When I was a child mental illness carried a terrible stigma with it. It was whispered about in conversations of older people and was made fun of by most. Folks did not understand it, and made it sound spooky and made one hope they never became mentally ill. The mental institutions were referred to as nut houses, and people who had to go there were entirely misunderstood. If they got to come out of the institution they had a label for life and were talked about with great apprehension.
I am glad those days are almost behind us! Almost, because in a few circles the prejudice against the mentally ill still exists.
With improvement of medications, and education about mental illness, most of the stigma has been dissolved.
Stress in today’s world has broadened the community of mental illness. Almost everyone you meet takes some form of stress medication. Medications for stress and mental illnesses have improved greatly and thankfully so.
It is so difficult to be the patient. Everyone I know that suffers from nervousness, stress, or full blown mental illness, agree that functioning without medication is very difficult. The mind tells the body to tense up, have panic, or be consumed with thought. You can not possibly behave naturally at work, home, socially, among friends, or family. Medication, the correct medication, makes functioning normally possible.
My best friend has a college degree, had a fantastic job, and a beautiful family. She became schizophrenic in the matter of a couple of years. It took a long time for her to get to the right doctor and be given counseling and the proper medication to finally help her. Her family were in denial for a long time, which made her treatment even more difficult. She was forced to try to work and behave normally for a while when she was not in a normal state of mind. It did not work! Denial and ignorance just make the patient and the illness worse. She will always be my best friend, but she is a different personality now. She is on disability now,and is doing better with her new medications.
Mental illness can be passed down in families. I have seen this in my own family and we are all just glad that we live in this day and age of modern medicines. We can function normally in a very stressful time. My grandfather suffered for years from depression and anxieties, but was misinterpreted as a black, or dark mood. ” He was just down right mean,” some people would say. It wasn’t until he was in his old age, and mental illness was no longer misunderstood, that he got the help he needed through medication.
That did not happen for my uncle who suffered greatly after WWII. He was very physically and mentally ill and suffered for several years before he died at age 36 of a severe illness. Before he died his family had to hide weapons from him and he was in and out of mental institutes for suicidal attempts. It was a horrific time for he and his family.
Stress can come with good times or bad. Change of any sort can be stressful, and when you think the stress should be past, it appears again. I lived through this after a long marriage full of stress and abuse. After the separation and divorce, I had a relapse of stress due to post traumatic stress disorder. I was moving on with my life, but my brain was making alot of adjustments.
There are hundreds of forms of mental illness that only a doctor can determine the cause. Counseling helps tremendously! If you are stressed, or nervous, sad, can not concentrate, or even hyper, you may need to see a doctor. Get help and you will feel much better!