It’s not all in your head. Or at least, not only in your head. Last year, during a particularly stressful time in the semester, I began getting headaches. I didn’t know why I was getting them or how to get rid of them. When they got so bad I began to skip classes and social events to stay in bed, I decided I needed to seek help.
I thought I was going into the doctor’s office to get help for my headaches. Maybe I would be prescribed some painkillers. But when the doctor asked me about how things were going, I began to weep and couldn’t stop until I had told her everything that was bothering me, from school assignments to health issues. I should have known it wasn’t all in my head. My headaches were a very real, physical byproduct of underlying depression and anxiety.
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association’s website, “mental health means striking a balance in all aspects of your life: social, physical, spiritual, economic and mental.”
This message is crystal clear: mental illnesses, like depression, can affect more than just the way you think and the way you feel mentally. People suffering with depression sometimes feel tired, gain or lose weight, get headaches, have aches and pains, and a plethora of other possible physical symptoms.
The problem is, many of these symptoms are ignored by the person, or dismissed by society as “complaints”. For years, I ignored my own signs of mental illness – fatigue, headaches, body aches, apathy, crying episodes – because I thought i just needed to smarten up.
The real problem is mental illness is stigmatized. On a university campus, where many people are hitting the age these illness often becomes apparent, this is an unfortunate reality.
Dr. Manoj Bhargava runs clinics through the UNB/STU health centre on campus. As a psychiatrist, he sees people with mental illness everyday, and he believes the number of people being diagnosed is growing.
“Nowadays as compared to 25 years ago, there’s a higher rate of mental illness because people are able to function in the university environment because there are more treatments available. Years ago, it would’ve been just take it or leave it,” he says.
With a higher number of people living, functioning, and excelling with mental illness, it might be logical to expect the stigma to wane. In some ways, it has, but there are still sceptics out there who don’t believe illness until they can see it.
A person who is so depressed they can’t get out of bed is sick, whether you can see the illness or not. Unlike a broken leg, the injury isn’t apparent, but the illness is still paralysing. Some still see this as laziness, but the reality is that without medication or help, many people cannot function the way they’d like to.
Other common myths about mental illness are that the sufferer is stupid, crazy, or drug addicted. People possessing these opinions may be surprised to see the person sitting right next to them in class suffers from anxiety disorder.
The girl five desks over could have body dysmorphia. Just because an acquaintance has schizophrenia doesn’t mean they have multiple personalities, or act paranoid all the time.
For many mental illnesses, treatments, medications, and therapies are available, but these are not cures. I’m feeling much better lately. Through medication and counselling, I’ve learned to control my anxiety so that it doesn’t control me. But there are still dark days, and I have my ups and downs.
The closest we can get to bettering the situation is practicing a little tolerance, and finding out more. One in five people under 65 will have a mental health problem in any given year, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. While some mental illnesses are linked to heredity, that’s not the only factor. Most people are affected by mental illness at least once in their lifetime. My family, boyfriend, and roommates were certainly affected by my moods, but luckily they have been understanding. Whether the issue hits close to home or not, it pays not to be ignorant.
