Mental illness and stigma, or how the Main Stream media makes mental illness worse 📺 ➡ 🤪

Television and radio stations want you to know that there is help available if you are suffering from mental illness. They will demonstrate repeatedly about the importance of mental health services by highlighting the worse possible outcomes where mental health issues lead to violence such as suicide or murder. The exceptional cases, not the routine thoughts and feelings that are common in most people’s lives.

It should be said that most people have very unpleasant thoughts in their lives from time to time. Sometimes passing throughs downright dirty, pornographic, violent and generally awful. If people didn’t have these thoughts than there would be no industry selling pornography or violent movies or for that matter the kind of news stories the media loves to dwell on. But for most people these bad thoughts are fleeting and non-harmful. Few people make a plan and act on their worse thoughts despite popular portrayals in the media that equivocate a naughty thought with a despicable act.

The problem is with the media’s portrayal of mental illness is it makes it scary and feeds people’s own anxieties making it worse. It makes a passing thought a major crisis, something to dwell on an fear rather than moving on. It emphasizes the worse case scenario, rather than the likely scenario. Rather than a rational cost benefit analysis the Main Stream media tells you to live your life in fear. This leads to more of a spiral down, more anxiety and more negative thoughts.

The best evidence for today is what happened yesterday. Inerita says that if yesterday was pretty good, chances are good that today will also be good and the worse case scenario is unlikely to play out, despite media portrayals. Chances are that the problems in your life are pretty minor, and that you are doing a lot better than many others. A lot of people probably look up to you and think you are lucky for all you have. You should also look up to those above you to strive to the next step in life but don’t forget to look back at where you were.

No therapist is going to tell you what to believe. Mental illness isn’t about having odd or alternative beliefs. Even odd behaviors or alternative lifestyle choices aren’t signs of mental illness if they aren’t causing substantial harm to a person or others around them. The bar for harm is quite high, most minor things might be safe to ignore or are manageable as is. The one hour a day requirement for OCD, or the actual hard plan for suicide exists to ensure minor things are not over medicalized – or unnecessary harm is induced by raising unwarranted concerns.

The truth is most mental illness is like a cold or a broken bone on the playground. You should ask for help but you shouldn’t dwell on it as things are probably far worse than you imagine. Chances are looking back you can chuckle at it but it’s not a bad thing to get addressed if it’s holding you back. Hiding in the closet about your problems can feel safe, and you might find ways to adapt to your problems but it’s better to come out, see the light, be honest who you are and change your life towards the better.

A hundred bucks in the bin, I feel like I’m making improvements in my anxiety levels and I’m already making some improvements in my life. I caught myself the other day in that negative thought cycle about my truck breaking down. I stopped it quickly and moved on. I am working on my obsession over rural burn barrels, burning my trash and the copious amounts of waste our society generates but as my therapist likes to point out burn barrels and landfills are far less harmful than some of the greenies like to point out. If you live way out in the country, especially in a red state, nobody really cares. It’s just one of the facts of rural life, a relatively harmless nuisance as the detritus of our industrial output goes up in smoke. It’s a topic I need to do more to come to grips with but I’ve long turned it partially positive by saving up and working hard to earn money to purchase for my off-grid homestead, where nobody will care what I burn as long as I’m safe with fire and not causing a nuisance.

To be sure, finding a mental health provider can be difficult these days with limited choices but you have to be persistent and keep going through the list your insurance provider gives you. The intake process is a bit scary with the screening process but then you realize how much worse you could be off. Chances are good your not the monster psychopath that the media makes out all mentally ill people to be. A silly thought is unlikely to lead to death or imprisonment. And then it can be tough to break down long standing prejudices and fears in your life, trying to talk about bad habits and things you might do that are less than the best light you want to see yourself in. But I do see my own mental health improving and I do think with more counseling my life will get better, I’ll be a stronger individual and it will prove to be a good investment in my time and money.