Why is mental health discussion taboo

Why is the discussion of mental health considered taboo? You hear people talk about their ailments all of the time. But begin talking about anxiety or whatever mental health issue you have, and that's frowned upon. I don't get it.

i find it makes people uncomfortable because they are not well informed about the issue.

I agree wholeheartedly. There is a stigma with mental health these days, and people often fear what they don't understand.

because people think we're faking it

ahhh, I remembered it wrong, what I was thinking about was t.A.T.u., there's one called Taboo and it goes like ♩ Boom boom boom ♬, ♩ Boom boom boom ♬. Gotta get get...

Songs like these were once considered taboo.

Things are mad in america and they cross the boundaries of nations and spread across the cultural divide, not all of them are welcome, I tell you that.

Mental health industries and advocates stigmatize and misinform some segment of the mentally ill like myself.
You got the avatar of Star Trek there. Gene Roddenberry, the screenwriter is legendary, I believe many recognize him as someone who contributed his great visions to break the taboo and misconception in the society.

Hearing about me too, me three is a threat to my mental health. I don't talk about my bowel problems with anyone, talking with the families and co-workers and stuff are the same, the listeners can do better. I wish I had my super power straight, like looking into someobody's eyes dead straight and not listening to a single words of a speaker.

I'm imperfect and that's perfect! This makes your post an aaaaight one, WELCOME!

Edited to Add: Picture me in this situation. I'm in a jail cell with myself whose last name is Kodama, sitting with Dhamer, Unabomber, and course Osama with his garbs, chatting about stuff that worries you. You in the corner sitting comfortably somewhat because it is 90 degree there, then appears a lama with a slice of pizza on this plate. You's starving to death, I'm as hungry as Ghandi, I'm just saying this for the sake of the argument, and I got words that's my shiv safely tucked in my head. I'll listen to ya, for as long as I can. Assumption won't unfold anything, keep folding some **** like origami, then we shall see what this taboos about.

@Takeshi....

I guess what I'm asking is why does it have to be like that? Why can't I talk to my coworkers, friends or family about my anxiety like I talk to them about my last physical? I think LadyShadow and TurtleBoy are on the right track. Many people are misinformed about mental health. I know I'm doing my best to educate people about anxiety. Hopefully by educating, little by little, we'll make this subject less taboo that it is or not taboo at all.

Some people have told me to just don't think about it or let it go. Yeah... It doesn't work that way.

Talking about your feelings such as anxiety, takes risk. Some just do not have the courage to do that, thus they feel uncomfortable around such talk.

Having mental illness is hell; not being able to talk about it is really cruel. Old, old fears and misconceptions that go waaaay back. Times when the mentally ill were locked up for life in some dark institution, left alone. Scares people. Afraid they're the ones who will be 'crazy' and abandoned. The way to stop the stigma is to bring mental illness out into the light. Attend gatherings (like the ones NAMI has), meet with others who are mentally ill. There's strength in numbers. If you're really courageous and it's safe, tell people about your mental illness calmly, as though you were discussing any average thing about yourself. The more people open up, the less stigma there will eventually be.

Stigma, misinformation, ignorance and negative connotations associated with MI; like others said above. People don't like to feel uncomfortable and people don't like hearing about a problem that doesn't have an immediate fix.

I have never hidden my mental illness. I don't wear it like a billboard on my head but I do openly talk about it. In most cases it is in response to watching people question and try to react to the finding out I don't work. I find it neccessary in these situations to explain why. I don't think I've ever gotten a negative experience. In fact, I usually get asked some very polite and pertinent questions.

Hello, my post got edited and I was little nervous, I said you this or you that, I overreacted and I'm so very sorry about that. General Q&A, this place is for a quick answer, it says in the subtitle of this sub-forum, and I see this is exactly the problem for discussable matters such as anxiety.

America, (if you live there or not, that I don't know) is a Xanax nation now and people been talking about it. And I hear that TV ads are allowed for psych medications, America I know loves discussion and it is the foundation of democracy, which splits the country right in the middle. This big pharma led, anything for profit nation may not have started the discussion as much as we'd like to think, or at least it looks to me that's not a mainstream popular discussion topic that anybody would like to talk about.

