Advocates for suicide prevention and mental health often talk broadly about “the stigma” which surrounds mental illness and suicide. Many of us – myself included – believe that if we can just get more people talking and thinking of mental illness, if we can have people discussing their issues with depression, anxiety, addiction and more without shame or fear, we can help to put an end to this epidemic. I firmly believe that this is the case.
I also know its not enough.
And that’s where the conversation around public policy, resources and taxation has to come into pay.
I happened to catch a fascinating column on mental health the other day – I obviously can’t find it now, that would be too easy, but the column made a great broad point: Ending mental health stigma is like cutting holes in a wall, but then there’s nowhere to go because our system of mental healthcare is so broken in this country.
Many of us concentrate our efforts on stigma for a couple of reasons. I think it’s one of the most important things that we can do. But let me expand on the second part of that sentence: That we can do. People do need to know it is okay to seek help and to treat themselves. They need to know that these issues are real, powerful and can kill you. But, as any studies have shown, individual conversations are the best way to break mental health stigma. A face to face talk can make a huge difference in that area. That means that, without question, the most important person to ending mental health stigma is you.
Second, it’s the easiest.
Making society-wide change is really hard, of course. Particularly in areas where colossal interest groups are at play. I’m an elected official – theoretically one of the people who makes state-wide decisions in Pennsylvania – and I fully understand just how difficult this can be.
And the simple truth is that we must make systemic changes to help reduce rates of mental illness and suicide.
From a mental health and suicide perspective, there’s an awful lot that needs to be done. This includes increasing access to mental health care, increasing the number of mental health care practitioners and addressing the mental health care practitioner shortage, reducing costs, enforcing parity in insurance care, reducing access to deadly means of suicide and more. And that’s to say nothing about the major societal problems that we face which contribute to mental illness and suicide, including improving housing options, strengthening the social safety net, increasing the minimum wage, making housing more affordable, etc.
Many of us tackle stigma because we can’t get at these issues. And stigma is something we can control.
So, what does that mean? Should you stop talking about mental health stigma? Hell no. Of course it’s vitally important, but it’s important in more ways than you think, because the more you discuss mental health, the more pressure you can bring on policy makers to address the fundamental inequities and gaps in our system which allow for mental illness to run so rampant. Keep fighting.
But make sure you fight in a public policy realm, in addition to addressing individual changes. Tell policy makers and elected officials that you expect them to do more to address rates of mental illness and reduce suicides. These issues require government intervention, and that requires public pressure. Please help make this happen.
Mike Schlossberg - Author 