result of mistakes or failings and mental health concerns are not inherently problematic as they are often portrayed. It’s also not a failing to need some assistance in maintaining your mental health when you are in a leadership position or have the knowledge to treat other’s problems. These are high stress positions that often expose us to human suffering, it’s only natural to be affected by those conditions.

The way I like to visualize mental health is like medical health. We can go about our days doing nothing wrong and suddenly we have a virus, we might even be more prone to viruses than others but it still isn’t our fault. We certainly wouldn’t blame someone else for getting a virus or not getting over it by sheer force of will. In fact, if it was really starting to impact them we would be perplexed if they didn’t seek help. While the comparison isn’t spot on accurate, it isn’t too far off with how mental health is. Like an illness or injury, it comes with being human and tends to get cared for better if we take care of it right away and are kind to ourselves in the process.

For this mental health awareness month, try and have understanding and patience with yourself when struggling. Talk to yourself like you would a loved one who is struggling. If we stop seeing our mental health as personal failings, this in turn can help to change the overall discourse and stigma around mental health in general.