Semantics are everything......

There are many stigmas attached to psychiatric illnesses and I'm always doing what I can to expose them for the fallacies that they are. My dream job, and one I hope to be doing at some point once I figure out how, would be working as an advocate with companies of any size; teaching what it really means to have a psychiatric illness and what companies can do for their employees who suffer from these conditions. These illnesses are the number one cause of time lost on the job in North America and there is much that companies could do to decrease this loss.

But as I said, semantics really are everything and I think the first thing we need to do is stop using the term mental health. Mental refers to the mind, not the brain, and it is the brain that is the genesis of psychiatric diseases. People tend to think of the mind and brain as being the same and they are not. The mind is a function of the brain, they are not the same thing. Depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders - these diseases and disorders begin in the brain and from there affect the mind. They do not begin in the mind. I believe that they are neurological diseases no different than Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. I'm not sure when and how they were labeled as mental and at this point I really don't care. Alzheimer's isn't referred to as a mental health issue but it's really no different in origin than depression or schizophrenia - the brain malfunctions and that malfunction spreads to the rest of the body in various ways.

I'm a little cloud-headed today and feel like I've been more coherent on this subject previously but here you go. I think if we can be more accurate in how we refer to psychiatric diseases and disorders that would go a long way in relieving some of the stigma that surround them. Alzheimer's isn't known as a mental health issue and Parkinson's isn't known as a muscular disease. Psychiatric diseases need to be labeled for what they are, diseases of the brain. Refer to them as neurological diseases , psychiatric diseases - please just don't refer to them as mental health diseases. Doing so keeps us all in the closet of ignorance and it's getting pretty stuffy in here.

Until next time, be grateful, be happy and if that's out of reach right now, reach out to someone who can remind you.