Ok so today I would like to talk about something that has been on my mind lately, and has been kind of eeking me. It has been how we, at leas in this country, have a double standard when it comes to anything mental health related. It is actually quite shameful to tell the truth, as society as a whole we seem to shun and separate out any one that we suspect (or know) of having any sort of mental health issue and treat them like they are some sort of contagious freak, or at the very least like they are some shameful weak willed failure of a person, because they suffer from an illness. Yet this is just the tip of the shameful iceberg.
It is truly funny how as a country we handle these sorts of things, socially mental health is a very taboo topic something that is very shameful. Most of the time one is treated as weak, as less of a person because they have an issue, yet if the same person where to have a physical heath issue like hart disses of high blood pressure they would not be treated with nearly so much social stigma. As it seems to be an unspoken but commonly accepted belief that anything pertaining to ones "mental well being" is a weakness of character and failing, and a weakness of their own, and therefor their own fault, thus something they should simply "snap out of". Yet you wouldn't go up to some one with hart disease and tell them to "snap out of it", so why would that same person go up to some one suffering some another just as real medical disease and tell them they need to just "snap out of it", and expect their problem will be solved?
The other thing eeks me about this (and I think plays a part in exacerbating this issue in a way) are the adds for the medications themselves. They almost always start off in a manner that is layering more quilt onto the perspective recipient, throwing in how they are hurting their friends, family, coworkers etc, then in the next breath they switch the the sales pitch and start at it. But the thing that really gets me is that go at like they are selling you a brand new car (the really is the closet thing that it comes off as being) leaving off with the line of ask your doctor about prescribing this.(Its almost aken to ask your dodge dealer it) I mean really, so we have piled on a layer of guilt to people that we already know society as a whole basically shuns, who, in all likelihood have not told hardly any one if any one, that they are suffering form any thing to ask their doctor (whom your rep has probably already visited and bribed. err given "perks and samples to") to prescribe them a drug! A drug that comes with a laundry list of side effects that they don't understand, and we call this the enlightened western way of practicing medicine?
I'm sorry I think as a society we need to truly take a long hard look at our selves (and at this issue) in the mirror, do we really want to see a country that shuns and shoves aside our brothers, our sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, just because they have an issue with their mental health. Do we want to be the nation that makes people feel that seeking out help, help that can make living their lives easier, that can allow them to often live "normal" productive lives, even save their lives, because doing so no longer caries a negative social stigma. OR do we want to continue to be a nation that shoves people who are demand the be not mentally "normal" or the need "help" to the side into that dark corner where they can hide with their social secret? DO we want to continue to foster a social stigma that keeps people from getting help, that causes so many countless lives to be lost each year? This is a decision that is long past due to be made, but something tells me that it is a decision that still will not be made in my life time. (So I guess it's back to the dark little corner where those with social secrets, and not the gay, are hidden)
PS extra credit if you know where the quote in the title came from.
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