“If someone asked you, ‘how does it feel to suffer from a mental health condition?’ – what would your answer be? ‘It doesn’t feel good, but it doesn’t make me incapable of handling or achieving any of my goals,’” Rorisang replied.
Dealing with society and the world is hard enough, imagine also dealing with yourself. Not in a way that you’re “finding” yourself, but constantly dealing with a condition that affects your mood, thinking and behaviour, and to have people perceive you differently, often less than, because of that condition.
Affecting millions of people, mental illnesses are so common, yet so stigmatised. How common is common? “Around 1 in 5 of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental disorder,” as reported by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It’s so scary that these stigmas exist when we could all possibly have relations to someone living with one of these conditions, but they suffer alone and in silence, because society has made them feel and seem like outsiders. Or even better yet, be the ones suffering from these conditions.
“Mental issues such as depression and anxiety do not affect some races,” is the stigma that stands out most for Rorisang Mohale, a young female in her twenties who suffered from severe depression. Hikatekile Maringa, a young female suffering from major depression, anxiety, and drug dependency, said it to be the perception of being lazy and unambitious. She further continued that she’d like to be perceived as, “someone who continues to live and work even though it can get very hard for me.”
It isn’t just the feeling of shame, hopelessness and isolation, as highlighted by the Better Health Channel. Because of these stigmas, there is a great reluctance to ask for help or get treatment; bullying, physical violence or harassment, and lack of understanding by family, friends and others, which then results in a lack of support for the person dealing with the mental illness. With stigma often comes discrimination, which is greatly unfair because someone is being treated differently based on myths and hearsay, as opposed to facts.
Siobhan Parle, a community psychiatric nurse, has found that being discriminated against has a huge impact on self-esteem and confidence, which increases isolation from society and reinforces feelings of exclusion and social withdrawal. She further explains that discrimination and stigma have been linked to ignorance: stigmas exist because people don’t get thoroughly educated about mental health conditions. Parle reports that discrimination is even greater when it comes to employment, as many people with mental health problems often have gaps within their CVs. This is due to episodes of mental ill health and having to explain those gaps often leads to them missing out on those employment opportunities. When they do get to work, they are treated differently.
The Better Health Channel believes that, “everyone has a role to play in creating a mentally healthy community – one that is inclusive, rejects discrimination and supports recovery.” Hikatekile expressed that stigmas persist because mental health support is still so inaccessible. The WHO reports that, “less than half of the 139 countries that have mental health policies and plans report having these aligned with human rights conventions,” implying that the matter is not taking priority as it should. So, much still needs to be done at the government level to provide knowledge to communities. Policies need to be amended to cater for people with mental illness, and more programmes and services readily available to them.
Besides dealing with the issue at national level, Rorisang believes we could also deal with it at a community level. She proposes that we raise awareness about mental health, especially in Black communities. This would help create an understanding of these conditions and thus help make it easier to support those within these communities that are suffering from these conditions. We should also get to know people living with mental illness so we can learn to see them for who they are and not the illness they live with, and treat everyone with respect and dignity just as our Constitution prescribes. It’s also important to, “avoid using language that puts the illness first and the person second. Say ‘a person with bipolar disorder’ rather than ‘that person is bipolar’,” reports Better Health. Most importantly, correct people when they make comments about stereotypes!
It’s about time we stopped the stigma and created a space where people with mental health conditions also feel safe and “normal.” Yes, it won’t happen overnight, but we need to get the conversations going and governments need to start being proactive about these issues. We are all dealing with various things in our lives, but we don’t get cast off for them. So, why are we doing that to others who are dealing with something different than us?