Three Myths About Mental Illness

In my practice, I have met many misconceptions about mental illness from patients and their relatives. I can’t blame them. Mental illness has not been understood for a while. In fact, it has created a stigma that people dismiss its importance and its impact in their lives. Some even hide their emotional difficulties from the scrutiny of their close friends and loved ones.

Failure to recognize and address the illness though has staggering consequences. People have lost their families, their jobs, their sources of security and comfort, their present and future. Unfortunately, some even lose their lives.

In my office, I have several extra chairs intended for my patients’ relatives. With my patients’ consent, I educate their loved ones about the illness and treatment choices. Only through truthful understanding that mental illness can be resolved and treated.

Sad but true. Mental illness should be seen in a different light, and has to be understood using a different lens. It has to be explored with compassion and humanity, with openness and tolerance.

Myth 1: “Bad nerves” is bad

Having “bad nerves” is not necessarily being bad or that possessing it is in itself bad. It has nothing to do with your past sins, failures, or mistakes. When you have mental illness, you have a medical disorder that happens in the brain. Like any medical condition — flu, high blood pressure, or asthma — it also has physical manifestations such as poor energy or appetite loss.

Mental illness can be compared to a stroke — both affect the brain and both have harmful outcomes to the afflicted individuals and their families.

Unlike stroke however, mental illness may not easily be detected by unsuspecting eye and doesn’t show weakness or paralysis in only one part of the body. It can however paralyze one’s life.

Myth 2: Mental illness means being a “weak person”

Mental illness simply means having an illness in the brain. It doesn’t have anything to do with your worth as a person, with your importance and place in society. It has nothing to do with your family’s socio-economic status.

In fact some successful, well-known personalities — millionaires, politicians, celebrities, professionals, artists, physicians — have suffered from this illness.

Mental illness doesn’t have any monopoly. It doesn’t spare anyone — rich and poor, educated and uneducated, young and old, single and married, employed and unemployed, famous and notorious.

Everyone is vulnerable.

If you can easily shake off sadness or anxiety, it means that you’re still experiencing normal emotions. Mental illness however may not easily be shaken off even when the condition is mild. It lasts for several days, weeks, or months often associated with distress and difficulty performing normal activities.

Once it worsens, it has far-reaching results such as frequent fights with loved ones, inability to hold a job, failure to function at home, and difficulty relating with others.

Some even become a threat to themselves or others; and some develop their own version of reality. At this stage, it’s more difficult to control without professional help or without the use of talk therapy or medication.

In the mental health realm, myths abound propelled by lack of knowledge and information. It’s about time to face mental illness as it is, not as a misfortune created by our own biases and inadequacies.

Mental illness can’t be ignored or dismissed as simply part of human frailties. Like any medical problem, it should be seriously recognized and addressed.