"Mental Illness isn't real."

Does anyone else find this statement really offensive? These "Normal" people are too ignorant to even see the suffering people with MI go through (not all of course, just a few). Now, I don't always agree with psychiatry (I think medication should be used if the client consents to it, and as a last resort for children), however it's so narrow minded to call mental health fake science with no proof. There is a lot of proof out there. To say that people on psychiatric medications are "dumbed down" is offensive. Zoloft probably saved my life.

Type in CCRH psychiatry into youtube. In my opinion, scientology is a ridiculous cult that denies the existence of everything that we cannot already explain or see, hear, touch, feel, taste or measure no matter how much other proof there is out there = Ignorance

Then of course on the other end of the spectrum we have those who liken us to mental retardation. End the stigma!
~ WTTJ

Hey WelcomeToTheJungle,

It is just people "not seeing" Mental Illness as its "invisible" to the naked eye. We all suffer Mental Illness at one point in life even people who are "normal". My best advice is to ignore these people who say our illness's are not real. We know how real they are as we live 24/7 with them. We don't need to prove anything to anyone as well its part of who we are and we have managed to live with and adapt our lives to it.

I understand how frustrating it is though for you to see/hear these insensitive words. But people will always have "doubts" about MI as there is still far too much stigma attachted to it. Unfortunately. Least you know there will always be people on our side supporting us in the world when we need it as well we have our forums

i do find this statement totally uncalled for

really angers me when people say that to my face

Ugh. Someone very close to me believes in MI, but "only to a degree" and thinks therapists make you think you're "crazier than you are" to keep making money.

Well, to those people who think mental illness isn't real, I invite them to live with my mother for a few weeks. Her illness makes her homocidal. they just might change their theories!

When ding dongs like this say stupid things, it makes me think they're the ones with mental difficulties...

They're entitled to their wrong opinion. They're just wrong, though.

I'm not siding with them at all, but there are a lot of people who "fake it" for attention, notoriety, to get a disability check, etc, and they give a bad name to those who have real problems. They stereotype mental illness to some degree and make people distrustful and cynical.

Thanks for posting this. I am feeling so angry today because of the stigma. Even the people closest to me who so how very sick I was. I was treated for major depression and severe anxiety. I got so sick I lost 40 pounds and had to be in the local hospital over the weekend on heart monitors and IVs just to be well enough to go to the psych hospital. That was 15 years ago and I remain on treatment and always will. My sister who is a horrible alcoholic and probably doing drugs now too and has 3 children even had to gall to throw it in my face a couple of times. The last time she lectured me on how medications "mask" PTSD and I shouldn't be on them, I just told her I could tell she was on her own "medication" and the conversation was over. I told my husband tonight that if I would have self-medicated and became and alcoholic or a drug addict, then that "disease" would be real. What kind of message are we sending?? Why is it more acceptable to call yourself an addict/recovering alcoholic then to tell someone you have depression? Thanks for letting me vent!!

My parents said that while we grew up, saying that bad "stupid" teenagers just go through stages and act out. Even after my sister got diagnosed and after she got out of the hospital.... they still don't believe mental illness is real. They don't want to understand, don't want to inform themselves- that's okay I can't change them, but I will educate myself on it, I want to understand, that's the approach I take... But I feel so sorry and I admit that once I did judge, a long time ago I judged my sister too, if I could go back I would have chosen to never judge her

What other illness is so extreme it causes otherwise healthy individuals to commit suicide?

We all fear illness taking or ruining our lives, but doesn't it say a lot about an illness that makes people take their lives by their own hands?

This isn't to say that suicidal behavior should be the only way to 'prove' how serious an MI condition is. Fortunately, most of us won't be able to commit suicide, but a lot of us think about it and even attempt it....then we suffer for being denied the right to admit a pain so strong we'd rather not be alive.

More than once, I've told people I know that I need help. Professional, medical help. In a nutshell, they said that I don't need help and that there's nothing wrong with me, that I just need to do something different as well as toughen up and face it, that this is life and it's not going to show sympathy to me because it's not a bed of roses. Nothing more painful than someone telling you that you're "just fine". I can't stand it! I am not fine!

How's that old saying go "It's not real It's all in your head"

Yeah, I've had people tell me to just try harder etc. I AM trying. The fact that i'm still alive is proof of it. They have no idea. I don't think anyone can really get it unless they have a mental illness. In fact people like my bfriend even would rather not see how
dangerous or serious my illness is.

I do know it is very real and cannot be fought by just sucking it up and trying harder. I also know it is not a character flaw or a sign of my weakness. I have experienced people not understanding mental illness. Even some of my well meaning and quite caring friends will try to cheer me up when I'm in a bad space, which tells me they really don't understand. That approach just doesn't work for me, and I trust it doesn't for others as well. I think most people are just really uneducated about the topic and hold the common belief (which I believe is false) that people can just will their way through all situations. Thus the idea that depression or other MI is a sign of weakness. I think the opposite is true, we who suffer are quite strong as a result of having to live through these struggles.

Despite all of this, I do have hope that people will become educated about the issue over time and that things will improve. Maybe I'm naive... But I "came out" about my own depression/anxiety to many in my life earlier this year and had a lot of positive responses. Some of my friends took the opportunity to ask questions and try to educate themselves about what it really is. Many shared experiences of family members who suffer (or themselves) or about family members who have taken their own lives. I do believe that you can't "completely" understand it unless you have experienced it, but people can become more educated about it for sure.

Thanks for posting this on here!

At my work we had a discussion about this very issue, because we had a parent who needed psych hospitalization that was proving very hard to get. The doctor on that shift said...

"I don't get it. If any other organ in the body fails, we spend millions of dollars in the ICU fixing the issue, or give the person another organ if possible. If the lower functions of the brain go wrong (breathing, heart rate, etc) we do the same (of course we dont transplant brains). If the higher functions of the brain go wrong (thought, mood, etc) we act like the person is faking ,its not serious, and we tell them to go home and get over it. I just don't get it. We send these people home to suffer and sometimes die."

I wanted to run up to this doctor and give him a great big hug. He gets it, and he has no psych training.

Later that day we found out the parent in question didn't make it. She committed suicide after being discharged due to insurance limits.

If I become a nursing professor I plan to make sure my students get it.

May not be relevant to what most people have said here, or get much approval, but in the past I have thought that there might be some sense in what people such as Szasz said about mental illness not existing -- that is, maybe they mean that it doesn't exist in the sense that some people think about it. It doesn't exist as something totally separate from the everyday lives of people. That might be a better explanation of why some people such as Szasz say what they do. I think "mental illness" is very much connected with people's lives, and exists to some degree widely in society -- it is not some totally "other" thing.

I am offened by it. What's more offensive is that people ignore proffessionals like in that James Holmes Case. if people where more accepting that mental illness is real, maybe we could avoid these tragidies.

Lisa

Sadly, i know far too many people who think mental illness is all just an elaborate lie. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you can't put a cast on a mental illness or maybe its a feeling that those who are mentally ill are somehow 'inferior.' Either way, you don't have to be mentally ill to experience mental illness and no one has 100% perfect health 100% of the time. Its just another tolerance issue i suppose...