Why Mental Health

During the first class of the semester we were told to introduce ourselves to the class, a fairly normal procedure in college. Name, major, hobbies, and a cause we care for. While I had introduced myself in roughly fifteen classes prior to this semester, I had never once been asked to tell about a cause I care for. However, without missing a beat I said “mental health”. 

Too many of us will experience some kind of mental disorder throughout our lives, and will often be left facing the consequences alone. While we understand that physical illnesses such as cancer requires to be detected and treated quickly, there seems to be a misconception that mental illnesses such as depression don’t require the same treatment. One can die of either one, and both are in my eyes equally as important. We even have a healthcare system that doesn’t take humans seriously when they need help, and I think that unfortunately this has a lot to do with a lack of understanding. Mental health needs attention, because attention will lead to research which eventually will lead to understanding. 

The reason I personally care about mental health is that last year I experienced losing someone to suicide - seemingly out of nowhere. Since mental illness is so taboo, the understanding is too poor and none of us saw the signs leading up to this. If we manage to bring attention to the importance of mental health then more people will understand, and less people will die to mental illness.  

(sAULALBERT/FLICKR (CC BY 2.0) HTTP://BIT.LY/2BI1DYD)

Mia Moen

Berkeley College '21