How to Respectfully Speak On Mental Illness

How to Respectfully Speak On Mental Illness

Every year approximately 1 in 5 people will suffer from an episode of mental illness. One out of twenty-five will have some form of chronic mental illness.

So there is a high likelihood that at least some of your audience members will be currently experiencing mental illness, or they will have a family member or friend with mental illness. So here are 3 steps that can help you better connect with your audience when discussing this topic.

Consider the age of audience members in regards to the stigma and labels of Mental Illness. People in their late 30’s and up, such as myself, have probably lived in fear of the stigma their entire life. Fortunately, this stigma has lessened over the years but for many adults, it’s still unthinkable to openly discuss such a topic. The pain of living in fear for so long can run deep. In your speech, just a single positive affirmation can lift the spirits of these individuals.

Help the audience understand a continuum of symptoms. Meaning, for example, everyone can relate to the feeling of uncertainty and the anxiety it can produce when you think, “Did I forget to shut off the stove”, “Did I lock the door” etc.

As uncomfortable as this may be, it would be on the lesser end of a continuum for negative impact on the quality of someone’s life. Someone with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) will experience those same feelings but the severity and frequency can be so bad that it can be debilitating.

People with moderate to severe OCD would fall at the other end of that continuum. So unless you have the disorder, you cannot truly appreciate how devastating that symptom can be. I believe that is one reason why the stigma, especially the labels of you lack willpower or you’re lazy or you have some moral character flaw, continue to persist. People can identify with symptoms but not realize that what they experience is like night and day, compared to someone with a mental illness disorder.

Try as best you can not to say “I Understand”. Having worked as a psychiatric nurse, and having a mental illness, I have made that mistake more than once.

Even if you have a mental illness, no one wants to have their feelings and experience’s not validated. Saying “I understand”, can work sometimes, but often the other person will be saying “you have no idea what I’ve been through”. I’ve been on both sides of that fence.

So to avoid that situation, it is much better to stick with “I can empathize”, or “I can only imagine what that must be like for you”. I know how easy it is to say “I understand”, we do it all the time, but for someone with mental illness, try to avoid the word whenever you can.

~Joseph DeRenzo