If you ask the receptionist in a business on Douglas Avenue what mental illness looks like, they might mention homelessness. If you ask someone who works in a nursing home, they might say isolation. If you ask your neighbor, they might talk about their daughter’s eating disorder. The fact is that mental illness looks different to everyone you ask. But they will all have a picture in their mind. Because mental illness touches all of us.
Open a national newspaper or listen to news radio for one day, and you’ll hear about the mental health aspect of mass shootings, celebrity experiences, meditation as a recovery tool, effects on performance in sport, how it affects leadership ability, its connection to crime, and much more. Mental illness doesn’t care how much money you make, what ZIP code you live in, how smart you are, where you were raised, what language you speak, or anything else.
In short, mental illness looks like anything. And considering it affects children, seniors, families, veterans, CEO’s and the homeless alike, it also looks like everything. There are few – if any – social issues or public concerns not shaped by questions of mental health. Ask yourself what mental illness looks like for you. What image springs to mind when you hear those words? And when you have the answer, and decide it’s time for you to help however you can, reach out to your local mental health organization and see how you can help.
