Let’s Talk About Mental Health

I dread when people find out I take medication and ask why. For therapy appointments I constantly leave school early, and I have perfected telling people that I just “go to the doctor a lot” and hope no one catches onto the fact I have claimed to have five physicals this year.  When I make a new friend, I brace myself for when I will have to tell them I have a mental illness. There’s so much stigma in those words. Even writing this now, I am slightly ashamed to admit that the diagnosis that best fits me is borderline personality disorder. I mean who would want to admit they have the same mental illness as serial killer Jeffery Dahmer?

In AP English Literature this year, I was taught to leave any traumatic incidents or mental troubles out of my college essays. “Leave it between you and your therapist,” read the paper my teacher handed me. I was devastated. All my essays, prewritten over the summer and ready to attach to applications, concerned the topic of me overcoming my mental health struggles. I thought they were strong. But I was and have been taught, by not only my teacher but society, to hide this large part of me, to not let anyone know, and to keep it bottled up to explode on my once-a-week therapist.

As a whole, mental illness is stigmatized. We can see this with not just myself and other students like me, but the treatment of mental illness, and those who have committed crimes. Whenever a new mass shooting happens, people criticize the media for publicizing the suspect as mentally unstable. But in order to fix the system, we have to look at these problems. We have to talk about it. So let’s.

What’s the point in discussing the mental health of criminals?

In January of 1998, two boys named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold broke into a locked van and stole computers. They were charged with mischief, breaking and entering, trespassing, and theft, and sentenced to community service and psychiatrist treatment.  Harris was forced to attend anger management classes. Official reports released from the program show that he marked feeling “anger,” “homicidal thoughts,” and “racing thoughts,” with Harris’ parents reporting he had suicidal thoughts. Despite this, he was released months early from the program, and no action was taken against the psychological problems he faced. In March of 1998, his friend Brooks Brown reported Harris to the police for bragging about having pipe bombs and threatening him, but the police never filed the search report.

A year later, in April of 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out the deadliest high school shooting at Columbine, killing 13 before taking their own lives.  Had they had better mental health care, the shooting could have been prevented.

Several studies confirm that people that have mental illness that are left untreated have an increased risk of violence. The Columbus Dispatch reports that school shooters generally have mental health red flags.  For example, in 2005, Seung-Hui Cho was ordered by a court to receive involuntary outpatient therapy, but the order was never carried out and the therapist did not evaluate him. In 2007, Cho committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. It could be argued that had Cho been evaluated and the order carried out, the signs of his mental illness problems could have been caught and the shooting could have been avoided.

This list goes on: John Russell Houser, Adam Lanza, and more. The US National Library of Medicine agree there is a strong correlation between poor mental health and shootings.   However, the US National Library of Medicine also support the idea the mental health problems do not always lead to violence, a stereotype that can be hurtful to those that are mentally ill. So to find a middle ground, we need to acknowledge the untreated mental illnesses and the problems in our system.  These problems have not only been seen in past shootings, but in mental health treatment today. We need to understand the legitimacy of these symptoms. We need to end the stigma that may prevent people from seeking out help. We need to look at our past mistakes and make an effort to fix them.

Looking at the problems in our mental health system today

I have great friends and supportive parents, and I am extremely grateful that I have been able to look past the implications of my disorder and seek help. However, stigma and misunderstanding leads to nearly two-thirds of all people with a diagnosable mental illness not seeking treatment.

There is also a problem lying in out broken mental health system. The number of beds in psychiatric care has plummeted. Many organizations have been called un-compassionate and cruel. While mental health spending is only 1% of the economy, total health spending is 10%. This, combined with stigma, leaves people unable to seek help or unwilling to.

How do we fix it?

Looking at our past mistakes, it is clear the people don’t take those with mental illness as seriously as they should, and this can lead to horrible consequences. The factors that prevent people from seeking help need to be redefined so that we can be more open with mental health problems and don’t have to spend so much money on getting adequate care.

And we can start with making people not feel so ashamed of having these disorders. I want to be able to say I have a personality disorder in the same breath as I would declare I have a broken foot. Ending the shame, the stigma, and giving more care to the mental health system can significantly change lives.

Since the Columbine shooting in 1999, to today, we haven’t seen much focus on the mental health systems that lead to these tragedies and this needs to change. We must learn from out past, and change out future.