Robin Williams. Amy Winehouse. Anthony Bourdain. Those are names everyone knows when it comes to depression, anxiety and mental illness. We treat the industries and the people part of them like the only ones who face that problem — and thus, they’re the ones who spark conversation.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 18.1% of adults in the United States suffer from an anxiety disorder. NAMI also reported 20% of adults also experience a mental illness in a given year.
Yet the only time a conversation on mental illness is sparked is when it involves a celebrity.
For example .. earlier this year, NBA superstars Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan came out and admitted they suffer from anxiety and depression. That popularized the topic and got people talking about it. Don’t get me wrong, this is fantastic. However, do you really think these two are the only players who do and have suffered from mental illness?
That’s doubtful.
The issue of an absence of conversation on mental illness has nothing to do with lack of awareness or experience with it. Instead, it has everything to do with self-perceived shame and embarrassment. When someone commits suicide or falls victim to addiction as a way to cope with the illness, people often view them with stained eyes. A perception that these people are “bad” is spread and thus the topic is left alone and individuals are left to suffer silently without an outlet.
I am a rising sophomore at Emerson College in Boston. As a college student, one sees their fair share of drugs and anxiety as kids are forced to live independently for the first time in their lives. Going into college, I admittedly held this “bad person” belief when it came to people who abused drugs for whatever reason.
I never understood the struggle of addiction or why people use certain illegal substances.
In my very own dorm suite, a friend of mine, Jack Wozniak, dealt with these very issues. At one point, Wozniak was forced to take academic leave from the school to enter rehab. It was not until he returned at the start of the second semester that I had learned that he suffered from severe anxiety.
Looking back at that time in his life, Wozniak, a Long Island native, expressed how abusing certain substances was the only way to suppress the severe anxiety he faced on a daily basis.
“Anxiety is basically over thinking things, for me at least, so I would say it was easy to abuse any kind of substance that allowed me to not have to think as much,” Wozniak said. “During that time. I was abusing marijuana to the point that I needed it to sleep otherwise my mind would just be racing. I guess that just helped me not have to deal with the issues at hand.”
When Wozniak returned, he was seemingly a different person to me. He seemed happier, less irritable and was just another “one of the guys” without any of us thinking twice about it. Being around him and being able to call him a close friend has taught me a valuable lesson on the importance of understanding people’s struggles and giving second chances.
The more I talked to Wozniak, the more I realized what a great guy I was living with, something I would have never thought in the first semester as his struggles with anxiety and addiction took a toll on many of his relationships.
As I think about the mental illness epidemic today, I think a traditional view on these struggles is the key problem in not progressing or having a more expansive conversation on the topic. Society looks at them as “broken” and “junkies,” but they don’t understand the constant mental battle some go through.
For certain people, they have a support group to go and speak to about what they are dealing with. For others, their only way out is to use substances like Xanax or cocaine to calm their mind. It is those people society feels aren’t worthy of their time because for whatever reason, they are the evil sinners we should stay away from instead of helping.
Humans are not perfect. Humans struggle with all types of physical and mental challenges. Falling victim to an addictive substance as an outlet to cope with that problem is not evil nor is it productive, but it is not something people should shy away from talking about.
We need to have an understanding about what it’s like to not have someone to go to.
To not be able to attend a support group or have the strength to enter rehab.
At the end of the day, we are all human. If you know someone who is suffering, you need to say something. That person is not a bad person, they are just struggling.
I am lucky enough to tell you a story of success. Don’t let the next conversation you have about mental illness be about a loved one in the past tense.
The writer, Ryan Ribeiro, a resident of Kearny and a sophomore journalism major at Emerson College, Boston, is a summer journalist/intern at The Observer. He is a graduate of St. Peter’s Prep, Jersey City.
