It’s not seriously discussed because it’s under-discussed.
I think most people understand the seriousness of cancer, or a heart attack, or other life threatening ailments. They accept that those things are often outside of one’s control, and so there is never any hesitation to take it seriously. When someone in a work setting is diagnosed with something serious, everyone pays attention.
Mental health issues are hard for some people to understand if they haven’t experienced their own challenges. And because it’s not discussed frequently/seriously enough, it’s easy to downplay it or believe that the person struggling can change just by thinking hard enough.
And the people suffering from it don’t feel the same freedom to share those struggles because they’ve also been conditioned by the same collective mindset about mental health and worry what opening up about it will mean for them.
Someone with severe depression who struggles with suicidal ideation has to wonder if people will think less of them, or if they’ll be understand at all. Even though awareness has grown, those old stigmas and default behaviors remain just under the surface.
Someone with a terminal illness will receive an outpouring of support and encouragement.
I’m happy that awareness continues to grow, but there’s a long way to go.
My own struggles have taught me that at least in some cases it seems to be more like a "mental obesity" than a "mental disease". It's not necessarily that there's something wrong with the person's brain, but that their depression/anxiety is a perfectly normal reaction to a lifestyle that's toxic.
If you never take the time to do the activities you really, truly enjoy (by this I mean the type of thing where afterwards you feel better and think to yourself "that was great; I'm so glad I took the time out of my day to do that" - not necessarily things that are hyper-engaging), don't eat vegetables and fruit every day, sleep poorly, live alone, don't make the time to socialise with others and are constantly surrounded by a hostile environment (cluttered, tripping over things, disgustingly/unpleasantly unclean sights and smells), then the depression is just a "healthy" response.
Bingo. This is the root of the problem IMHO. We're really good at recognizing and empathizing with a gaping physical wound, but if we can't see it/touch it/feel it/etc it's hard to grok.
This is exactly right. Even in the last few years I feel more understanding about mental health struggles, and I strive to be supportive as well, but even I judge people who take time off for mental health reasons, and I hesitate to tell people about my own struggles.
The reason some of us downplay mental health issues is because we hear stats like "97% kids are ADHD" or "74% of university students are on Ritalin" or "108% of Americans are on anti-depressants and visiting psychiatrists"
"Mental health" (without further qualifications) is closer to herpes than to cancer.
Quite frankly, this is a poor excuse. I don't draw sweeping conclusions about "physical health" issues because of cherry picked stats about extremely prevalent physical health issues.
"73% of adult Americans are overweight" doesn't make me downplay physical health across an entire spectrum of issues.
Another conclusion one might draw is "holy shit, this is a crisis!". And there is growing evidence to support this. Humans haven't evolved to deal with the realities of the current century. We're only just starting to understand the impact of modern technology and many other developments of the last decade.
If someone sees a crisis and concludes that this must be something to dismiss, that says more about that person than it does about the crisis.
> "Mental health" (without further qualifications) is closer to herpes than to cancer.
And yet, people still take herpes seriously. People don't just dismiss ailments that aren't cancer.
But there's a more fundamental issue with the entire line of thinking raised by this comment. A key point that many people miss is that mental health and physical health aren’t really two distinct categories at all. The two are deeply intertwined, and usually inseparable.
Who you go to see, or what actions you take when you start to have issues will change, but you also see a dermatologist for skin problems, a cardiologist for heart problems, etc.
