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1 Mental Health Humanization Sabrina Savage Chamberlain University ENGL148 Professor Napier October 28, 2023

2 Mental Health Humanization Everyone around us is struggling as we try to navigate the troubles that we experience every day. Some of us are not quite as fortunate to possess and utilize proper coping skills, as well as are hindered with their lack of ability to react to these troubles in a way that society considers normal. Mental health is on a rise, whether it is mild, maybe a certain time frame of your life and it is limited, or you suffer with chronic mental health disorders. People every day are being diagnosed and we still have not solved every case and where these disorders are stemming from. The diagnosis follows you. Maybe at work you are now looked at as unreliable, at school you are shamed or expected to not to perform like others around you. Mental health has been stigmatized, as if you are less than, or the undesirable part of the population. Our healthcare system is just now learning how to provide care for mental health patients. The need for proper and adequate care is on the rise, and we need to be tackling this issue as hard as we would tackle cancer, or a worldwide pandemic of a virus, and not treat the patients like they are a problem. On average 57.8 million Americans are battling mental illness as of 2021. To put that into perspective, there are 332 million Americans. Meaning that 192 million people suffer with mental health issues. You would assume with that many of us affected, that our society would have more compassion and grace. Unfortunately, that is not the reality for most mental health sufferers and the stigma they are faced with. Sufferers are not only learning how to navigate their illness but also learning to navigate their jobs, friendships and relationships. Learning that a coworker has a diagnosed mental illness, our immediate reaction is to distance ourselves and become weary of the person. Regardless of how you saw that person seconds before this new information, you now have come to a new conclusion of who this person must be. Mental health is not a dirty word, and it shouldn’t make the person feel as if they are to never admit to having

3 it. Experiencing this treatment from society can then lead to multiple affects. One article from the American Psychiatric Association written by Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D. states that “more than half of people with mental illness don’t receive help for their disorders.” If we have 20 plus million Americans diagnosed but not receiving treatment for their disorders due to the stigma associated with them receiving help, how are these people expected to live a meaningful life? Imagine one day you wake up and you feel off, different than normal. A shadow has been cast upon you, with no light in sight. You continue on with your morning routine, going through the motions of everyday tasks and head on to work. The day passes as normal but still something is different; heavy almost. The week goes by, and you continue to function as normal but with a weight on your chest and a thick fog in your mind. Those daily tasks that were once done mindlessly are now completed with extreme effort. Difficult days turn into difficult weeks, who then turn into months and before you know it, you’re an empty vessel trying to get day to day. Your work is still accomplished but with a price to yourself. Finding yourself at a crossroads, you need to make a decision to continue survival, you can turn to the healthcare system if possible and try get answers and relief or continue to suffer in silence due to possible judgement. “As many as one in four adults in the workplace suffer from psychiatric illness in a given year.” (Gold, 2009). If these statistics were taken in 2009, we can only assume that the increase is substantial. We decide to receive help and have been given a diagnosis. This diagnosis is life altering, as we now move forward with clarity to search for that light. “People working in a care- giving environment are simultaneously leading their own lives and and going through their own struggles” (Tehrani, 2010) Noreen Tehrani gives good insight and reminds us to make no mistake, this journey is not one of ease, but it’s time to lose this shadow overcasting on our lives. Notifying our place of work will be a step on our healing journey, taking into account the risks

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