Taboo is a subject of cultural prohibition, it is too sacred or too accursed, and pharmaceutical companies with big pockets and their dishonest marketing strategies are affecting people's morality in the society, the very awareness of mental health issues are tainted by the solutions the industry offers and the customers who may not actually need the quick relief can easily pick the route of pop-the-pill-'n-go way of living, it makes financial sense in most people's mind.

I'm not stating my opinions individually to the previous posters here but I see words like, stigmas, misinformations, ignorances, and uncomfortable feelings. I myself can't draw the line that separates between what's taboo and what's not taboo to discuss. I think it's about the behaviors around the topic of discussion/talks, and the OP brought about 'anxiety', everybody has that. And each and every culture reacts to it in a certain way, we generalize the reactions and decide if it's a taboo or not.

worrist, I may be wrong but it just feels slightly odd to me to call a discussion that is in your words, 'mental health duscussion' a taboo. Most discussion, to help progress the society needs to be welcomed, I hope you can agree with this. In the same vein, we use words like 'disorders, illness, or a disease'. It's all euphemisms that's still on a treadmill trying to burn the calories, I'm not mentally ill, let's make this be official and I'd call myself the illest zaniest person whose mental faculty could possibly be made outta titunium and as strong as a Ukranian soldier. All the kidding aside, a discussion can be held or just pops up if the settings were right, I hope you keep working at it.

Anyhow, the world is crazier than fiction, why should I trust anyone's information so readily? Nothing works your way unless the change happens within, on both the addresser and the addressee while we discuss matters with people, the qualifications and quantifications of the real applicable skills to be an educator matters a huge deal, it's almost a disadvantage for someone to be still suffering from mental health issues, because that makes the person sound biased, too personal or desperate or whatever. On the side note, I was watching this kid's video who came to the US as an immigrant when he was small lately, it was about a diagnosable mental issue and he overcame it. I think the awareness and proper informations needs to come out like this.

So how does it work anyways? 'Letting it go', I was thinking about this phrase last night, we can do this on our past, present and our future thoughts. Talking is all about bridging the gap and it ain't easy for me. Even a Stanford University lectures on youtube won't be educational if that's not what I'm interested in, I don't know, let's say anything about medical knowledge, and say someone knows something that I don't know. A little piece of information like form NPR that says upto one in five students living in the US shows the sign of mental disorder. It is simply unbelievable, and some of us hears about over-prescribing of pain killers and what not, and psychiatry is supposed to be there to help without doing no harm, this just makes me question the ethics and the morality in all the people.

The mass production and/or this manufacturing of Mental Illnesses on the populations which I think don't need the kind of help from is crazy. The public and big medical associations agrees with it, FDA's bought, where do you draw the lines between you yourself and social acceptabilities of your demands or educations that you speak of? A lot of talk we do in our every day life are based on belief and we don't get to read other people's minds, if I were to fear anything, that'd be stupidity that could hurt me and others.

Going to an anime convention with an AK on your shoulder because the gun convention was held in the next building. That's awkwardness, isn't it? You assume others are uncomfortable, and even someone were to admit that, if you take the feelings before anything that makes things go forward smoothly, then I'd conclude that the comfort, weren't there in the first place. Some may prefer a bottle of southern comfort but the safe bet would be to bring a basket of muffins or something. Closeness of a relationship, breaking the ice, I'm not seeing what everybody's talking about here.

If this were taboo, I would've found it on National Geographic Channel.

ETA: Crossing my fingers that I don't become the enemy of the state! Oh, well, does anyone really call you a fake, a lier? Some may act like it, show you an attitude, if one has a handicap, it takes extra energy and skills to cover that up. Ignorant folks could be faking it while dealing with every day anxiety with alcohol, you don't know the whole truth. Ordinary folks too have these judg-mentalness radar and it is an old technology, so we'd better maintain it in working order at all times, I ask myself when did it become okay to talk about our feelings, family issues? What people buy into shapes the world, these prepackaged one-size-fits-all quackery is not a true medicine until the day we see all the psych practitioners are of decent qualities.

