Mental Illness Social Media

Mental illness is apart of every person's life whether it is themselves, a family member, or a coworker. Although mental illness has become more talked about in society it still carries a dark stigma that creates fear and breeds aggression in the general population towards the mentally ill. Lack of understanding and the constant focus from mass/ social media continue to hinder society from gaining a true understanding of what mental illness is and how it affects each person differently. The daily portrayal of those with some form of mental illness in the media only fuels the fear of the mentally ill. Insinuating that having a mental health issue makes you likely to hurt others(school/mass shooters) or harm yourself(teen/celebrity suicide) is

TV/ film portrays mentally ill as violent, criminal, even physical deformed reinforcing the negative stereotype of the mentally ill. The difference between mental illness and normal emotional distress depends on the length of symptoms, changes in the person, and how it affects their lifestyle. Grief and depression are one in the same yet continued grief that stops a person from living is then called depression. As this is true for most mental illness many people live fully functional lives with some type of mental illness. Types of mental illness can vary from depression, phobias, OCD, to generalized anxiety, and personality disorders. Social media and mass media creates dysfunction, anxiety, and depression. The constant airing of mass/school shooters, face-eating man, and teen/celebrity suicides create a breeding ground for stigma towards mental illness. TV and film often use the institutionalization treatments of the past as they were horrific and did more damage than good. For instance, the acclaimed American Horror Story- Asylum season depicts the torture the mentally ill allegedly suffered at the hands of Doctors before the Deinstitutionalization of 1955. The images shown in this show, while they may have been based in some truth, darken the thoughts of how the ill really are. While some mentally ill are truly a danger to themselves and others, most people with a mental illness keep to themselves and cause no danger to anyone. Social media plays a larger role in the creation of the mentally ill. Isolation and the creation of “false reality” insights many symptoms. The need to compare one's life to another's aids in a person feeling less about themselves and toppled with the lack of time with true human contact opens the door for mental