Mental Health: Invisible Illness becoming a Visible Epidemic

Miranda Mason ('19)

In my last semester as an undergraduate, I attended the 2019 Active Minds National Conference at Georgetown University with the theme “Building a Mental Health Culture”.  The purpose of the conference was to share ideas and advance knowledge about mental health education, advocacy, and awareness.  The presenters explained that stress is “the new smoking”, a factor that can negatively affect physical health, as well as the mental well-being of countless Americans.  As such, the conference sought out solutions to diminish the hold that stress has on us, as well as to de-stigmatize mental illness. 

First, the conference explored the features of a successful social movement, so that a mental health movement would be able to follow suit.  If a grass-roots campaign against smoking could drastically reduce the amount of cigarette users, then why couldn’t a movement to change the culture surrounding mental health drastically improve the access to treatment for stressed individuals?  Next, I attended seminars about strategic approaches to understanding mental illness in today’s world.  Speakers presented how young people are commodified in the current market of education and careers.  One professor pointed to the fact that high achieving students are likely to fall victim to the hyper-competitive job market and feel as if the smallest failure is unforgivable.  Youth must be allowed to see the failings of those they admire.

The conference also emphasized that we often forget that there is more than one definition of success.  By opening other paths and understanding what makes individuals happy (instead of only pursuing what is considered by many to be “best”), we can enable a more satisfied population to relax a bit.  By forming a more flexible cultural ideal, we can prevent much of the stress that leads individuals to feel depressed, anxious, etc.  After exploring how mental health advocates can shape the narrative of life and stress, we moved into content that was more focused on addressing existing mental illness.  In the seminars that I attended, I learned about the way that technological innovation is improving access to mental health care, by screening for health issues, directing people to help, and bridging distance between patients and distant mental health practitioners. 

I also attended seminars that focused on achieving equity in mental health.  That included understanding how those of lower socioeconomic background, racial/ethnic minorities, and first generation college students have different needs to consider and address.  It is very important that these individuals are aware of people that they can turn to without judgement, who understand their situation. The panel that hosted that discussion emphasized that exclusion is often not on purpose, but rather, the result of a simple lack of awareness. It is important to understand what is going on in someone’s life in order to help them deal with stress.  One of the easiest ways to help is to assist them to find people with similar backgrounds that they can relate to when explaining their problems.

Ultimately, the conference gave me a better understanding of some of the factors that play into a burgeoning mental health epidemic in America, and it equipped me with some of the basic tools necessary to tackle issues in health by shifting culture and providing support to those at risk.

Miranda Mason, of Corinth, Ky., is a senior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville, where she is an individualized major in medicine and society.