Cassidy Jackson

ENG 1201

Prof Colvin

March 24th, 2020

Mental illness and how it affects our everyday lives

There is a huge chance that you or someone you know suffers from mental illness. To be

specific, 1 in 4 people you know will have mental illness. There are 450 million worldwide. And

you might not even know it. Robin Williams is one of the most famous actors and comedians

worldwide. He is known most for his funny and happy characters such as Genie and Mrs.

Doubtfire. But underneath every funny and happy he did, he suffered from depression. The

world couldn’t even tell. On August 11th, 2014 the world went into shock. Robin Williams had

committed suicide. His depression had taken over. It was such a shock for the entire world. This

is an example that people could appear as one of the happiest and involved people ever, but they

have inner demons that tell them otherwise. Having a mental illness can sometimes feel like it’s

a burden to your day to day life, so how exactly does mental illness affect our everyday lives?

Mental Illness can affect everyday life in multiple ways in relationships, the workplace, home-

life, and yourself among other things. Mental Illness has a stigma around it that can affect people

in everyday life in more ways than one.

Some mental illnesses are anxiety, depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD),

and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There are lots of mental illnesses but these are the

most common ones. Mental illnesses affect people in different ways. For some, it has retained
more psychological scarring. For others, not so much. It can also be incredibly difficult to get

and maintain a job. Some employers put a stigma around mental health. This stigma is that they

are not hard working or they are “crazy”. This is why everyone should be educated more about

Mental illness. According to the website titled Mind Wise, “The stigma of mental illness is

difficult to bear as long as the media and general public do not understand the nature of mental

illness” (Jones). This states that the stigma around mental illness will not go away until people

get educated on the fact that people that have mental illness are not “insane” or not as hard-

working as someone that does not have mental illness. Having a mental illness does not make

you less of a person.

Mental illness has always been an area under discussion and first created mystery and

fear in those that had it. But at present, there has been some improvement in our understanding

and especially with the access to treatments. Lots of people give up their own recreational

pursuits because of mental illness. Mental illness and Mental health differ. Just like a person’s

physical health and if they suffer from an illness. Having support from a family is also very vital

in a person’s mental health. There are multiple cases of families that do not believe that one of

their relatives has a mental illness so they constantly degrade them for how they are feeling.

Having support can also help the recovery process in the darkest stages of a mental illness. If

said person struggling feels isolated, they can spiral further into their dark episode that is

happening. Mental illness always seems like it is screaming at you “Pain demands to be felt” but

that doesn’t always have to be the case. These illnesses can have a reduced ability to care for

themselves and to maintain a decent relationship. Mental illness is not a sign of weakness.
 Something that can be affected by mental illness that people do not think about is home-

life. Looking after a family member with mental illness can feel like a burden sometimes for

some family members, It can take a toll on their emotional and financial components. They may

say that it is a hassle to constantly go to doctor’s appointments and therapy and pay for

medication that these people need to deal with their mental illness. There can also be an increase

in stress levels in family members that are taking care of others in their family. Older family

members and older people in the world believe that children and teens acquire a mental illness by

all the time they spend on their phones and social media, which is a common misconception.

According to a study by Brigham Young University, “if they increased their social media time,

would it make them more depressed? Also, if they decreased their social media time, were they

less depressed? The answer is no. We found that time spent on social media was not impacting

anxiety or depression” (Brigham Young University). They also go to state that 2 teenagers could

use social media for the same amount and still have different mental illnesses. This is also an

affect on homelife because some parents will get upset that their child is on their phone all the

time and then use this later as an example when mental health is brought up in a conversation

and possibly use it against them saying it is their fault for being on social media all the time.

The picture above is a great example of what can be happening in a person’s brain on the

daily when living with mental illness. The far left person out of the three has a low battery

drawing on their head. This can signify that a person with a mental illness can feel tired a lot, or

that they are on “low battery”. Most cases of feeling tired constantly with mental illness is with

depression. The second person out of the 3 has a thunderstorm drawing on their head. This can
signify that having a mental illness is like a constant storm. A thunderstorm always has a lot

happening and can be scary at times, just like mental illness. The third and final person has a

drawing of a bunch of lines intertwined. This signifies that there is a lot that can be on a person’s

mind with mental illness. Your mind feels like it is constantly going. What is common among

these three people in this image, they all look the same on the outside. No one looks different

just because of the mental illness they have. They look the same as everyone else.

Mental illness can affect people around you but how does it affect YOU specifically? The

person that suffers from mental illness the most is the one who actually has the mental illness.

There are multiple people that say having a mental illness means you are going to die young.

