How Do You Think the Myths Around Mental Health Continue to Be Believed as 'truths' in Canada in 2012?

1. How do you think the myths around mental health continue to be believed as 'truths' in Canada in 2012?

I think one of the largest issues that cause the myths around mental health to still be believed today is the lack of knowledge about mental health issues. The community is not well informed and educated about what mental health issues are present, which lets society come up with their own perception of what the mental health issues are. The problem is that mental illnesses aren't addressed like a "real" illness. I've often felt that society doesn't put much of a focus on ways to help patients with mental illnesses, a lot of the focus tends to be upon other medical concerns such as medical research to find a cure for cancer. The fact that there isn't much of a focus, on the mental illnesses there is a lack of concern and knowledge present in our society today. 

Also another problem is that mental illnesses are used in the wrong context a lot of the time. People are so uneducated and don't even think that this mental illness could have a great toll on someone's life. Often we'll hear people use mental illnesses in their daily sentences. The issue is that no one has taken their time to actually research what the mental illness is before it is used in a phrase. It's easy to say "I think ______ is bipolar because ____ happened today" but you don't know about the reality that could be present in that sentence. What if ______ actually has that mental illness? You don't know what he or she is going through. And what if ______ doesn't have that mental illness, you just addressed someone with a mental illness that you don't even know about yourself. 

2. How has stigma impacted the lives of the individuals featured in the ‘consumer voices’ article?

The stigma in this article causes individuals to feel like they don't belong. I never actually thought about how big of an affect these stigmas could have had on a life of an individual but this article says a lot. Individuals don't feel comfortable being themselves and telling others about who they are which is very sad. I would never be able to imagine what it feels like to have to hide behind your own skin, you can't tell people what is going on in your life because you fear that individuals may target you just as the media does. It is really upsetting how the media makes individuals with these mental illnesses feel. The media is a great source of knowledge, but when the media portrays such negative ideas and images, it is actually very devastating and upsetting. Something that really made me think was the statistic that "Poverty affecting nearly 1.8 million Ontarians is a cause and consequence of poor mental health" (Baun 33). I've thought about the different factors contributing to poverty, but it never struck me that poor mental health could have been one of them. In my opinion it is truly devastating that individuals have to go through poverty because of the lack of support for  mental health issues, and because of the lack of knowledge about mental illnesses.