The article on wikipedia on Taboo talks about things like incest being pulled both ways, one focusing on consensual agreement and the other heading for more prohibition. At the end of the day, whatever methods or analysis we employ to understand mental issues, that takes everyone's corporations, in some ways, DSM methodically expands to catch and condemn innocent surviving souls, on the other side of the society, of course people like to hear about more normal stuff, what's not scary on the news medias these days?

Whatever we need to figure out, it has to be methodical. Things are too mechanical and science oriented for the moment, systematically these works that does its own works may appear as something and helping, but will neglect the personal growth, the path to the enlightening essence that we all hope to pick up along this journey we call life.

Getting physical check-ups and you'll be able to talk about it. As serious as it gets, it gets tougher to choose whom you'd talk with, it seems a matter of degrees and personal in nature. I also think it's safer for the public to not know the details of current diagnostic manuals, statistics and data can be manipulated. What does anyone want from this taboo? It seems to me people are asking for mental-bad-health, some blogger who's a psychology student might say, "Oh, I know mental health issues, I've dissected how mind works in simple 10 steps, let's follow that up and you'll be happier."

It's all inclusive, isn't it though? Pop psychology is all the rage and we also have new age happiness crap, anyone can fake and have mental illnesses, facts are out there like that. Cut the crap, these would be the words to the agenda/profit driven rotten apple pie they call American Psychiatry, it doesn't have to be American Apple Pie, like that, and what this reminds me of? Pi is irrational and we have proof of it!

Within this short history of psychiatry, the DSM got fatter and fatter, it can't be too healthy. These shape shifting characters in the book are not real persons, one says there's an epidemic and the other says, no it's a myth, they been doing this campaigning for decades while creating more helpless patients, throwing pills at them, shredding the way of life that some people may have needed to burn to be reborn.

EDIT! : So I can't stop thinking, it works like that! I've just had additional thoughts. Aside from obvious family/friends support and stuff, things like meanness or unreasonableness have to be taken into account when this discussion is put on the table. How about asking back direct-ly, like are you saying that because....? Nobody sees through the lies, we can't completely blame someone who might say "Take your pills and don't think about it.". It's supposed to work and if it didn't, who do we have left to blame? Human minds are not uniform, "Don't think about it." that's just an advice where you have a choice of whether or not one's willing to take and try to follow. Making excuses or compromising on our freedom, or say, being out of control in our minds can be observed through, the subjective point of view, provided that some of us are going through daily lives on a reasonably acceptable level, it's this irreconcilable notion that someone might think that we can freely talk about mental health issues thinking others are not educated enough, there's a reason that majority of folks don't have medical degrees, nobody listens, really. How about obesity issues? Scientific discovery cured it, then we can all cheer us up and celebrate, we'd be treating each other better. It'd be just a sad sad news, right? If mental health issues don't get resolved. People can be allergens for mentally ill folks, put the labels on them in your mental note, appeal to your local politicians so your employers won't act so like slave masters. I rest my case.

i also am open about my illness if someone comments me on it as i have twitches from my meds, i just tell them i am on medication for schitzophrenia. My neighbor yesterday invited me to a lunch date with other women in the neighborhood and I met people with worse problems than me. I could go on about it but it was even too much for me to handle. I also found out about several women who were on meds that didn't have mental issues.well anyway i myself don't judge people on their disability, i just treat people as i would like to be treated.

i agree with turtleboy the general public is not well informed of mental health issues

I think a lot of people go between two extremes. Either they don't realize how badly the MI is affecting a person. They think they should snap out of it. The other extreme is being scared of the behavior that comes from the disorder. Nobody wants their life thrown upside down. It can be messy. People don't like messy. So, they are scared when they hear certain diagnoses. They immediately think of someone who has gone off the chain. They never think of someone who is in treatment and well.

I agree it's taboo because people don't understand it, and also, it's scary. The fact that you don't have control over your brain or your emotions or your behavior, it scares people. What scares them is that it could happen to them! It also scares them because it makes them have to think about their own behavior. I think it's less about the person with the mental illness, than the people who aren't diagnosed becoming nervous about the mirror that is reflecting their behavior to them.