This is not true in all cases. According to an article written by Allen J Frances M.D. “It has been

known for many years that individuals with serious mental illness were more likely to have

medical problems like diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease” (Frances). In some instances this

is true. But it all depends on the person. Someone could have a severe mental illness and live to

be 95 years old. How mental illness can affect a person could be detrimental towards their health

too. There could be loss of appetite so that said person is not getting the proper nutrients and

vitamins to function and they could just forget to hydrate then. With mental illness, there can be

no motivation to even get out of bed to go get food and this can really hurt yourself and others.

Mental Illness can also affect the workplace greatly. Mental illness can affect everything

you do, even your job. Having mental illness can make it incredibly difficult to get and maintain

a job. Having mental illness can just make you feel less productive and this can greatly affect
how you feel at work. You could just not feel like doing anything and then this could affect how

you are viewed in your workplace. Some may view that you do not care and you are just at work

to be there. In return, this could create tension in the workplace and could result in the people in

higher positions hearing about your work or lack thereof, you could potentially lose your job.

This could be going to extremes but is a potential case that could happen to someone. But

because not everyone in the workplace knows or has mental illness, there are lots of common

misconceptions. Some people might say that you brought this upon yourself somehow. Which is

not true. But there are steps you can take to improve your mental health and help prevent further

mental illness. According to Dr. Amy Morin, steps you can take to improve your mental health

are “eating a healthy diet, getting plenty of sleep, participating in regular exercise” (Morin) can

really help. These steps are just like normal steps to take to help maintain a healthy lifestyle as

well. If you maintain a healthy lifestyle, your mental state will also be improved and healthy.
 Mental Illness is portrayed differently in pop culture as well. A great example of this is

the movie Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. One of the main characters is portrayed as mentally ill or

“psycho”, hence the movie name. This is a dramatization of mental illness. That dramatization is

also what causes a great stigma around mental illness as a whole. Because of how mental illness

is perceived in movies and TV shows, it creates a lot of negativity around mental illness and lots

of people that are not educated on mental illness will view them as crazy. This is not always true.

In extreme cases, there is incarceration in an asylum, which is also a dramatization perceived in

pop culture. Because of how Mental Illness can be perceived in pop culture, people sometimes

fear others with mental illness. Mental Illnesses on a person looks like they are just any normal

person. It does not make you appear crazy or anything of the sort. You look just like everyone

else. If you are looking at two people and are told to distinguish which one of them has a mental

illness just by appearance, it will be nearly impossible to tell.

This stigma around mental illness creates reluctance and shame in seeking help with your

mental illness. There is not a thing wrong with seeking help when you have a mental illness.

Getting help can greatly improve your mental health over all. It can even save your life in the

long run. Going to see a counselor/therapist about mental health/illness should be treated the

same as going to a doctor/physical therapist for a physical injury or illness. They are almost one

and the same because the entire body is woven together and the brain is included in that. Even if

just the brain is ill and your body is well, this could still damage your overall well being. This is

another reason why physical and mental should be treated one and the same because one can not
survive without the other. Even though there has been significant improvement surrounding the

stigma around mental illness over time, there is still more that can be improved.

In conclusion, mental illness can affect your everyday life in many ways in your

relationships, workplace, home-life, and yourself among other things. There is and always will

be a stigma around mental illness and that is something that we can never change. Even though

this stigma is going to be here, we can always work as a community to improve and remove the

negativity around the stigma. A person is still a person even if they have a mental illness. You

should not change the way you view someone just because they may suffer from depression,

anxiety, OCD, or any other mental illness. They are still a human just like you. Mental illness

can affect our everyday lives in multiple ways more than we think about. There are many small

details that you may not think affects your everyday life with mental illness.
 Works Cited
Brigham Young University. “Overall Time on Social Media is Not Related to Teen Anxiety and

Depression: Eight year study shows screen time isn’t the problem”. ScienceDaily.

ScienceDaily, 22 October 2019. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191022174406.htm

Burke, Meaghan. “Horror Movies Perpetuate Mental Illness Stigma.” The Temple News, 17 Dec.

2019, www.temple-news.com/horror-movies-perpetuate-mental-illness-stigma/

Frances, Allen J. “Having a Severe Mental Illness Means Dying Young.” Psychology Today,

Sussex Publishers, 29 Dec. 2014,

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201412/having-severe-

mental-iLlness-means-dying-young

Fuller, Kristen. “NAMI.” Home, 9 Oct. 2019,

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/October-2019/Mental-Health-Conditions-Seen-

in-Childhood

Jones, Ashleigh. “The Impact of Mental Illness on Other Areas of Your Life.” Welcome to

MindWise, 2018,

www.mindwisenv.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72&Itemid=95

Morin, Amy. “The 5 Most Common Misconceptions About Mental Illness.” Psychology Today,

Sussex Publishers, 9 Nov. 2015,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201511/the-5-

most-common-misconceptions-about-mental