Confronting Mental Health Stigmas

Pick up the phone. Go to the grocery store. Talk to other people. These actions, which are part of a daily routine, seem easy and ordinary to many. However, it is not like that for everyone.

Jason Thomas-Biss knows it all too well. Especially when even getting out of bed could be the biggest challenge he has to face that day. He is a 19-year-old boy from Hastings who is constantly fighting against his negative thoughts.

Some days he does not feel anything at all. He just wishes to disappear. When Thomas-Biss is taken over by those gloomy feelings there is only one thing that can help him: music.

Thomas-Biss first started playing the guitar to control his extreme mood swings. However, once he found himself being good at it, he decided to compose his own music.

“There are moments when I am absolutely petrified. I’m terrified. I cannot stop myself from being completely scared of the situation, even if it’s only a simple word like saying yes or no to a person. I can’t help it.

“When this happens I like to isolate myself and being just me and my guitar. I like not having to think about anything else but music,” he said.

Most of the time it is hard for people like Thomas-Biss to put their emotions into words and explain what they are going through. Music has become a way for him to reach out to other people.

Like Thomas-Biss, others have been using different forms of expression to combat their mental health issues and to raise awareness.

Cerys Knighton, a 23-year-old artist, is one of them. She has been drawing since she was a kid, following in her mother’s steps. It was not until she lost contact with this activity, at the begging of her university studies, that she realised how important art was to her.

She decided to start drawing again because she felt like it was the best way to deal with all the issues that she was experiencing. She finds all the thinking and the effort that she has to put into her art pieces, which can take up to 30 hours, extremely therapeutic.

In addition to the time that she spends on her works, the idea of communicating and showing what it is like to live with bipolar disorder through those drawings is what gives Knighton a genuine sense of satisfaction.

An exhibition of her artworks called “Drawing Bipolarity” was held last February in Cardiff. Because of its success, and all the positive responses to it, it was extended for a couple more weeks.

These events are greatly important because once public opinion will acknowledge the existence of these disorders and the fact that they can be tackled, it will be easier for people who are affected to accept them and be aware that they can defeat them.

The way the exhibition was presented made it easier for people to understand the process behind the making of Knighton’s art pieces. They set out what she describes as a “thought wall”, where all the specific symptoms and the researches that she did were explained.

For her drawings, Knighton takes inspiration from things that she can relate to in terms of experiencing and she mixes them with her interests.

“Because I love animals and nature so much, I try to find kind of ways to think about characteristics of bipolar disorder in such things that are familiar to me. Also kind of looking at different ways to think about emotions, focusing on the eyes to convey what is going on with me,” she said.

Mental illnesses such as depression and bipolar disorder are very common. An NHS research shows that there is a chance of one in every 100 adults to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, usually when they are around 18-year-olds. While depression mixed with anxiety has been proven to be the most common mental disorder.

However, those diseases are still viewed as a taboo and often misunderstood in modern society, which makes it even more difficult for people to easily share their feelings. Often, they are not able to find the appropriate time and the right words.

According to a recent survey conducted by Time to Talk, an organisation whose aim is to end mental health discrimination, two thirds of people affected by mental health disorders in the UK struggle to talk about it openly.

“Bipolar is often subjected to misconception, they think of it in terms of quick changing moods while there are different features of the condition,” said Knighton.

Claudia Spada, a psychiatrist, believes that there is a stigma related to mental disorders and most of the times it is hard to accept them. However, the reason behind it can change depending on the illness.

“People with conditions such as depression and anxiety often refuse to talk because many underestimate it and its believed that they are just behaving as victims,” Spada said. In her opinion, society is keen to portray those affected as incapable to deal with problems which are considerer easily solvable by others.

“While,” she added, “when it comes to people diagnosed with bipolar disorder probably there is an exaggeration in not believing that therapy can actually help and that the problem can be solve with the right treatments. Basically people tend to wrongly consider the gravity of the disorder.”

These pathologies are complex and many who suffer from them feel ashamed and are inclined to hide their conditions. Guilt, which is a side effect of depression, often prevails and makes them think that they are just a burden for their friends and families and everything is their fault.

Knighton said that telling about her disorder to her friends was very hard. She was scared of the way they could have reacted.

However, thanks to her art project, she managed to do it. She said that the reactions she received were quite positive, which made her feel like she had the opportunity, by talking about it, to do something beneficial for others as well.

Nicole, a 19-year-old girl affected by bipolar disorder and currently recovering from bulimia, is very sceptical when it comes to talk about her disorders. She still considers the decision of opening up a mistake and this is also the reason why she doesn’t want her last name to be published.

“People are close-minded. They don’t understand. Basically they think I’m constantly whining and faking everything just so I can get away with it,” Nicole said.

In her opinion this is due to a lack of education on the topic and to a misrepresentation of it. Nicole really hopes that things will change soon and people will start to understand the gravity of these illnesses.

“In the western world now I think things are going better, but here in Bulgaria it’s a different story,” Nicole said. “It’s not as well known. Most people either take as a joke or as something annoying to which they don’t want to relate to,” she added.

Similarly to Knighton, Nicole decided to start painting. This activity strongly helps her to relax and also to communicate her pain to others. She said that she has always been bad at explaining the way she feels and art is another form of expressing it.

These artistic forms are the perfect middle ground between not talking and either speak through the music or a painting.

Knighton’s goal is to reach out to those people who are experiencing the same struggles as Nicole and are feeling hopeless.

“I think that for me one of the things that me more confident in talking about it was seeing other people doing it,” Kinghton said.

Then, she added: “I really hope that someone who sees me talking about it, maybe even on social media, will feel a little bit more comfortable. They can see that bipolar can be talked with positive reactions.”

Spada believes that raising awareness through art will help people to understand the importance of a “secondary disease prevention”, which will lead to an immediate therapy. Additionally, learning more about these condition and all the different graduations related to them can improve many lives.

When Knighton was younger no one around her was able to figure out that the symptoms she was experiencing were associated to bipolar disorder. The wrong prescriptions negatively impacted her first years of dealing with the disorder, making it a lot harder.

Moreover, these forms of expression are an opportunity for people affected by these illnesses to know that they are not alone and to be inspired to speak up.

“I just think it’s important for people to be open about it. Emotions are real. You’re allowed to feel what you feel. It’s not a bad thing to be upset or depressed or anxious. People need to know that,” said Thomas-Biss.