The Effect of Stigma on Mental Health

The Effect of Stigma on Mental Health

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The topic about mental health is often wide and confusing, because human is a very unique being who lives with emotion (Alderisi, Einz, Astrup, Eezhold, & Artorius, n.d.). According to WHO (World Health Organization), mental health is a state when each individual realize their own abilities to cope with the normal stresses of life, can function themselves productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to the society they lived in (Alderisi et al., n.d.). Human’s actions are often influenced by their emotions. Happiness, sadness, boredom, anger, and other emotions are there both as a result and the motivation for human to keep struggling for achievement. So now we know that negative emotion isn’t always resulted bad. It was meant to be a trigger for someone to gain a new hope and move into a bigger stepping stone. But they who couldn’t cope with the hardship in their lives, often stuck on the negative side of emotion which resulted in the downfall. Such negativity often accumulated inside a person’s mind, affecting their perception, thought, and decision making (Malla, Joober, & Garcia, 2015). It force the body (brain) to adapt (neurobiologically) to such overwhelming negativity which resulted in certain dysfunction (Malla et al., 2015). The dysfunction was started from the mind. After quite some amount of time, it eventually manifested on someone physically. Sometimes the case’s unseen, but it does exist like a disease which eating you from the inside and cause pain and problems, both inside and outside. Therefore, we call it mental illness.

Mental illness is a common thing in society, yet the existence itself is often unknown or hidden away. It was found that globally, more than 70% people with mental illness didn’t get any treatment from health care staff. The data seems illogical and leaves us a big question, how is that even possible?

The major problem is not because of the lack of quality on health care but the delays to care due to many factors (Henderson, Evans-lacko, & Thornicroft, 2013). Lack of knowledge and unawareness are often being the number one (Henderson et al., 2013). Some people might as well noticed that “they’re not okay” but trying to avoid the treatment instead (Henderson et al., 2013). The reason is quite simple and common : they are afraid of being judged by the society (Alderisi et al., n.d.; Henderson et al., 2013; Malla et al., 2015). There is a stigma on how bad or ugly to have mental illness which has circulating among society for long. The stigma caused the people with mental illness to hide. They’ve been insecure with their condition so they hide it, but hiding it also makes them even more insecure. They’ll start to think, “what if people find out?”, “what will happen to me?”, which eventually, those insecurities will only grow one after another. So, as we can see, people with mental illness often acting tough outside however actually getting more and more fragile inside (Henderson et al., 2013).

For people with mental illness, stigma is a big thread. On their eyes, they’re ugly enough for society, and they don’t need society to tell them the same. Someone with mental illness already surrounded by stigmas they created themselves which may and may not resulted from the one that has been circulating for nobody knows how long. They don’t need more stigma to bind them. In fact, what they need the most is a support (Henderson et al., 2013). But attitudes toward mental illness often showed mixed pattern between respect to help seeking and disclosure intention (Henderson et al., 2013). It’s like the intention to help does exist, but they just don’t know how or when they need to do so. Not just that, some people may don’t want to be called “meddling with things which not even their business”, they ended up not doing anything.  So, apparently, it’s not just the person with mental illness who have problem with stigmas, but also the people who wanted to help itself. The best way to overcome or if may I say “to cut down” the stigma, is by increasing the knowledge and awareness of people (Henderson et al., 2013). So being supportive to someone with mental illness will somehow become a common sense to society and those circulating stigmas will slowly be gone.

            The more people know about the importance of mental health, the more they become aware of their surroundings. While the more they become aware, the quicker they put themselves into an act. According to Attitudes To Mental Illness Survey on 2012, the prevalence of intended help seeking just by knowing someone is around 79% to 89% (Henderson et al., 2013). That’s quite a big number if may I say. Imagine how many people will be saved and not going to suicidal act.

            So here, the point is, stigma is a major problems for someone with mental illness. Circulating stigmas are kind of inevitable since people tend to follow what’s common in society. It’s like a satanic circle, whether it’s the stigmas which make someone acquire mental health problems or the otherwise, the existence of it is indeed become a thread to people’s mental health. The best way to overcome this case is to fight it. If you’re someone with mental illness, you can overrule the stigma, don’t let it affect you. And if you’re the kind of person who would like to help someone with mental illness, then don’t be afraid of the stigma, don’t let it control you. How to do it, simply by being supportive. Being supportive can be done in many different ways. Starting from the simplest like being a good-listener, or even the big action like making motion of mental health awareness and so on. If we want to create a better society, then my suggestion is : we must start to care and aware of our surrounding and put those caring intention into a real act.

References :

Alderisi, S. I. G., Einz, A. N. H., Astrup, M. A. K., Eezhold, J. U. B., & Artorius, N. O. S. (n.d.). Toward a new definition of mental health, 231–233.

Henderson, C., Evans-lacko, S., & Thornicroft, G. (2013). Mental Illness Stigma , Help Seeking , and Public Health Programs, 103(5), 777–780. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.301056

Jiang, S. H. U. Z., Lu, W. E. N., Zong, X. U. E. F., Ruan, H. Y. U. N., & Liu, Y. I. (2016). Obesity and hypertension ( Review ). NCBI, 2395–2399. https://doi.org/10.3892/etm.2016.3667

Malla, A., Joober, R., & Garcia, A. (2015). “ Mental illness is like any other medical illness ”: a critical examination of the statement and its impact on patient care and society, 40(3), 147–150. https://doi.org/10.1503/jpn.150099