Why Is Mental Illness A Myth Or Fact

Mental Illness:
Myth or Fact?
When I was younger, I once heard of someone harming themselves because they were sad and my immediate thought was, “Why would anyone ever hurt themselves on purpose? Can they not just find something that will make them happy?” I did not know or understand that there were such things as mental illnesses, much like heaps other people do not. People are also not aware of the many signs of mental illnesses, or even that the illnesses themselves exist. There are tons mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and much more. A large amount of these illnesses go untreated or unnoticed because people are not very well educated on them or simply think that since they cannot always be seen, they must not be serious. Mental illnesses are as real and severe as other illnesses, and require treatment in the form of therapeutic means or medications to recover.
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An example of this would be if someone were to break their ankle, they would not being able to walk as well as they used to without receiving some form of treatment, but if the same person were also depressed, their parents may believe that only the ankle injury is important. They believe this because they have not read up on depression and severity of mental illness. People usually come to these types of assumptions due to a lack of education on mental health.
Quite on the contrary, it is a fact that mental health is extremely important and can affect your physical health as well. In the words of the ProQuest staff, in an article about mental health, “It is how an individual handles stress and copes with life”. Depression is a mental illness that can cause physical health issues such as insomnia, exhaustion, and a loss of appetite (ProQuest Staff). Therefore, being mentally ill can be seen in a physical manner at