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An Open Letter To Society On Menta Mainstream Society

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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

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I have seen many people struggle with the stigma of mental illness and use substances to cope with it. There appears to be a grey line when it comes to diagnosing mental health and I think people can really get lost in the

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To dehumanize someone is to strip an individual of their individuality including their human attributes and qualities. For as long as mental illnesses have been known, people have treated those with illnesses much differently. A particular assertion i tend to agree with is that people who have mental disorders are always dehumanized in some way. This dehumanization is shown in One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest alongside other perspectives such as a live and pop culture point of view.

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The lack of acceptance towards mental illnesses being considered actual illnesses has left many people with a fractured truth about mental illnesses as a whole. Although society is getting better at dealing with mental illnesses, there is still the perception that mental illnesses do not need to be treated because they are not visible wounds, which is completely untrue. Both John and Kathy think like this. "... Kathy did not insist that he see a psychiatrist ad that John did not feel the need to seek help." (O'Brien 75)

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We like to suggest that we all love each other, and have thoughts with love for everyone. But I don 't believe that 's true for mentally ill people. In of Mice and Men the character Lennie suffers from mental retardation, people around him don 't know anything about mental illness so they brush it off as him being dumb. Leading him to kill a woman, and then die because of it. We still treat people with halfhearted treatments, some people who are treating the mentally ill are not professionally licensed, some countries don 't even have a mentally health policy causing mentally ill patients not to seek help, and even in the USA we think people who are mentally ill seek

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Sarah Wilkes: Prompt 1 There are many negative stigmas in regards to seeking treatment for mental illness. Is it possible that people around the world choose to not seek treatment due to these stigmas? Or does one’s cultural beliefs keep them from seeking treatment as well? Negative attitudes and beliefs toward people who have a mental health condition is common in America and countries around the globe.

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Stigmatizing Mental Illness Retarded. Stupid. Why do mentally ill people even get called these names? Is it based off of their actions, or what they do to other people, unintentionally? Mental illnesses do not affect just that individual, but everyone around them, as shown in the book “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck.

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Nearly one in five Americans can suffer from any type of mental illnesses.

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Stigma of Mental Illness The stigma of mental illness has a staggering presence in American society. Stigma is “... a socio-cultural process by which members of marginalized groups are labeled by other people as abnormal, shameful, or otherwise undesirable” (Michaels, Lopez, & Corrigan, 2012). A 2013 nationwide survey revealed that 46% of Americans believed that the seriously mentally ill were more likely to be dangerous than members of the the general public (McGinty, Webster, & Barry, 2014). These negative attitudes are also held by mental health professionals, which most likely results from them “...working with patients when they are in the most disturbed phase of their illness, despite this not being a typical characteristic of everyday mental illness” (Cleary, Deacon, Jackson, Andrew, & Chan, 2012).

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Schizophrenia is one of the most recognizable mental illnesses that the world knows, this comes with benefits as it does with consequences. The benefit being that many people have heard of the term, but a minute group truly know about it. This has led to a society where it is commonplace to ostracize those with the illness, which subsequently leads to negative effects on those diagnosed. It is as if society still has not developed a sufficient system in which Schizophrenia fits in. People with heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, all receive sympathy and yet people will Schizophrenia seldom receive the same.

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When someone commits a crime, a news reporter sometimes ends the story by saying that the person was suffering from some type of mental illness. This causes the public to believe that everyone with mental illness must either be committing crimes or are more likely to do so. Those who are mentally ill are sometimes left to find treatment in their own

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Stigmatization of mental illness existed well before psychiatry became a formal discipline, but was not formally labeled and defined as a societal problem until the publication of Goffman’s book (1963). Mental illnesses are among the most stigmatizing conditions, regardless of the specific psychiatric diagnosis. Unlike other illnesses, mental illness is still considered by some to be a sign of weakness, as well as a source of shame and disgrace. Many psychiatric patients are concerned about how people will view them if knowledge of their condition becomes public Mental health stigma can be divided into two distinct types: • social stigma is characterized by prejudicial attitudes and discriminating behavior directed towards individuals with mental health problems as a result of the psychiatric label they have been given and has those types stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination Stereotypes are based on knowledge available to members of a group and provide a way to categorize information about other groups in society Prejudiced persons agree with these negative stereotypes, and these attitudes lead to discrimination through negative behaviors toward mentally ill individuals those negative perceptions create fear of and social distance from mentally ill persons. • perceived stigma or

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We should be open about mental health, so that people are able to speak up and get help, but not to the point that mental illnesses are normalized, romanticized, and trivialized. So, stop glorifying them. Stop acting like it’s a choice. Stop acting like they are entertainment. Stop using them as an adjective.

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Considering mental health issues are so prominent in our day to day lives, why is it that they’re so vastly misapprehended? Mental disorders are commonly misconceived as Wyatt Fisher, a Colorado-based licensed psychologist implied in an interview with The Cheat Sheet; “People tend to view mental illness as a sign of weakness that people should just be able to ‘get over’, and many view it as a title given to those who are just ‘crazy’”. At one point mental health was a

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Mental illnesses do not just affect a minority; they affect the people who have them and their friends. Likewise, the

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