The Invisible Killer

First Steemit Blog

How would you cope with having noises inside your head or when you see things that aren’t meant to exist? How will you live, knowing that everyone fears you and can’t understand what you’re going through?

What would you do when you can’t see the very thing that’s killing you?

When news broke out that Robin Williams, a famous Hollywood star and comedian (Genie in Aladdin, Peter Pan in Hook, Theodore Roosevelt in Night at the Museum), committed suicide in 2014 due to depression, everyone was quite understandably surprised. How could anyone so successful in life fall into the pits of depression so much that death is the only way out?

Consider this: whenever we hear about someone having cancer or other terminally ill disease, we immediately tend to sympathize and offer our help, but when we pass by a mentally ill person, we run away to the opposite direction as fast as we can. Why is that?

Mental illness is just as deadly as cancer and in fact, affects more people in the world. Most are left undiagnosed and are open to the mockery and cruelty of a society that does not understand it. Many people are ignorant about its causes and effects. Whenever someone commits suicide, they blame drugs, alcohol or depression – when in fact, all these things are simply the results of poor mental health.

The problem with mental disorders is that it isn’t a logical disease. You can tell a tumor is growing through scans or detect diabetes through examining blood, but to identify what’s wrong with the human mind involves a complex process and even then, not all results are correct.

Thankfully, we have a more open-minded society now and not every mentally ill person gets locked up in an asylum, but the stigma that has long been associated with it still continues. But in the first place, why should society stigmatize it?
Just as no one wants to have cancer, the same goes for having a sick mind. Look around you, research says that one out of four people in the world have some form of mental illness. Whether it be phobias, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorders or psychotic disorders – almost each one of us has to deal with a disease that we cannot see. Not every mental disease turns a person into a raving lunatic. So why should we persecute those who have them when most of us in fact suffer from the same thing, albeit in a lesser degree?

The sad reality is that we stigmatize mental illness because we are ignorant about it. It is easy to point fingers and ridicule someone when you can’t sympathize or empathize with their condition. We live in a world where a mentally sick child becomes a family’s shame and dirty secret instead of being treated by proficient doctors and people still look at “crazy” people with fear and scorn in their eyes instead of sympathy. A lot of mentally ill people say that their disease isn’t what makes life truly hellish, but it’s the reaction of the people around them that drives them to end their own lives.

So before you laugh at the next “crazy” person that you pass by, think about Robin Williams and the millions of people that cried for help, yet no one responded to their call, thinking that it was all… in their head. Maybe you can help save a life by recognizing the invisible killer that lurks behind the smiles of the people around you.