[Music]
by the time you are done listening to
this talk someone aged 15 to 24 will
have killed themselves the reality of
mental illness of anxiety and depression
is worse than you may think today I’ll
be talking about why people don’t come
out about their mental problems why
people get overwhelmed and what we as a
society need to do to solve the
underlying stigma that surrounds mental
illness now a 2004 report by the World
Health Organization look to rates of
psychiatric treatment
the results are unbelievable between 30
and 80 percent of people with mental
health concerns never receive treatment
depending on the illness and it’s
generally acknowledged that these rates
are lower than what’s actually going on
because in the end some people just
never speak out here’s why now there’s a
list of eight reasons why people don’t
talk out about the problems that they’re
facing and which is really the crux of
the problem and this applies from
everything from suicide to panic
disorders lack of insight limited
awareness feelings of inadequacy
distrust hopelessness unavailability
practical barriers and fear and shame of
these eight summit of them are either
directly or indirectly related to stigma
fear and shame is the most common reason
why people don’t come out about their
mental illness and it’s deeply
intertwined with stigma there’s just so
much negative stigma and just underlying
discrimination surrounding mental
illness and it stops people from ever
coming out and another one of the
biggest problems that we see is that
some people don’t even understand how
these illnesses work some of my friends
think that having a panic disorder means
you wake up one day and you’re like whoa
I’m feeling anxious today and you know
that’s just not how that works
so to help everyone better understand
how this works I’d like to present a
story the story of David Fitzpatrick
David Fitzpatrick grew up in Guilford
Connecticut and during his late teens
and early twenties he began the slow
descent into mental illness and at worst
times he would cut himself with razor
blades cutting for those of you who
don’t know is where you take a blade and
you cut yourself to release stress or
deal with anxiety generally without
intent of suicide and it’s the most
common form of self-injury and
self-injury in general is a really
unhealthy way to cope with these
problems and David doesn’t interview you
want to hold on to it because it’s a
great way to cope obviously it’s not a
great way to cope but that’s how I felt
I felt like just relieve stress better
than anything later he says for me it
was just a growing depression and shame
and self rage and loathing I got so
overwhelmed I feel like I can’t tell
anyone about this because it’s so
bizarre and for a lot of people this is
exactly how it goes David was just a
teenager when this stuff started
happening to him and we were unable to
unable to intervene because we as a
society have stigmatized mental illness
we refused to talk about it
we think lesser of people that are
affected by it we are never taught how
to cope with it and how common it is in
school you have tons of people resorting
to things like cutting and self-injury
when there are much better ways to cope
now I too suffer from some form of
mental illness I have a panic disorder
where I’ll get anxiety attacks over the
smallest things from almost failing a
test to almost getting detention from
being late to class and these reasons
may seem laughable the most that’s
exactly what makes it so hard to talk
about because a lot of parents or
there’s a lot of anxiety attacks they
come from these
all things and for a lot of people it’s
really difficult to talk about because
people don’t understand what it’s like
now for me when I get an anxiety attack
my heart rate will go above a hundred
for around an hour of trouble writing
doing anything that requires fine motor
skills I can’t lift heavy things and my
entire body is just shaking it’s pretty
bad and the thing is it’s really
difficult to talk about because a lot of
people don’t understand how this works a
lot of people don’t understand what
people like me go through and so me I
feel like I’m just gonna get judged or
laughed at but for me this started back
when I was in first grade and so in
third grade I got the help I needed when
a teacher came to me and talked to me
and figured out what was going on
because I didn’t even know what was
happening to me
so I got the help I needed however this
rarely happens for anybody mental
illness in my generation has gotten
worse and worse however treatment levels
have remained constant this needs to
change so what can we as a community as
a nation as a world what can we do to
solve the underlying stigma that
surrounds mental illness well we need to
start at the root where is this stigma
coming from why do people know so little
the answer lies within our education
system health classes across the nation
either teach too little or too late the
public is misinformed and the later we
teach these concepts the less likely
they are to actually make a difference
people develop their stereotypes early
and we need to thus intervene early we
need to teach students about what mental
illness is like we need to teach
students about how to cope with these
types of things instead of resorting to
things like self-injury that they learn
about on the Internet we need to teach
