Nobody ever asks to have a mental illness, kind of how nobody asks to get sick or get diagnosed with cancer. It just happens, life happens and there is nothing you can do but sit back and live with all that you’ve got. Yet, somehow, those that get “sick” receive compassion and love while fighting their battle, meanwhile, people with mental illnesses get rejected love and compassion. Mental illnesses aren’t something that people should be ashamed of, but stigmas in society shame people that suffer from them as if somehow it was their fault that they were afflicted with it. How would you feel if somebody blamed you for having cancer? Modern society is so quick to be accepting of other illnesses, except when it comes to someone’s brain, their mind, or their control over themselves. In “An Open Letter to Society on …show more content…
“The disabled among us are clearly defined not only as those with physical impairments but also those with hidden disabilities such as mental health issues” (Ravello). Physical illness can be brought up through the news, the internet, and by word of mouth. Whereas mental illness is constantly flying under the radar, occurring over and over, but when it finally gets brought up everyone is either alarmed or pretends to care. Society does not show enough love to the people struggling through life, constantly having this weight on them believing that they are “broken or damaged” (Theriault). They definitely do not aid in giving these individuals a more “normal” feeling when it is already “hard to hold steady relationships and be socially included in mainstream society due to the stigma surrounding them” (Theriault). If someone shows possible signs of having mental troubles, people run the other way, say they are ridiculous, or simply just ignore the fact that it is another living, breathing human