Mental Health Stigma: A Deeper Look

Humans are so complex. Therefore, we feel so much, and life isn't always kind to us.

Parents argue, their screams echoing through the walls no matter how tight you cover your

ears. Best friends become friends, and soon, they become strangers. Peers choose

aggression over kindness, leaving tears of unimaginable pain beneath you. Money can be

tight, warmth can be lacking, and food can be scarce. Anxiety and sadness can take over our

minds, infecting us with mental illnesses. Sometimes it’s easier to keep these struggles to

ourselves because parents are stressed, friends are distant, and peers are judgmental. The

mere mention of a mental illness makes society cringe into a corner, resulting in a boatload

of stigma presented to all age groups, especially the youth of today.

To explore why this stigma happens and how it affects today's youth, I conducted a

survey asking several adolescents currently in high school (mostly attending Skyline) about

what tackles them mentally and what they think causes stigma. 95.2% of adolescents

responded that they’ve experienced some type of mental distress in the past month. Out of

that 95.2%, 61.9% said they experience such distress often, and 23.6% said they experience

such distress almost every day of the week. The most common answers to what causes

them the most mental distress include school, family, personal issues, the future, finances,

and friends/relationships. When questioned about how many people in their lives they

trust to go to for help, 61.9% said 1-3 people, while 33.3% said 3+ people. For such mental

problems, seeking aid from an adult is usually what people recommend. However, 14.3% of

respondents said that the people they can trust to go to for help aren’t adults. 15.8% of

respondents who listed that they can go to an adult for help recorded that said adult isn’t a

parent or a family member. The article "Many Parents Whose Teens Have Thought About
Suicide Don't Know It, CHOP/Penn Study Finds” written by Rita Giordano explores the idea

expressed in my data about the role of parents in mental stigma. There is an alarming

number of today’s youth who think about death and suicide at least once and parents are

often uninformed of such feelings. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the

University of Pennsylvania surveyed more than 5000 participants (children aged 11-17 as

well as their parents). 75% of those parents didn’t know that their children thought about

death a lot (Giordano). Many parents, when faced with hearing that their child has

thought/is thinking about dying, deny it. Parents often see the teenage struggle as being a

phase that will pass, disregarding the real problem. Teenagers go through pressures from

peers, school, the future, identity issues, and much more. This leads to a destructive barrier

in an adolescent’s life: “Parents are usually the gatekeepers for their children's access to

health care [...] so if parents are unaware of their adolescents' suicidal thoughts, these

thoughts may go unassessed and could manifest into self-harm” (Giordano). If such parents

label struggle as unserious, then their child will believe that they don’t need help or are

overreacting. Due to that fact, the youth of today will become a silent generation when it

comes to mental health.

Regarding the idea of adolescents going to adults for mental health aid, many

adolescents go to each other for help. In my survey, 77.3% of respondents said that their

friends often come to them for mental health support. Many reasoned that friends

understand social issues imposed upon teens better. A study within the article “Addressing

Mental Health Stigma among Young Adolescents: Evaluation of a Youth-Led Approach” by

Jeffrey Bulanda discusses how adults create a scenario where their opinions are the stigma

themselves. One way to combat this is to present resources that will make adolescents
more open, or rather, more people closer to their age to whom they can receive assistance:

“Youths are in a position to provide fresh, creative perspectives that adults may overlook if

interventions are driven by an ‘adultist’ agenda” (Bulanda). As mentioned in the article,

Youth-Led Programs are becoming more popular and can be quite helpful for adolescents. A

chunk of time dedicated to youth teaching other youth coping mechanisms or even just

talking about similar issues they share can be beneficial in multiple ways.

To further my research, I asked a few questions about mental health stigma. Stigma

is present in any problem in society, but it can be especially damaging when it comes to

mental illness. The Journal of Mental Health defines the concept of stigma as: “Stereotypes,

prejudice (endorsement of stereotypes and emotional reactions), and discriminating

behavior” (Journal of Mental Health). The Journal of Mental Health also mentions that there

are usually two types of stigma associated with mental health. Together, they create a

“Them vs. Myself” battle, where you either experience negative behavior from your peers or

yourself (putting yourself down and accepting what others say about you) or both. Youth

are often misinformed about mental illness and are usually misunderstood the most when

it comes to mental struggles.

