Mental Health: Let's Talk About It

When I was 12 years old, I fell and sprained my foot. Immediately after, I told my parents what had happened and went straight to hospital to get it looked at. I was happy to accept help from the doctors, and didn’t hesitate to explain to others what was wrong. But, when it came to my broken mind, I couldn’t bring myself to do any of this.

When we’re physically hurt or ill, we have no issue letting other people know. But when our minds are ill, we feel pressured to cover it up.

Why?

I’ll admit, when I was first diagnosed, I felt a certain level of embarrassment about it. Even blogging about it all these years later makes me feel nervous. (Gigantically nervous, actually.) As a society, we still seem to struggle when it comes to expressing our feelings – and for me, the thought of talking about it made me feel so uncomfortable.

Discussions about mental health seem to be particularly difficult for people. In a TEDTalk on the topic, neuroscientist Sarah Caddick suggests that this is because mental disorders are harder to understand than physical ailments.

She explained:

“The minute you start talking about your mind, people get very anxious, because we associate that with being who we are […] — us as a person, us as an individual, our thoughts, our fears, our hopes, our aspirations, our everything.”

People might worry that they’ll be judged, or that they won’t be taken seriously. They might also fear that they’ll be seen as a burden, or that no one will understand. But, one of the biggest problems, I think, is the worry that admitting you’re suffering will make you look weak. 

Let’s take a look at some statistics:

Ø  Worldwide, an estimated 300 million people are currently suffering from depression

Ø  Unsurprisingly, this illness is the leading cause of suicide

But take a look at this: 

Ø  Twice as many females suffer from depression than males

Ø  Females are also more likely to have a mental disorder (which accounts for 90% of suicides)

Ø  Statistically, women are more likely to consider killing themselves than men

…So why is it that men commit suicide almost four times more often than women?

One of the most obvious conclusions is that this probably is largely due to the different pressures our sexes face. For example, men are typically expected to be ‘tough’ and ‘macho’ and ‘strong’. If they divert away from this stereotype, they might be told to “man up” or “grow a pair”. So, to keep up this ‘manly’ façade, do they carry on suffering in silence? In other words: do they avoid ever talking about it?

The statistics definitely make it look that way. Studies have revealed that women are more likely to seek help for mental disorders – and this might explain why such a small percentage of women account for the overall suicide rate. 

To back this up even further, a recent study found that three-quarters of the people who end their own life aren’t in contact with mental health services. Is it possible that reaching out could have saved them?

Yes, the thought of opening up can be scary – but is it really worth avoiding this if it could cost you your life?

To put it plainly, we cannot ignore how important it is to talk about mental illness. It’s key to lessening stigma, and is often what leads people to get help (whether that be support from family or friends, or medical help from professionals). We need to promote these conversations, so that more people actually see opening up as an option.

Continuing this dialogue is key if we want to change society’s attitude – and it might also encourage others to do the same. When I finished high school, for example, and started studying at university, I was over the moon to hear other students on my course openly discussing their mental health. This opened up a whole new world to me – one where I didn’t feel pressured to hide the truth from people, and realised (finally!) that I wasn’t alone. 

Being around that type of conversation was genuinely life-changing for me. It’s what inspired me to write my first ever blog post about mental illness. If I hadn’t been surrounded by this open dialogue, this post that you're reading right now probably wouldn’t exist.

Just in case you needed any more convincing, though, let’s look at talking therapy for a second. There are plenty of studies into this type of therapy that indicate how effective it is. Take, for instance, the 2015 study published in the British Medical Journal, which shows that talking therapy can be just as effective as anti-depressants in treating depression. Some research even suggests that it can be more effective than medication when treating mental disorders.

The American Psychological Association also recently reported that people who engaged in talking therapy were “better off by the end of treatment” than 80% of those who receive no treatment. And, in 2016, a ground-breaking study published in the Translational Psychiatry journal found that talking therapies can even positively alter the wiring in your brain.

All of this clearly goes to show just how helpful it can be for us to talk about our feelings. I definitely wish I’d been open to reaching out for help sooner. I wish I’d told my parents what was going on, so that I hadn’t spent so many months going through it alone. Ironically, one of the reasons I’d avoided it was because I didn’t want to upset them – but the fact that I suffered so long, never asking for help, upset them far more. 

The dark truth is that suffering in silence can, and has, cost people their lives. Whatever might be holding you back isn’t worth that. And remember: admitting that you’re struggling doesn’t make you weak. In fact, it makes you brave as hell.

I’ll be blogging all week up until World Mental Health Day, covering different parts of my experience with mental illness. Keep up with my posts on Facebook or bloglovin’. For my tips on how to talk about mental illness, click here.

Love,

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