HEALTHY REASONING: Mental Illness Is Common

By Allan Jones
Pride Health Columnist

One out of five Canadians (20%) will experience mental illness in their lifetime.

This week is mental health awareness week. An annual public education effort designed to help open the eyes of Canadians to the reality of mental illness.

In many communities, including the Black community, there are negative perceptions attached to mental illness, and many people deny the existence of the problem and are reluctant to seek medical help. We all are familiar with physical illnesses like diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure etc. and we readily report these illnesses to healthcare personnel. Let us begin to accept mental illness as just another illness, which it is, that can be successfully treated and allow patients to live normal lives.

There are different kinds of mental disorders each characterized by different sets of symptoms that affect how we think, feel and behave. Symptoms can include depressed mood, extreme mood swings, disturbances in thought or perception, obsessions or fears, or other overwhelming feelings of anxiety.

Most mental disorders cannot be definitively diagnosed with an objective medical test. Diagnosis is usually based on reporting what you are experiencing, observations by family and friends, disturbances in your behaviour, psychological tests and the judgment and experience of a health professional (your family doctor and/or a specialized mental health professional such as a psychiatrist or psychologist).

Often people wait a long time before they ask for help and sometimes, unfortunately, people do not ask for help for a mental health problem at all. They and their family feel that something is wrong, but they don’t know what. They may not know where to go to get help or may be reluctant to ask for help if they do. In addition, diagnosing a mental disorder can take time, with many people reporting that it took months, and sometimes years, to get a diagnosis that fit with what they were experiencing.

There are a number of reasons people struggle with mental disorders without reaching out for help: They simply do not know what is wrong and feel they are just different; they feel they can beat it on their own; they are ashamed and try to hide their symptoms; exasperated family and friends tell them to “get over it;” or they reach out for help but their first experience leaves them feeling disregarded and misunderstood.

It is known that the earlier people get help, the better the outcome. One way to get help for yourself or someone you know as soon as possible is to educate yourself about what a mental disorder looks like.

First of all, a mental disorder is not just a feeling or reaction to an experience or event. There are different kinds of disorders and each is identified by a collection of different symptoms that persist for a specific period of time and significantly interfere with a person’s roles, activities, relationships and/or capacity for self-care.

Mental disorders can affect almost every aspect of a person’s life over a considerable period of time. Many mental disorders begin in childhood and some are almost always first diagnosed in childhood. Other disorders, such as those that affect thinking, like dementia or amnesia, may be related to age, physical injury or other medical conditions.

Common mental illnesses include depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders. Many of these conditions are common in many Canadians, and anecdotal evidence suggest that the problem is even greater in Black and marginalized communities.

We should demand from our politicians, that more attention be given to this growing mental health problem rather than allowing the public debate to be focused on subway extensions, and other non-health issues. After all, if you are ill, your major concern is the illness, and so it should. Get busy, write or call your elected politician, and demand more attention to the serious mental health problem plaguing our community. 

Allan Jones is a Health Promoter and Broadcaster. He can be reached at ajones@jjmedical.ca.