The Growing Joke of Mental Health

Why is Mental Health not seen as a real Illness?

Wikipedia

This is an ever growing subject that people are joking about and not taking serious. Why are people doing this?

There are over 450 million people that are in the world that are affected by a mental illness or a neurological disorder according to the official WHO website. That is over ⅔ of those people aren’t getting the help they need. Now the reason that they might not be getting the help could be a variety of reason that no single person could understand. This is an issue that needs to be addressed because Countries are only putting in 1% of the countries money towards mental and neurological disorders. This includes Medication, Therapy and research. While this might not include every country out there like the smaller or poorer countries. These smaller/poorer countries don’t provide the basic medication to treat depression, a common illness, treat seizures in epileptic patients in a main health care center.

When something like that is so serious then why do teens and some young adults think it is okay to joke about it? Depression is one of the most common and most diagnosed illnesses in teens and young adults. Anxiety and Schizophrenia are both right up there next to Depression being a common illness in teens and young adults. When someone says they have a mental illness they aren’t always taken serious. The people who say they would treat mental illnesses like they are a cold or a broken bone. It isn’t even just a small group of people who say that there are huge amounts of people who say that.

When a psychologist was asked about why someone will joke about mental health or suicide. “When someone jokes about suicide or depression it really is just a call for help because they are in a constant state of pain,” Psychologist Megan Chrisitian said.

People always joke about these serious topics but not every student know exactly what mental health is. Allowing mental health to be joked about in school shows that the admin in each school isn’t taking it as serious as it should be. Students should be able to tell an adult what they feel or what they are going through without having that fear of will what they said be private, will they be made fun of if that information got out. It’s all ends with what people should know about mental health and how it affects a high schooler or just a teen in general.

The effect that mental health has on someone shouldn’t change how you view on a friend or even a family member. When your joking about mental health you don’t really know who in your friend group is being affected by it. “Because you could be joking with your group of friends and you don’t really know the battle someone else might be dealing with. So that joke could push that person over the edge and make them feel worseless” Family Therapist, Lauren Ferguson said.