“Breaking the Stigma: Understanding the Importance of Mental Health and the Link between Mental and Brain Health Issues”

This article is written with a great inspiration of The End of Mental Illness book from Daniel G. Amen. My special gratitude to Dr. Amen for mentioning Mental/Brain Health Stigmatisation and how we can perceive mental health which can lead help to greater amount of the population.

The beginning of being ashamed of mental issues is unknow but long for centuries. People were discriminated in various ways that even some has nothing to do with mental but more of the beliefs of those years. We all know about these witchcraft stories that mostly women with mental issues were seen as witches who uses black magic. What a weird association between belief of magic and mental issues, isn’t it? It is weird for us but was not for them.

We can still be surprised about the stigmas for mental heath even we only talk about our time. Did you see anyone ashamed of cancer, diabetes, or like any organ dysfunctions? These health problems affect our life experience significantly but we are aware of that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Can we say the same thing for people who struggle with depression, anxiety or schizophrenia? No, obviously we can say that these are perceived as different categories with different ways of understanding and normalisation.

So let’s dive in…