Coworkers, I think it's off limits. They are there at workplace to make things move ahead, if someone had medical health problem, not mental disability, then the person would be expected to be healthy enough to perform a job, so symptoms badly affecting the person's behavior is a no-no, then again the person who has a mental health problem can't always tell if she/he is within the limits of normal behavior. The gist of this first part is that if coworkers know the condition, it could be used against the person, and the person shall not use the diagnoses as an excuse. Even doctors and patients disagree on how well a patient is doing, no one can be the judge of the person's true mental illability.

Next, I'd like to talk about the taboo and the associated stigmas regarding the mental health, in response to a few posts made after my last post here. There seems to be a taboo regarding the mental health related matters, and there's this stigmatization attached to mental health. I tried to look up the distinction between taboo and stigma, I'm still not clear about the distinction between the two. But I'll try my best to make my point here.

Conditions:
Person A (in room A): A little angry, schizophrenic person.
Person B (in room B): A little angry, schizophrenic person. (Undiagnosed)
Visitor: This person represents the society, and the person is informed of the diagnosis of Person A.
Taboo/stigma/misconception: A person with schizophrenia is violent and dangerous.

So, let's say the two people above are in separate rooms, waiting for a visitor to come in.

From 'There's a taboo' point of view, a visitor(V) goes into a room A, and the V will feel scared, because the behavior itself is scary, also because of the stigma. Then the V visits the room B after some interval, and meet the person B, The Visitor(V) may or may not have scared feelings. Because there's no simplified bad image attached to the situation.

From 'There's a taboo is BS when it comes to mental health issues' point of view, which is my point of view is that there's no real difference between 'how people normally judge others' and 'how mentally ill are judged unfairly because of stigma'. Let me talk about my personal story first.

(Lengthy story starts here, I think reader can skip this part if you wish.)
Several months ago, I visited a city hall, labor supervision office and at both places, I was just talking to a guy who works there. They are government employees and their standards are just as normal as what would anybody think, so everything went smoothly as I expected. And then on the way back, I visited my old psychiatrist's office because the application I got from the city hall needed a document to submit, and that was my medical record explaining my old diagnosis, treatment records etc... I was actually dealing with this receptionist at this place, she has a qualification that's recognized as a psychiatric social worker over here, I've just found that out.

To explain it simply, I visited my old psychiatrist's office and I stated my request for my old medical record, I needed a proof that I was treated there which was about 2 yrs ago, so I told the receptionist that the reason I needed was for this application that I was gonna submit to the city hall, if I were still her patient, this was no problem. I was being prescribed ADs, first, then Lithium, so some of us know the diagnosis changed. Anyways, my logic told me that I needed something that shows how I was doing on the last days while I was still her patient.

Here's the catch. They work like robots, this application needed to provide the proof that I had this illness for certain amount of time, I changed the doctors, two points in time were separated among two doctors, and I already checked this was acceptable way for the city hall people, I've explained reasoning quite plainly, but this dumb lady couldn't compute this request that I was asking. The other doctor got it handled on the other end of the timeline to prove how long I was ill.

This receptionist was dumb, telling me that "There's no form for that, so we can't give you what you're asking.". The first doctor was a lady one, the way I've been writing , this may sound a bit confusing, sorry.

So, my voice got louder a bit, but I was asked to enter this small room away from the people sitting at the lobby, the walls were thin, I thought the decibel was acceptable. I did all I could to act polite, and they called cops on me. I'm done with this story now, almost.

I was discriminated against by the very professional who should know better that some of us may have mood irregularities, but as I showed y'all before, on that day, nobody thought I was acting irrational. Stereotyping of mentally ill, can we call it that? What they did to me is a taboo, the second doctor was no better.
(The story ends and my attempt at logical, methodical, and tactical analysis of this weirdness resumes here again.)

Let's see, I'd like to add an extra argument to the 'There's a taboo' point of view, which are, for weird reasons, accepted by many people. So there may be a taboo, or stigmas, I and most of you readers comes from different perceptions, I hope you could understand this. It doesn't matter to me if there is a taboo/stigmas. My truth is always different than anybody else's. But before I go into that, let me talk about the so-called objective truth, which some philosopher do not agree to the authenticity of it.

