I think the stigma surrounding mental health revolves around how the illnesses present themselves. This changes on illness to illness, but for example, you might not know a friend is dealing with depression, but you see that they aren’t hanging out with as much and you rarely hear from them. This could easily lead to you thinking that your friend doesn’t want to be your friend anymore but in reality, they need you now more than they did before. Obviously even the same illness can present differently in different people but that would just be one example.
Another reason would be based off of people’s first instinct being to judge rather than understand. If you saw a person acting strangely on the street you’d probably think they were a little weird unless you could see an obviously reason for their behavior. I think most people would try to avoid the person because they don’t know what they might do than try and sympathize with them.
A person exists within several different cultures and not all of them will have the same opinion on mental health. As nurses, we exist in a culture of healthcare that views mental health as a part of your overall health and wellness that can experience illness that needs to be treated. At the same time, some of us might also live in communities where focusing on our mental health is seen as being lazy or unproductive. We all need to learn to distinguish what we know about mental illness and what our environments around us tell us how we should feel.