students about what they may go through
and trust me this type of education is
worth it one in five students go through
some sort of severe mental illness at
this time and everyone goes through some
sort of mood swings and everyone’s in
there
we affected through friends family and
people we know so really the best place
to start is in schools if we can create
a nationwide standard for mental health
education we can go far in curing the
stigma that surrounds mental illness and
help teenagers feel less marginalized
and ignored make sure that their voices
are heard because in the end that’s what
really matters
now for those of you out and out there
in the audience who are still skeptical
about stigma being a major issue
consider this 20 years ago someone
wanted to bowl you have to do it to your
face now they can do it anonymously
hiding behind a computer screen thirty
years ago advanced classes and getting
into a top college weren’t as hard and
weren’t as big of a deal as they are now
the situation has changed and we need to
act off another thing we need to do is
we need to essentially make schools a
safer place for students to be in and
share their thoughts and share what
they’re going through because for me I
was too scared to tell anyone about what
was going on and for a lot of people a
lot of their anxiety attacks come from
school for me it’s the only thing that
creates anxiety and that’s really the
thing and I got lucky a teacher came to
me but this rarely happens and if you
look at a school like the school I go to
Glen Cove High School we have thousands
of students you can’t have teachers
going to every student it just doesn’t
work so we need to increase trust in the
school environment so that way students
feel safer and they feel like they have
someone that they can go and talk to
about their concerns finally we need to
look at this from a financial viewpoint
if four forms don’t get funded then
reforms don’t happen one in five of our
students goes through some sort of
severe mental illness and yet only four
percent of our health budget is directed
towards mental illness for all ages we
need our budget to reflect the types of
problems and the types of situations
that weird
in our country it’s time to change our
budget to reflect the problems that
we’re going through so as a society we
have ignored mental illness we refuse to
talk about it we refuse to put together
reforms we refuse to fund it we
stigmatize it to such a point where
teenagers are afraid to talk out and
refuse to ask for help we as a society
cannot continue to fail our younger
generation it’s time to lift the veil
thank you
[Music]
you
by the time you are done listening to
this talk someone aged 15 to 24 will
have killed themselves the reality of
mental illness of anxiety and depression
is worse than you may think today I’ll
be talking about why people don’t come
out about their mental problems why
people get overwhelmed and what we as a
society need to do to solve the
underlying stigma that surrounds mental
illness now a 2004 report by the World
Health Organization look to rates of
psychiatric treatment
the results are unbelievable between 30
and 80 percent of people with mental
health concerns never receive treatment
depending on the illness and it’s
generally acknowledged that these rates
are lower than what’s actually going on
because in the end some people just
never speak out here’s why now there’s a
list of eight reasons why people don’t
talk out about the problems that they’re
facing and which is really the crux of
the problem and this applies from
everything from suicide to panic
disorders lack of insight limited
awareness feelings of inadequacy
distrust hopelessness unavailability
practical barriers and fear and shame of
these eight summit of them are either
directly or indirectly related to stigma
fear and shame is the most common reason
why people don’t come out about their
mental illness and it’s deeply
intertwined with stigma there’s just so
much negative stigma and just underlying
discrimination surrounding mental
illness and it stops people from ever
coming out and another one of the
biggest problems that we see is that
some people don’t even understand how
these illnesses work some of my friends
think that having a panic disorder means
you wake up one day and you’re like whoa
I’m feeling anxious today and you know
that’s just not how that works
so to help everyone better understand
how this works I’d like to present a
story the story of David Fitzpatrick
David Fitzpatrick grew up in Guilford
Connecticut and during his late teens
and early twenties he began the slow
descent into mental illness and at worst
times he would cut himself with razor
blades cutting for those of you who
don’t know is where you take a blade and
you cut yourself to release stress or
deal with anxiety generally without
intent of suicide and it’s the most
common form of self-injury and
self-injury in general is a really
unhealthy way to cope with these
problems and David doesn’t interview you
want to hold on to it because it’s a
great way to cope obviously it’s not a
great way to cope but that’s how I felt
I felt like just relieve stress better
than anything later he says for me it
was just a growing depression and shame
and self rage and loathing I got so
overwhelmed I feel like I can’t tell
