Beyond Mental Health Awareness Week: How to de-stigmatise mental health issues amongst students
21st May 2019
Share This Article:
Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK has just ended - and ahough we’ve certainly come a long way in opening up conversations, there is still a long way to go.
Many mental health disorders are still largely stigmatised, particularly amongst students, for many reasons. Some illness, particularly depression and anxiety, have become very topical. However, as terms, they are becoming overused to the point where they are losing their severity. An exemplification of this is when Jack and Danis' Love Island breakup triggered a widespread ‘depression’ amongst fans.
Image Credit: Skeeze on Pixabay.
Such illnesses have almost lost their meaning – it has almost become trivial and normalised amongst many young people to say that they are ‘anxious’, ‘depressed’ or that they've ‘nearly had a panic attack’, undermining the genuine severity of depression and anxiety. And so, when students are faced with students or friends who are actually experiencing a panic attack or a period of depression, many don’t know how to deal with it if they don’t have their own experiences. In some cases, students may say insensitive things, such as ‘what do you have to be depressed about?’ or ‘calm down’, which do far more harm and isolate the person within their issues. Education is paramount to understanding; even if you can’t comprehend someone’s mental illness, it doesn’t invalidate someone else’s experience of it. As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, contributors of The National Student wrote about mental health issues such as schizophrenia, which need far more education surrounding them – those with little or no conversation within the student community, once again perpetuating negative stereotypes of ‘madness’ or ‘instability’. This is far from the case. To follow on from Mental Health Awareness Week we spoke to Mind, one of the UK’s leading mental health charities, on how students can combat mental health stigma that they are facing. On their website, you can find information on several mental health issues, and, importantly, you can also find tips on how to support a loved one or friends. These can be useful to send to people if you feel like you are not being understood or supported properly. Stephen Buckley, Head of Information at Mind, says: “One in four of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year. Thankfully, we’ve seen the national conversation on mental health move forward considerably in recent years. There has been a sea change in public attitudes over the past decade, with movements like Time to Change’s annual campaign Time to Talk Day - which brings the nation together to get talking and break the silence around mental health problems.
- Article continues below...
- More stories you may like...
- We need to be more inclusive of deaf students
- Your ultimate music festival survival guide
- How to travel Malta on a student budget
- Show people reliable information to help them understand more about what your diagnosis really means. You can find reliable information in our pages on types of mental health problems
- Get more involved in your treatment. See our pages on seeking help for a mental health problem for guidance on having your say in your treatment, making your voice heard, and steps you can take if you’re not happy with your care
- Contact an advocate. An advocate is someone who can support your choices and help you make your voice heard (see our pages on advocacy for more information)
- Know your rights. Our pages on your legal rights provide information on your rights in a wide range of situations
- Talk about your experience. Sharing your story can help improve people’s understanding and change their attitudes (see our blogs pages to read about other people’s experiences, and find out how to blog for Mind)
- Get involved in a campaign. Time to Change and Time to Change Wales organise national campaigns to end stigma and discrimination towards mental health problems. You can also look at our campaigns page for details of the different ways you can get involved with Mind.
Lead Image Credit: Skeeze on Pixabay.
You might also like...
People who read this also read...
TRENDING
TRENDING CHANNELS
CONTRIBUTOR OF THE MONTH