Mental Health and Disability Part Two: Where Society Needs to Catch Up

Late last year, I brought up an issue that was not discussed very much in the disability community, disability and mental health. As I thought about this blog, I remembered a recent email that I got, and it inspired me to revisit the issue. In the email was a story about how colleges are flunking mental health treatment.

            The article described a young boy, Dan, who had mental health issues and made a wrong choice one night in an attempt to overdose. To summarize, he did not overdose. He was having trouble dealing with a new medication, and once his medicine was adjusted, he was fine. However, his college did not treat him appropriately.

            His health center referred him to a hospital, which they should have done, but the administration's actions were incorrect.  Instead of recognizing a student in trouble, they treated Dan as if he was a criminal.

            My previous blog on mental health dealt with how society doesn't view depression correctly. This latest article in News Week confirms what I had written. Depression is still such a stigma that it is almost a dirty word even in higher education. What does this have to do with disability? It has everything to do with it. Depression and disability in general in our society is seen as something dirty. When it is said that someone is depressed or disabled, they are seen as unclean or unworthy. It is a shame that places of higher education are perpetuating this stereotype. I can speak from personal experience when I say that even higher education places view depression as a dirty word. Not only did they kick Dan out of his school involuntarily, but also they did a similar thing to me.

            It is said that the American land of immigrants is so afraid of difference. We will not be able to progress as a society if we do not understand that differences are fundamental to the growth, and not everyone is given the same skillset. Some of us must deal with obstacles that sometimes overwhelm us. We should not criminalize those who have depression or other mental health afflictions; instead, we should strive to ease their pain.

This will not happen if we do not admit that depression is not necessarily a bad thing. Depression, instead in most cases, is our body's' way of telling us to reexamine what is going on around us. I know most of society doesn't view depression the way I do, but regardless of whether you agree with me or not, you have to agree that society needs to be more accepting of mental health issues. If places of higher education are so educated, why can't they lead mental illness acceptance? The answer is simple.

Places of higher education are scared of mental illness for the same reason society is scared of mental illness. They are afraid that if we embrace mental illness for what it is, it is an admission that the human consciousness is not as self-reliant as society thinks it is. We need to accept that it is a part of the human condition to ask for help. It is a part of our condition to be reliant on others. Keeping up with the Jones's individualist type mentality that we currently live in, it is taboo to admit that you go against the grain and do not subscribe to the emotionalist culture we live in.

Colleges could be on the front lines of helping those who are depressed, but instead, they sit at the back of the class. It is time for a societal-wide change in disability and depression, and change can happen if it starts now.