1) Mental illness is more common than you probably realise. Schizophrenia is estimated to affect only 1% of the worlds population (about 51 million), while the World Health Organisation estimates that around 2-3% (121 million people) suffer from some form of depression, and although this isn't a very large percentage when comparing it with the worlds 7 billion population the estimated number of people suffering from these disorders alone is 3x the population on the UK, and this is without taking into account eating disorders, addictions, split personality, ADHD and a whole host of others too numerous to count.
2) For most of you if I said the word "schizophrenic" you'd automatically think of the things you here in the news about serial killers and violent criminals, but as a matter of fact while these people Are mentally ill, they are actually in the minority. A lot of our misconceptions come from negative media influences or Hollywood which often are confused and misleading, but because we live in a media-saturated society it's practically impossible to not hear what they say, so often we end up taking everything we hear about mental illness is true. If you were to take a look in the DSM-IV-TR or V (the diagnostic and statistical manual for diagnosing mental illness), nowhere in the classification for schizophrenia does it mention violent behaviour as one of its symptoms. It's true if untreated some symptoms such as delusions or paranoia can trigger violent behaviour, but again this is rare and as I said, often because that person is not receiving the help they need.
3) Which nicely brings me onto my third point. I've heard quite a few people say in the past that it is possible to cure somebody of a mental illness, but from my experience this is not always the case, and in fact many people I know would disagree with that entirely. While I often feel uncomfortable with the phrase "in remission" instead of "cured", it is important to remember doctors use this term for many illnesses such as cancer, not just mental ones. Being "in remission" doesn't mean a relapse is expected, in fact many mentally ill people can go the rest of their lives leading a normal life if treatment is successful, but it seems even then there is still stigma attached to the fact that at one point that person was seriously ill. One study on stigmatisation in 2008 found that mentally ill people in remission found it harder to find work, rent houses or socially interact because they often found they were seen as the outcasts of society. This was supported by a psychologist in 2001 who stated that mentally ill people were the most stigmatised and discriminated against despite also being the most vulnerable.
4) (the one that really annoys me) there are some people who just believe mental illness is a myth, or if it does exist then it is self inflicted and getting better is possible without needing medical help. Not so. Mental illness isn't something you can just fake nor does it go away overnight. Recovery is a long slow process that needs to be worked at for a long time before any improvement is seen in many cases, and while yes, there are drug therapies that are used a lot that can speed up recovery, they are realistically only capable of managing any illness as they do not deal with the root of the problem, which is why nowadays a lot of treatments combine drug and cognitive therapies. But what makes me annoyed the most is the people who say mental illness is self inflicted. If you've never experienced it then how can you begin to understand what they're going through. Eating disorders in particular can see patients go in such vicious cycles that it is so clear something caused them to do this in the first place, and for them, having someone say it's self inflicted only confirms to them the thoughts they already have, that there is something wrong with them and they need to continue what they're doing in order to feel good about themselves. Many theories exist as to why people suffer from mental illness in the first place, and while they often differ on reasons why, aside from biological theories they all conclude that disorders stem from deep rooted psychological issues. This could be anything from traumatic experiences to childhood memories, and it may not even be apparent at the time, but it is often said to be the trigger, and is especially prevalent in eating disorders.
A sociologist called Merton came up with a theory he called the "self fulfilling prophecy", which is where is somebody knows there is an expectation of how they will behave and interact in society, they will inevitably adopt said behaviour and go on to behave as was predicted, and while this is mainly used to describe deviant behaviour, the same theory can be applied to mentally ill people who face stigma in society today. We focus too much on trying to see how "different" mentally ill people are from the rest of society that we forget that just because they're ill it does't make them any different to us. In fact, if we were to look at Marie Johodas 6 categories that she believed define mental illness, we would see that we all fall into at least one of them. Often people forget that some of the greatest people we look up to were/are mentally ill. Charles Dickens suffered from depression, John Nash is schizophrenic, Florence Nightingale had bipolar and ever Abraham Lincoln sometimes suffered crippling bouts of severe depression. Yet we still look up to and respect them because these were great people who left their mark on society, so if we can show respect for these people then why not extend it to everyone?
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