When asked in my survey if respondents think that there is a mental health stigma

in today’s society, 100% said “yes”. 68.2% have seen it happen, and 18.2% have experienced

it, and 13.6% have seen it and experienced it. I asked respondents to talk about what they

think causes stigma and there were several answers. The article, “Secrecy versus Disclosure

of Mental Illness among Adolescents: I. The Perspective of Adolescents with Mental Illness''

written by Nadine Mulfinger, lists many of the same reasons for mental health stigma as the

results of my survey. This article conducted a study on several adolescents and recorded
what they believe causes mental health stigma and whether they think disclosing their

condition is beneficial or not. One common answer in the article and my survey was how

the media portrays mental health illnesses: ‘‘People see it in movies where things are a bit

exaggerated. Things aren’t necessarily that extreme in real life. And then they say: With you

it is not like it is in the movies. There’s nothing wrong with you’’ (Mulfinger). Movies and

television often stereotypically portray mental health illnesses through particular

symptoms and behaviors. This leads to the idea that a certain mental illness only manifests

based on what the movie/television show displays, causing many people to be treated as if

they don’t possess the illness. Another answer in both my survey and the article was the

lack of understanding that many people have of mental illnesses: ‘‘If you haven’t

experienced it [mental illness] yourself, I think it’s very difficult to understand it. Of course

you can say: ‘I understand.’ But if you haven’t really felt it, you can talk about it a lot, but you

cannot really understand what it’s like’’ (Mulfinger). There is a lack of education in schools

and in society in general on mental health. Due to that, there aren’t very many people who

know that these illnesses exist and that you can struggle mentally. This causes the youth of

today to feel abnormal, as if they are struggling with some unknown disease, which results

in them keeping to themselves. 40.9% of respondents of my survey listed that they don’t

feel comfortable sharing their mental health struggles with the adults in their lives. Several

adolescents studied in Mulfinger’s article listed reasons such as a general disconnect

between generations: “In the beginning, my parents didn’t understand it [Mental Illness] at

all. Their attitude was like: ‘There’s no such thing as mental illness, [...] They always say:

‘You have everything, what is missing? [...]’. [...] I think there’s still a very long way to go until

it [Mental Illness] is accepted and understood as a real illness’’ (Mulfinger). Different

through harder life events and expect their children to be as resilient as them. They’ll tell

their children that they are ungrateful for what they have or that life could be much harder

than what they are going through.

One respondent in my survey, when asked the question, “Why do you think people

choose not to share their mental health struggles with others?” said, “Because they don’t

want to be looked down upon”. One adolescent in the article by Mulfinger had a similar

response: “When some people look at me it is as if they can only see a big ‘mental illness’

sign over my head, and that’s all that counts, not me as a person’’ (Mulfinger). When it

comes to disclosure of a mental illness, there is a divided line between benefits and risks.

Relating to the idea of people having a lack of understanding on the topic, several peers of

adolescents will begin to put harmful labels on people with mental health illnesses; They’ll

choose to be unkind rather than empathetic. Yet, there are still several people who will give

those struggling the kindness they deserve, which provides hope for those who struggle in

the darkness.

Mental health stigma lurks in today’s society, and it especially affects today’s youth.

As seen in my field research and outside sources, there are several reasons for stigma and

several consequences of it. Several respondents from my survey experience some type of

mental suffering. Whether this is from family, friends, school, the future, etc, it affects their

daily functioning. While the people respondents feel comfortable going to for mental health

help varies, there is a portion of respondents that don’t feel comfortable going to adults.

This can be due to a difference in generations or fear of being misunderstood. Respondents

also mentioned that they go to peers for help, but there are some instances where that is
not the case. Peers can be as judgmental as anyone else, creating an isolating feeling for

adolescents. In conclusion, no matter the cause, stigma will always prevent someone from

getting the help they need. We need to change our perspectives, become more empathetic,

and create more resources that will allow free environments of vulnerability that work to

prevent another from quiet suffering.

Bulanda, Jeffrey J., et al. “Addressing Mental Health Stigma among Young Adolescents:

Evaluation of a Youth-Led Approach.” Health & Social Work, vol. 39, no. 2, May 2014,

pp. 73–80. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1093/hsw/hlu008.

Giordano, Rita. "Many Parents Whose Teens Have Thought About Suicide Don't Know It,

CHOP/Penn Study Finds." TCA Regional News, 01/14 2019. ProQuest; SIRS Issues

Researcher,

https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearc

her/document/2264375087?accountid=28671.

Mulfinger, Nadine, et al. “Secrecy versus Disclosure of Mental Illness among Adolescents: I.

The Perspective of Adolescents with Mental Illness.” Journal of Mental Health, vol. 28,

no. 3, June 2019, pp. 296–303. EBSCOhost,

https://doi-org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1080/09638237.2018.1487535.