October 10 is World Mental Health Day. No one usually has a problem saying “my liver hurts, my heart hurts,” but no one likes to say “I have a mental problem.” And the listener’s reaction is also different. One point to always remember, among many others, is the prejudice and stigma that accompany mental disorders and delay the time for treatment.
It is July 27, 2021, we are in Tokyo, where the Olympic Games are being held. Simone Biles, a 24-year-old American, five-time world champion in artistic gymnastics and with 19 gold medals to her credit, announces that she wants to retire from competition. “We have to protect our minds and our bodies and not limit ourselves to doing what the world wants us to do,” he told the press, unleashing a true media frenzy. In reality, Simone Biles, along with other – few, it must be said – athletes, with an act of bravery highlighted the importance of personal well-being, which also includes mental health. “Therapy has helped me a lot,” explained the gymnast. “Now I have to focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my health and well-being.”
Why is it important to talk about mental health? According to the official WHO definition of health, it corresponds to “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The answer, therefore, is already within this sentence: you cannot talk about health if you do not also consider mental health.
Mental health is a broad term that encompasses the emotional, psychological and social well-being of each person and influences the way we think, feel and act. And not only that, our state of mental health is decisive for managing our daily decisions, our relationships with others and even our health choices. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, poor mental health and mental illness are not the same: a person may experience poor mental health but not be diagnosed with a mental illness, and likewise a person diagnosed with a mental illness You may experience periods of physical, mental, and social well-being. What is crucial, however, is the importance and influence that the mental dimension has on one’s health.
In reality, however, the relationship between health and mental health is not so evident, especially in our society: the importance of mental health is often underestimated and, although numerous studies indicate that the number of people with mental disorders is increasing , those who need treatment to help their mental health often do not receive it.
This happens for several reasons, first of all the stigma of mental health. What does it consist of? In social psychology, stigma is the attribution of negative qualities to a person or group of people, dictated by prejudice.
In the case of health, stigma causes negative judgments to be made against those who suffer from an illness: the result is discriminatory behavior that only worsens people’s own health, as well as their quality of life. We talk about stigma with numerous diseases, such as AIDS, diabetes…, but especially in the case of mental illnesses.
Mental health stigma is considered by experts in the field to be a major barrier to seeking and obtaining treatment: it is as if we are discriminated against for catching the flu and we struggle both to be diagnosed and to seek and obtain appropriate treatment. Obviously, this has very important consequences for health in general.
Another major obstacle to integrating mental health initiatives into global health programmes, and into healthcare services, is the lack of consensus on what mental health actually is: it can be defined as the absence of mental illness or as a state of mental health. of being that also includes biological, psychological or social factors that contribute to an individual’s mental state and their ability to function within their context.
The WHO, for example, states that mental health is “a state of well-being in which a person can fulfill themselves, overcome the stresses of daily life, carry out productive work and contribute to the life of their community.” Not all scholars agree with this definition: raising the bar for mental health by emphasizing only the state of well-being can create unrealistic expectations and encourage people to mask most of their emotions by faking constant happiness. The concept of positive functioning also raises concern, as it implies that a person at an age or in a physical or even emotional state that prevents them from working productively is not, by definition, in good mental health. For this reason, experts are considering more integrative and less stigmatizing definitions of mental health.
In the same way that it is not easy to understand what mental health is, it is not easy to understand what influences it, because, as in the case of health in general, an infinite number of factors intervene in its determination. The determinants of mental health and mental disorders, in fact, include both the attributes of each person (such as the ability to manage thoughts, emotions, behavior and relationships with others) and personal experiences, as well as social factors. , cultural, economic, political and environmental. In fact, policies adopted at the national level, social protection, standard of living, working conditions and social support offered by the community have a great impact on mental health.
In fact, many studies tell us that the risk factors common to most mental disorders are closely linked to social inequalities: more and more correlations are found between poor mental health and social marginalization, impoverishment, violence domestic violence and abuse, but also excessive workload and stress.
This is a problem for all public health, since poor mental health often influences other diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases…, and in turn is influenced by these.
It is crucial, therefore, to take care of one’s own mental health, to act to improve daily living conditions, but not only on a personal level: to do this, action must be universal, aimed at the entire society to reduce inequalities. For this reason, the WHO considers it important that in all areas it ensures that its programs and strategies do not harm mental health and potentially reduce inequalities.
World Mental Health Day is an opportunity to quietly reflect on some aspects of mental suffering. Mental suffering is also for many people: loss of meaning, absence of hope, feeling of helplessness in the face of an evil that is as impalpable as it is tremendously concrete in the limitations and deprivations it afflicts. An evil that is often ineffable, difficult to make others understand, and certainly difficult to accept and make those around you accept.
Because unfortunately, psychological suffering today continues to be synonymous with diversity, which makes its bearer, in the best of cases, a person difficult to understand or sympathize with, in the worst of cases, feared and avoided, in his supposed ” difference” with other “normal” people.
Even today, those who experience mental discomfort must pay the price of ignorance, prejudices, unfounded stereotypes, such as those of dangerousness, “weakness of character”, irrationality and others, many others that we could mention. Stigma, and the fear of being a victim of it, that is, of being labeled “mentally ill” is perhaps the heaviest burden that someone who suffers from a mental disorder must carry. And many times, in order not to pay the consequences, in order not to be considered “different” from the one who must be distanced and avoided, he ends up hiding, isolating himself from others, in a mortal loneliness. And above all, abandon the treatment. Too many people who today could cure themselves avoid doing so or prematurely abandon the therapies undertaken.
Many are convinced that all this only concerns people who suffer from serious mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, but the reality is different, because many of those who suffer from very common problems, such as depressive or anxiety disorders, share the same fears and suffer in silence the same prejudices and discrimination.