Everybody's guessing unless they have proof. We need sociological statistical data that we could all agree on to show that this taboo exists. Where's the survey? The survey won't be the whole truth but everybody has opinions. I tried to find the latest one but I couldn't find one. If the large scale survey doesn't exit and if this is all opinion based from what other people say and hear, or based on a small poll without any source mentioned, everybody's a liar. Sort of. Is there a taboo nationwide?

There's another issue. For more than a century, the etiology, pathophysiology and neuropathology of mental illnesses haven't been discovered, the set of diagnostic tools are there to help people who suffers from mental health disorders, but now it's clear to me that this bio-psychiatry is fundamentally different to other branches of medicine, this is why the innocents have been hurt by the modern psychiatry for the past decades. I am not a mental illness denier by the way, my understandings have been elevated again with proper education just now, black and white thinkers are the assumers, I'm gonna have to keep my defense up all the time to protect myself from falsehood, or else, SJW would be calling me the cause of the mental illness stigma.

Let's move on. This is from WebMD.
Every human beings are different, if this is an attempt at removing stigmas or misconceptions, it's not that impressive. People would still search for oddities in who they know to be a schizophrenic person, I just don't think normal anymore. A thug in a rough neighborhood may not act the same depending on where he is. If people are dumb enough to think a thug look is to mean the person is a scary one, then I don't know why there's this special treatment for the stigma fight or whatever. Y'all can read the last line in the quote, right? They may act like druggies, that's what people's gonna think. Y'know, all those overview of mental disorders, I don't see any human in there, a human with human characters, these mental health informations gives us the list of abnormalities, the set of unacceptable behaviors, that's many things that the society would not like to see in life anywhere in their lives. So it's like giving the public the tool to self-diagnose, and they become more doctor-like, it's already been happening, calling someone you don't know much about that they too have some kind of mental disorders, why can we leave them alone? This let's fight against the taboo/stigmas will lead to making everyone like a house call doctor, agents in the film The Matrix, creating the whole nation filled with hypochondriacs offering no help but to take advantage of that on normal persons and this happens all because we can't, we can't find good people anywhere these days.

Here's what I think is wrong. People reacts like they are scared to be seeing mentally ill, and the explanation on this thread is that that's their own reflection. That's their inner workings and probably true, we do not know. Even if we ask them, and get some answers, if they aren't aware of the preciseness of how all these visual cues and their knowledge are connecting, plus what they ate in the morning or how much they've lived and knowing themselves, all of these things matters in the impression and understandings of another human beings. That's their empathetic capacity and I feel that some of us here are vilifying the fact that they are trying, I believe in everyone's existences, lies this empathy that understands without needing anything else, we are supposed to have nurtured this skill at an early age, if we're playing a catch up right now with the help of WHO, or other organizations, that's just fine.

Empathy understands. Others would probably think like I do, it has zero certainty in this statement. I think the empathy is everyone's responsibility, it's a starting point and all the emotional ranges are in there, showing sympathy and compassions are learned skills that comes out of it. None of these needs to be unregulated, or else it'll be a sensory overload and it may be fatal. Some of you may think you won't survive in my head even for a day, then it'd be reasonable to think you could cut some slack on somebody who could possibly understand you, instead of pushing your understandings, it could go other way and if anyone here's asking more things like 'please get me as who I am', then one could try to pull it out of the person instead.

"I'm not judgmental." Then this empathy thing may be at work. I personally prefer it the other way around though, forming thoughts and deciphering the informations for my responses take analytical judgments, never a synthetic one,and it needs to be purposeful if I were the one to make the first move. We live in this too much freedom, this slices of time and space are merging onto the next one, falling on top of another or just sliding along to fit into the next chapter we all envisioning, so every movements even an involuntary one comes with the responsibilities. We could kill another in this physical representative life form state.

You hold the empathy, with its capacity, in your infancy, you were born at some point in time, long before the toxic exposure to the real world. Does anyone read Egyptian hieroglyphics? I don't. I guess it's a complicated system, and in each symbols are the wonder of human brain, we don't like slave owner in any centuries though, don't we? Anyways, nothing like sensory inputs and figuring out stuff that are the product of thought processes should get in the way of the empathy net, it has to be at the forefront, as I keep saying, it could work on its own, utilization depends on our brain, as long as our souls recognize other lives on this planet, this is the hope for us to prosper as species.

