Mental Health: breaking the stigma

Practical things we can do as individuals to help break the stigma around mental health and look out for ourselves and one another.

In light of R U OK day  on the 8th September, I thought I’d return to the subject that initially kickstarted this blog back in 2019: mental health.

Whilst headway has been made to broaden the resources available to those suffering mental ill-health, there still remains a lot of stigma around the subject in the way of shame, isolation (not knowing who to talk to), denial and misinformation. It can be difficult to know what to do; both when we are experiencing poor mental health and need support, and when we are concerned for somebody else. In this post, I want to break this down to look at what practical things we can do as individuals to help break the stigma and look out for ourselves and one another.

1. We all experience mental ill-health

Firstly, here are some statistics to give you an idea of how common mental ill-health is:

According to an annual report done by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for the year 2020-2021:

• Over two in five Australians aged 16-85 years (43.7% or 8.6 million people) had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life
• One in five (21.4% or 4.2 million people) had a 12-month mental disorder

These statistics say a lot about the commonality of mental ill health in our society – but it’s also worth noting that the statistics are likely higher. As ABS says, ‘A mental illness can be defined as “a clinically diagnosable disorder.”‘ It can be assumed, therefore, that those who agreed to having had a mental disorder in this instance were likely diagnosed by a professional. This excludes those who temporarily experienced poor mental health, but who wouldn’t have defined themselves as having had a ‘disorder.’ The reality is, all of us experience depressive episodes, stress and anxiety from time to time. It’s a part of our human make-up; we are born with a full spectrum of emotions. This is why we need to break the stigma, because if it’s normal for us to experience mental ill-health, then we needn’t feel ashamed.

2. What stops us from asking for help?

According to ABS, over two in five admit to having experienced a mental disorder at some point in their life. Consider, then, that if you’re amidst a group of five friends or colleagues, etc, at least two of you could be experiencing poor mental health at that point in time. The question becomes: are we talking about it?– or are we suffering in silence? If we are suffering in silence, then what is it that stops us from asking for help?

Shame.

As humans, one of our greatest needs is to belong. We therefore fear anything that we think will jeopardise our ability to belong, and we tuck it away, ashamed. This includes mental health. Because poor mental health isn’t yet normalised in society, we will commonly believe that if our mental health isn’t good, that makes us abnormal. When we experience depression, anxiety, etc., we may therefore assume we are the only one who feels this way, and this belief isolates us.

Looking at the way our society is structured, it’s no wonder we are afraid to talk about our mental health. All you have to do is look at social media to observe the facade we live in: Filters, smiles; we showcase the best bits of life. Nobody posts a photo of themselves crying and holed up in bed because they feel so depressed they can’t get up that day. Imagine if we did, however? Perhaps more of us would be willing to reveal those shadowy aspects of ourselves; the parts we fear make us unworthy of belonging?

Belonging extends to a fear of being rejected. It’s one thing to be judged for having poor mental health (for being weak, weird, etc.), but what if that leads to loss? What if we lose friends, our partner, or our job? What if nobody wants to work with us anymore? This is a valid fear – but only because of the stigma! In a society that is able to acknowledge the normality of poor mental health, we needn’t have to fear rejection. We needn’t have to feel ashamed.

3. What stops us from asking others if they are okay?

There are a couple of reasons we don’t ask others whether they are okay when we feel concerned for them:

The first is that we may fear being presumptuous. It can feel just as vulnerable reaching out to somebody to ask if they are okay as it is to ask for help. We may fear being laughed at or told off. Again, we don’t want to be rejected.

We may feel we do not know the individual well enough. Say they are a colleague, we may fear being nosey or inappropriate, or we may assume that they already have the support they need.

We may not know what to say.

Finally – and I think this is the main reason – we don’t want to have to bare the brunt of another person’s problems. We may fear that if we ask somebody if they are okay, they will unleash upon us all of their problems, which we won’t feel equipped to handle. Nobody likes to feel burdened, and it can be confronting to feel responsible for another’s wellbeing. However, asking somebody if they are okay doesn’t mean you need to provide the solution. I’ll speak more on this in the next section.

4. What does it actually mean to talk about our mental health?

Talking about our mental health begins with courage. It takes courage to be honest, and to face any fears we may have about being rejected, judged or misunderstood – knowing, that on the other side of fear lives liberation. If fear drives us apart, then vulnerability brings us closer. It is uncomfortable to reveal our vulnerabilities (to talk about our mental health), but just because something is uncomfortable doesn’t mean we should avoid it.

As thought leader Brene’ Brown said in an interview with Forbes on human connection:

‘We’re going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations … share pain, and be more curious than defensive.’

– Brene Brown.

The bottom line is: for the sake of our collective wellbeing, we’re just going to have to start having the hard conversations.

– For those in need of help:

Know that help will always be given to those who ask. (I think I’m quoting Albus Dumbledore here, but don’t let that trump the validity of the statement.)

If you are suffering from poor mental health, then this begins with having the courage to reach out to others. If you don’t feel able to speak with a friend, family member or neighbour, then there are other options. You can speak to your GP or a psychologist. In Australia, there are free services that we can utilise if money is an issue, and I will link some of these below. For anonymity, there are text services that will allow you to speak to someone instantly, which may provide a temporary solution (also linked below).

There is always a solution, even if there doesn’t seem to be one in the moment. Also, there will always be somebody willing to listen.

– For those wanting to help:

If you are concerned about somebody, please have the courage to reach out, despite your hesitations. Sometimes, checking in with somebody is enough to let them know that they aren’t alone– and for those who struggle to ask for help, it can make all the difference.

As I mentioned in point 3, we oftentimes fear the responsibility that comes with asking somebody if they need help. Know that you do not need to provide a solution. Breaking the stigma begins with asking: Are you okay? If the individual says ‘no’, then the next thing you can do is ask whether they have support. If you feel comfortable being that support, and wish to ask the individual if they’d like to talk, then that’s one option. However, it is perfectly valid if you need to enforce personal boundaries. A gentler solution here is to ask the individual if they would like help connecting with support, whether that be a service, a partner, family member, a manager, or a professional.

5. We all experience mental ill-health

Yes, I’ve already said it, but I want to wrap up this post by saying it again because I think normalising mental health is the first step to breaking the stigma.

We all experience mental health. I believe it can be misleading to categorise mental ill-health by calling it an illness, or disorder. This implies that there is abnormality. In some extreme cases, it may be useful to define the symptomatology for treatment purposes, but otherwise, it helps to think of mental health as a spectrum, like the image below:

As humans, we have the full spectrum of emotions available to us, meaning it is inevitable that our individual place on that spectrum will change depending on our environment, experiences, connection to resources, etc. Let’s normalise that.

I hope that you’ve found this post useful. Mental health is a huge topic, and I’ve tried to cover as much basis as possible relevant to stigma and my ideas about practical action steps we can take as individuals. Nonetheless, if you feel there is something missing, please feel free to comment below or reach out to me with your thoughts.

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Here are a list of resources for mental health support:

• Lifeline (crisis support service, Australia): 13 11 14
• Lifeline anonymous text service (Australia): https://www.lifeline.org.au/crisis-text/ / 0477 13 11 14
• Lifeline chat (online chat service, USA only): https://988lifeline.org/chat/

A more comprehensive list of international services can be found here.