Why Mental Health Riots

With mental health rioting to be heard in a country that reduces its concerns to something purely pabibo or pauso or papansin, you begin to think yourself － conditioned by damnable culture － that perhaps mental health issues are just overblown instruments of the attention-seeking. But reality is, this is hardly the case at all.

Mental health is, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”

Although it can sound subjective, mental health is not a wholly abstract concept brought about by sentimentality; there is a science behind it too. For instance, depression can result from a combination of chemical imbalances, faulty mood regulation, genetic vulnerability, among others. Even research shows that patients diagnosed with psychopathy have brains wired to feel less, with less activation in the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and lateral orbifrontal cortex which are areas involved in the processing of emotions, risk, fear, and decision-making.

Admittedly, it can be diabolically simple to fall into that trap of thinking mental health is unreal; mainly this is because mental health disorders and illnesses such as depression and anxiety have non-clinical definitions as well and this shadows its clinical meaning.

“Depressed” can be interpreted to mean that a person is just overwhelmingly sad, and “anxiety” could mean getting the short-term jitters before a stage performance; and everyone goes through these feelings every once in a while but it does not mean that they have depression or anxiety. We use these terms to represent short, fleeting feelings and although this is okay it does not take away the fact that there is a clinical definition for these terms and that these are still as real.

What’s worse is there are clinical terms that are commonly injected into small talk and casual conversation, thereby confusing the masses even more. There are also mis-meanings of words like “antisocial” and “bipolar” which are used to describe someone who does not like socializing and changes moods quickly, respectively.

As much as possible, it would be better not to use these terminologies anymore and use alternatives such as “dejected,” “nervous,” “asocial,” and “moody” so as to not inadvertently shove into a person’s head that feeling sad for a short period of time equals having depression, or not wanting to talk to people is tantamount to being antisocial. It does not sound like much but this contributes to deleting the stigma around mental health.

Another reason why it’s so easy to question the existence of mental health is that it is not as concrete as physical health and its issues. Example, your temperature does not necessarily rise, your body may look fairly healthy, no bruises or bumps, so and so; only when someone cuts themselves, or kills themselves do we board the social media woke train and spew reassuring words of comfort.

What we fail to notice is mental health starts with the mind, it seeps out into the physical when it becomes too much, too unbearable, or too unhealthy, but someone as nonchalant and casual and typical as a Netflix binger, weight-conscious person, wallflower and such can have mental health problems too. They may not even know it themselves because they mistake it as something normal or because it doesn’t seep into the physical (eg. self-harm, purposely throwing up food). We have difficulty grasping the abstract, but that does not take away the fact that people have mental health issues.

Mental health is not a made-up tool of attention-seekers. If it was, it wouldn’t have sparked such a large-scale problem. Look at the statistics. 3.3 million Filipinos suffer from depressive disorders as reported by the Global Burden of Disease Study. In 2012 alone was a whopping 2,558 cases of suicide in the country based on data from WHO. This is our national condition.

What ever can be the solution to this? For starters, expelling this stigma from the country can make way for mentally healthier changes: no taboo in seeing psychiatrists and therapists, no offhanded words and commentary on someone else’s mental health problems, no more turning the cheek because the mental health topic unnerves you.

The truth behind our sad stories is that we as a collective attach a negative connotation to mental health when in reality, it is our ignorant mindset and stigma-loving culture that is in the negative.

In the end, mental health riots – not for attention, but recognition.