anyone about this because it’s so
bizarre and for a lot of people this is
exactly how it goes David was just a
teenager when this stuff started
happening to him and we were unable to
unable to intervene because we as a
society have stigmatized mental illness
we refused to talk about it
we think lesser of people that are
affected by it we are never taught how
to cope with it and how common it is in
school you have tons of people resorting
to things like cutting and self-injury
when there are much better ways to cope
now I too suffer from some form of
mental illness I have a panic disorder
where I’ll get anxiety attacks over the
smallest things from almost failing a
test to almost getting detention from
being late to class and these reasons
may seem laughable the most that’s
exactly what makes it so hard to talk
about because a lot of parents or
there’s a lot of anxiety attacks they
come from these
all things and for a lot of people it’s
really difficult to talk about because
people don’t understand what it’s like
now for me when I get an anxiety attack
my heart rate will go above a hundred
for around an hour of trouble writing
doing anything that requires fine motor
skills I can’t lift heavy things and my
entire body is just shaking it’s pretty
bad and the thing is it’s really
difficult to talk about because a lot of
people don’t understand how this works a
lot of people don’t understand what
people like me go through and so me I
feel like I’m just gonna get judged or
laughed at but for me this started back
when I was in first grade and so in
third grade I got the help I needed when
a teacher came to me and talked to me
and figured out what was going on
because I didn’t even know what was
happening to me
so I got the help I needed however this
rarely happens for anybody mental
illness in my generation has gotten
worse and worse however treatment levels
have remained constant this needs to
change so what can we as a community as
a nation as a world what can we do to
solve the underlying stigma that
surrounds mental illness well we need to
start at the root where is this stigma
coming from why do people know so little
the answer lies within our education
system health classes across the nation
either teach too little or too late the
public is misinformed and the later we
teach these concepts the less likely
they are to actually make a difference
people develop their stereotypes early
and we need to thus intervene early we
need to teach students about what mental
illness is like we need to teach
students about how to cope with these
types of things instead of resorting to
things like self-injury that they learn
about on the Internet we need to teach
students about what they may go through
and trust me this type of education is
worth it one in five students go through
some sort of severe mental illness at
this time and everyone goes through some
sort of mood swings and everyone’s in
there
we affected through friends family and
people we know so really the best place
to start is in schools if we can create
a nationwide standard for mental health
education we can go far in curing the
stigma that surrounds mental illness and
help teenagers feel less marginalized
and ignored make sure that their voices
are heard because in the end that’s what
really matters
now for those of you out and out there
in the audience who are still skeptical
about stigma being a major issue
consider this 20 years ago someone
wanted to bowl you have to do it to your
face now they can do it anonymously
hiding behind a computer screen thirty
years ago advanced classes and getting
into a top college weren’t as hard and
weren’t as big of a deal as they are now
the situation has changed and we need to
act off another thing we need to do is
we need to essentially make schools a
safer place for students to be in and
share their thoughts and share what
they’re going through because for me I
was too scared to tell anyone about what
was going on and for a lot of people a
lot of their anxiety attacks come from
school for me it’s the only thing that
creates anxiety and that’s really the
thing and I got lucky a teacher came to
me but this rarely happens and if you
look at a school like the school I go to
Glen Cove High School we have thousands
of students you can’t have teachers
going to every student it just doesn’t
work so we need to increase trust in the
school environment so that way students
feel safer and they feel like they have
someone that they can go and talk to
about their concerns finally we need to
look at this from a financial viewpoint
if four forms don’t get funded then
reforms don’t happen one in five of our
students goes through some sort of
severe mental illness and yet only four
percent of our health budget is directed
towards mental illness for all ages we
need our budget to reflect the types of
problems and the types of situations
that weird
in our country it’s time to change our
budget to reflect the problems that
we’re going through so as a society we
have ignored mental illness we refuse to
talk about it we refuse to put together
reforms we refuse to fund it we
stigmatize it to such a point where
teenagers are afraid to talk out and
refuse to ask for help we as a society
cannot continue to fail our younger
generation it’s time to lift the veil
thank you
[Music]
you
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