Have you been personally familiar with anyone who is suffering from depression? With this condition affecting roughly fifteen million American adults or about 8% of the U.S. population age eighteen and older within a specified year, the probability is the reply to this query is, "yes."
So, if this is true, how confident do you feel asking this person, "how have you been?" Does the stigma, in addition to, your own personal fear surrounding this illness prevent you from demonstrating care about how they may be doing?
It is fascinating that a majority of people wouldn't think twice about asking how a person is feeling any time they've suffered from the flu, kidney stones, or back surgery. So, why is it so difficult to find out from someone the way they are faring with a mental disorder?
I must acknowledge, the fact that even writing this article feels somewhat challenging, because I feel I've got to pick my words carefully just simply referring to a "mental disorder." It feels like a written whisper. This really goes to show what kind of a cloud of embarrassment and discomfort continues to hover over a issue which has an effect on so many people, both directly or indirectly.
But when you really stop to think it over, just what is so scary about talking about a disorder that makes a individual feel ill? Is this unwillingness just a reflection of simply how much we simply don't know about the complexities of depression? Are we so locked within our stereotypical notions concerning mentally-ill people, we're scared to reach out and demonstrate compassion to a person that is suffering?
What is intriguing about these kinds of distorted ideas is that they originate from ancient times when a person being affected by depression or other mental problem was deemed possessed by demons.
Nowadays, we do not really believe that a mentally-ill or depressed person is the sufferer of demonic possession, but many of us continue to see these people as weak, weird, and maybe even, dangerous.
The healthcare community, itself, has been guilty of maintaining the prejudices of laypeople merely by the hyper-cautious manner in which they treat affected individuals having mental illnesses.
Many psychiatrists' and mental health therapists' offices are created with one door meant for a patient to enter and another door to allow them to go out of, as a way to protect these people from potentially being observed by somebody they recognize. You aren't seeing these extremes of privacy preserved at your gynecologist's, or cardiologist's office.
And when the sickness is so severe it entails a hospital stay there is no effort to recreate an environment of normalcy which will mirrors outside existence. Rather, patients are assumed to be, potentially-troublesome, and are required to work for privileges, such as making phone calls or watching television through process of "behaving normal."
This situation requires going along with the strict structure of daily clinic schedule when it comes to bedtimes, meal times, etc., which often isn't going sync up with a person's daily routine. Anytime a person does not feel like eating dinner at seven:00 p.m. because they typically dine at 8:00 p.m. they're viewed as "non-compliant" and "resistant to therapy," causing a decrease in privileges.
It may simply be that these severely established attitudes should be changed from the "bottom up." Instead of taking our signal from the healthcare professionals, it might be that just by facing our dreads, asking somebody,"how have you been,?" and then paying close attention to their response, we could start to take depression, as well as, other other emotional issues out of the darkness and into the brightness of day time, thus taking the stigma away from suffering from depression once and for all.
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