MENTAL ILLNESS FOR DUMMIES

The time has come for me to try to educate the public on the topic of mental illness.

Mental illness is not a passing fad, nor is it to be dismissed as a slump in one’s thinking. Mental illness affects 1 out of every 6 persons, and can be temporary or long lasting. Mental illness can also be genetic, as well as a result of environmental variables such as physical and verbal abuse, or as a result of peer pressure leading to anorexia and bulimia. Mental illness can mild as well as severe and can affect one or many persons, like when a schizophrenic goes berserk and starts a shooting spree.

(A lot of you will believe in mental illness when staring down the barrel of a gun, right? Although some Christians will think only think the person is just evil and doing the work of the devil, but then again I believe religion is a form of severe mental illness but I digress….)

Mental illness is also attributed to chemical imbalances in one’s body that can result in altered states – just as how a lack of insulin causes diabetes, or a lack of certain vitamins can lead to scurvy or rickets.

Please note: mental illness is different from brain damage or mental retardation which are a result of physical influences and not mental illness.

Let me try to relate to you how mental illness is a real ailment and not “made-up’ by people:

When you feel ‘ill’ with no physical symptoms – how do you get the doctor to believe you and diagnose your illness? You tell him what you are feeling. So why should he believe you? Think about it – if you’re feeling severe pain in your arm of which there is not any physical evidence, you’re left to describe what you pain feels like to the doctor, when it occurs and what aggravated your pain. OR, if you are having a migraine – how is he to know or believe you? You’re just describing how your feeling – and he cannot find anything physically wrong. However you say you are in pain, you describe what you are going through, and based on your description the doctor will recommend or prescribe medication to alleviate your pain…or possibly lead to a cure.

We take for granted that doctors can diagnose non-visual physical symptoms, but for some inane reason the public cannot understand mental illness symptoms which uses the EXACT same process?

Why can’t you accept it?

Just like physical symptoms a person describes how they are thinking and feeling, what are their thoughts, what triggered a particular episode or incident, and what the resulting action was. Based on this input the physiatrist prescribes medication to alleviate the symptoms with medication and therapy.

Mental illness is not something that one can snap out of, no more than anyone can just snap out of recurring migraine headaches, recurring muscle cramps, nor snap out of recurring acid reflux or nausea.

And left untreated mental illness – just like physical illnesses – it can result in death.

Think about that instead.

Stop being ignorant and take some time to learn about mental illness – you just might be surprised at what you learn.

For more information on mental illnesses go here.