Hello all!
What is mental illness?
What comes to mind when you think about mental illness? Do you imagine someone who has hallucinations? Though that can be an idea associated with mental illness. Did you imagine someone normal? Chances are that you only imagined the worst part of mental illness, and that’s normal.
It’s normal to imagine the stereotype as that is often what the media shows. Someone ripping out their hair out of stress. But I will ask this again, what is mental illness? You see, we could ask ourselves this question repeatedly and yet, our answer will not change. Our answer will remain stagnant. This stagnant answer comes from the fact that most mental illness is silent.
Mental illness is often silent. It is not always obvious. It is not always someone screaming for help, at least not outwardly.
You see, mental illness is not directly definable because no one definition can define every mental illness entirely.
Anxiety can be silent.
Depression can be silent.
Panic Attacks can be silent.
Silence. That is what mental illness can be. It can happen to anyone anytime and sometimes, you’ll never even notice. Sometimes the mental illness will be debilitating on the person and yet they’ll smile and say “I’m okay.” “I’m okay” can sometimes be the lie of the century. Consider this. Consider what mental illness truly is.
What is mental illness?
I wanted to write this post to attempt (key word: attempt) to explain how stereotyping affects the stigma of mental illness. Thank you for reading this baby rant!
Comment below, what do you believe mental illness is? Do you believe there is one definition for it?
That Savannah Life 