Bipolars, if you see one as a potential mate, go the other way and run like there's no tomorrow! I didn't say that. This person didn't like what she did in the past? I didn't read the explanation part, this story is from long time ago, this didn't come from psych central. Freedom just comes with its price, man, if you act like a *****, then no excuses, where does the mental illness factors in anyhow? Nobody else knows the illness's specific features, it's not a person. I don't speculate. It all has to be this human code of conducts, the rules of engagement, we train ourselves to fit into that mold, maze, or musing of our lives, painting the next spacey place in our minds. Monstrosity scares the hell outta people, I hope it stays in the mirror, please don't curse or travel through the mirrors with your powers.

ETA: I think I forgot to mention that I find it's problematic to increase mental illness prevalence rate through the means of prediction led by the courtesy of big pharma conspiracy. I think there's not much concern over the differences between the 'mentally ill' and 'severely mentally ill' among the public. Somebody out there are depression lite, they would be difficult to handle, really nasty...

Here's another good example.

Having sympathy toward Adolf Hitler makes you a person.

I believe it is a PERSONAL matter. No one else's business.

If someone CHOOSES to tell family or a friend their business that is THEIR CHOICE. The individual should get to choose who is told about their own life.

Some people can't keep their mouth shut and they are not to be trusted with any details of my life nor anyone else's. There is such a thing as PRIVACY.

I may add that I do not have ANY mental illness (can't speak for others) not there is anything wrong with having a mental illness. I do not discriminate and have a friend with anxiety.

I think it's tacky to discuss any health concerns in public. Mental or physical. These are private issues.

I think discussing physical health problems is often taboo as well. Maybe you're in a place where that is more accepted.

For both physical and mental health problems, the social acceptability of discussion depends on a lot of factors: the context of the discussion (who, why, where) is definitely important, some individual conditions are more shameful than others, and a lot of people will get hostile if they feel your condition is causing them any inconvenience, especially if it's an "invisible" condition.

I'm fairly open about my mental disorders, and I haven't had too much trouble from it. Granted, there are a few things other people complain about as "stigma" that I'm perfectly okay with. (On another forum, discussing lack of ADHD acceptance, one person complained of other people having a "this person is not normal" facial expression when she told them she had ADHD. I get surprised facial expressions. It seems reasonable to me that people would be surprised and therefore have a surprised facial expression.)

Most of the discrimination/stigma/taboo I see is based on individual traits/symptoms and often applies to people who have those traits without mental illness as well.

NAMI does propaganda-as-philanthropy campaign to exonerate themselves in the eyes of the world, NAMI is an emotional abuser and a lobby group engaged in all the tactics of political hardball.

From the connection between mass murderers and mental illnesses, to political climate that changes the overton window, NAMI's mission to “eradicate the stigma of mental illness and improve the quality of life of those affected by brain diseases.”, all these rhetorics and tactics are carefully crafted to ignore the alternative conceptual frames as if they don't exist. NAMI's on the side of controlling the liberty of mentally ill, and it is concealed by the way they narrate themselves, basically these guys are the friends and families who don't really understand 'how it works', this whole dehumanization of the healthy public with evil education is something I need to be educated about more and more, weak minds don't stand a chance against this level of victimization, a frame of mind is humanity's last stand...

ETA: All the fundings aside, NAMI is a poisonous organization for desperate people. It's gotten bigger and untouchable with lots of ignorances in what they do, what they are really representing and stuff. Spreading the medical-disease-psych-drugs-are-the-only-answer mantra won't probably change, it's all frontin'.

Bell's "Let's Talk About Mental Health Day" is on the 25th this month.

Yeah, NAMI is kinda horrible. They push the chemical imbalance model without proof, take pharma funds and are more advocatign for rights of "loved ones" than actually those affected.

7th annual corporate sponsored talk, it sounds alright. People need non-medication, non-pharmacological treatment that's funded by public health care system. This is about doing the right thing for Canadians, beautiful.