Word: mental
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...confusing and often ambiguous nature of many mental illnesses’ diagnostic criteria contribute to a widespread ignorance. The website of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) points out that “the fact that many, if not most, people have experienced mental health problems that mimic or even match some of the symptoms of a diagnosable mental disorder tends, ironically, to prompt many people to underestimate the painful, disabling nature of severe mental illness.” Indeed, people don’t say, “My back hurts! OMG I so have leukemia...
Furthermore, most are aware that cancer is indisputably devastating, whereas, to many, the symptoms of many mental illnesses seem only freakish or funny. These harmful misconceptions are often perpetuated by popular media, which get away with portraying obsessive-compulsives as comically anal because the consuming public doesn’t know enough to protest or to turn away with shaking heads, saying, “That?...
Harvard students need to better understand the nature—and prevalence— of mental illness. Mental illness is not something that other people have; according to the NIMH, one in four adults will suffer from one or more mental illnesses in his lifetime, and one in seven will suffer from one or more severe illness. Before referring in jest to “those voices in your head,” keep in mind that schizophrenia destroys lives, and that last year UHS diagnosed five Harvard students with the disease. In other words, if your joking hides real...
...need for college students to understand the nature of mental illness is imperative and timely, for most illnesses’ symptoms first surface in late adolescence and early adulthood. Be sensitive, be open-minded, be aware and get informed: When others reference mental health in a trivial or stigmatizing way, remind them that mental illness is a serious issue that affects everybody. Hundreds of Harvard students live with mental illness; you or a loved one may suffer from a disease that others may, in their ignorance, attempt to render funny. Ideally, the result of education about mental illness will...
...Mental illness isn’t funny, and neither is the problem of those who claim it is. We can’t make mental illness go away, but a lack of sensitivity to the suffering it causes is both inexcusable and highly avoidable...