Date: 7th Jan 2020
Mental Health seems to be put in this sort of strange place in between a serious subject and nothing more than a joke by the acting industry. The industry acknowledges mental health exists but often doesn't give it the accurate representation and sensitivity mental health often needs to be dealt with.
I've just written an essay on this subject as it's something close to my heart. As someone who lives with both depression and anxiety, it's very rare that I watch a film or TV series and see a truly accurate depiction of what life is like with my various mental health disorders. I myself have fallen into the trap of watching these so called "life stories" or "realistic" portrayals of mental health and learning disabilities on shows like Atypical or Greys Anatomy and believing the depiction is true and researched enough to be close to the actual disorder portrayed by the characters. But the more I'm watching these shows and the more my understanding of this subject grows, the more I can see these so called portrayals of disorders are actually doing more harm than good.
Take for example the rather infamous horror film "Split" in which a man living with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) kidnaps these teenage girls, holding them hostage, treating them badly and brutally hurting them. At first glance this movie may just look like a horror movie, where this psychopathic man can't control his own mind and goes mad but upon closer inspection I began to quickly realise the immense amount of damage this movie caused to the people all over the world living with this heart breaking disorder. DID is one of the most heartbreaking mental health disorders out there, as the people living with it have been horrifically abused as very young children, causing their personalities to literally split, forming amnesic walls in their mind to protect the original child from this reliving this repeated abuse. People living with this disorder often suffer with PTSD and a wide variety of other mental health issues and as a result are much less likely than the average person to want to cause harm to someone else, as they themselves know the true extent of what repeated abuse does to someone. Their alters aren't going to turn on you suddenly and kill you, in fact most of the time you would hardly even notice the original child has switched at all. But yet Split in all it's horrific wonder, has increased the stigma surrounding DID and as a result has had a huge impact on a lot of DID systems all across the world.
Then there are shows like Atypical that portray a warped version of Autism; where a very young Sam has a lot of issues, yet somehow by the time he has become an adult, he is able to lead a fully functioning, pretty much normal life and but for the occasional blunt/rude comment and the noise cancelling headphones, you wouldn't even really know he's autistic unless the show had told you so in the first place. They play the blunt/rude comments out for laughs, making a joke out of autism and unfortunately this Netflix show seems to give the impression that all autistic people are just a bit rude and socially inept, which in turn, increases the lack of understanding about the "more" autistic people out there who struggle a lot more than Sam does in Atypical.
The lack of understanding around Mental Health infuriates me, as I have had countless people not believe me when I say I have depression or anxiety because I have a smile on my face and can talk to people. There seems to be this stupid idea that depression looks a certain way and if you don't act that way, you're faking it. I have had tutors at my very amazing drama school call me out to my friends saying I am weak and cowardly when I have left the room nearly in tears; just about keeping it together until that door closes behind me and the anxiety attack forces me to my knees. I have had people who I thought were my friends, drop me because they happened to message me in the middle of an anxiety attack and I freaked out over something either they said or I replied with, thus offending them in some way... but they never gave me a chance afterwards to explain that it was merely a misunderstanding or that I am deeply sorry for how I overreacted to something small, they just upped and left me. My ex college wouldn't believe I had anything wrong with me. And even when they found out I was self harming, they would still walk past me sobbing in the corridors, ignore me in the classroom, completely overload me with like four peoples' worth of work because the other three didn't turn up that day and I just happened to be the only one they could get to do everything for them... and then repeatedly tell me I wouldn't get to where I am today. They didn't take it seriously.
And the less Mental Health is taken seriously, the more the fear and stigma increases. The lack of understanding leads to a drastic increase in suicides every single year because people are only looking out for the so called "obvious" signs someone is struggling and ignoring the ones that are perhaps a little bit smaller... And thus the cycle carries on. The movie/TV industry could have this incredible ability to change that and with shows like Modern Love on Amazon actually showing what life is like with Bipolar and Anxiety there might be some form of hope for change in the future. The entertainment industry has the power to get really important life saving conversations started but it's not happening enough. Modern Love is a rare exception to the played for laughs, cliche tropes Mental Health often falls into and so it falls to the people living with mental health/learning disorders to actually educate everyone else and try to decrease the stigma the movie industry is creating for the atypical members of our society...
So next time you're watching a movie and you're laughing at an autistic kid being rude or shuddering at a DID sufferer murdering someone, remember not everyone is like that. Be kind to people who open up to you, try to learn from them and treat people with dignity and respect. Don't tell them they are faking it because trust me it really doesn't help. If you are lucky enough to have someone be honest and open with you about their mental health, help them by being supportive and kind and understanding.
Be the person I wish I had had at college, who sits with their friend in class, who stops and asks the crying teenager if they are alright rather than walking by, who defends the quiet ones in class and who speaks up for them if they need to be helped. We as individuals have the ability to literally change someone day, to maybe even save their lives by small simple acts of kindness and if you're reading this, know that you are worthy of love, hope, respect and a bright future. Don't let anyone take that away from you
These are the links to various sites about Mental Health - including stats etc - or YouTubers who are an inspiration to me and whose videos have changed my views on a lot of things :)
Felperin, L (2017) What Netflix comedy Atypical gets right and wrong about autism Available at https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/aug/14/atypical-netflix-autism-spectrum-depiction-cliches (Accessed 21/12/2019) How Common Are Mental Health Problems (2013) Available at https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems/#.XeA77Oj7RPY (Accessed 29/11/2019) Mental Health (2019) Available at https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/ (Accessed 19/11/2019) Dissociative Identity Disorder – The Basics of DID (2018) Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohjHEGdnVA0&list=PLE9ZiMr2LbFAKpwjKLjmo3WBOQ-9JjtLB&index=14 (Accessed 09/12/2019) Living With A Mental Disorder (2015) Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezI2W32yNg8 (Accessed 20/12/2019) My Past | my mental health journey (2019) Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yKXcXVzDtg (Accessed 10/12/2019) Suicides in the UK: 2018 registrations (2019) Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2018registrations#suicides-in-the-uk (Accessed 12/11/2019) About Downs Syndrome (2014) Available at https://www.downs-syndrome.org.uk/about/general/ (Accessed 04/12/2019) Autism Facts and History (2018) Available at https://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/myths-facts-stats.aspx (Accessed 04/12/2019)
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