9781422274118

tal health issues and people getting into behaviors and patterns that aren’t good for their long-term health, their finances, or their prospects for a successful career and personal life. If more people could talk about the mental health issues they had, and if they felt safe to express themselves, there could be less of a stigma surrounding mental health. 4 Then additional people would start talking, and soon there would be more openness about issues that are faced. That way people can do more than just try to pretend they’re feeling okay, and try to hide their mental illness by appear- ing “normal” as much as possible. Having to fake health so people don’t judge them is a struggle faced by a lot of people with mental illness, and it’s a struggle that can be avoided by removing the stigma of mental illness. WHAT MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ARE MOST COMMON? In today’s society, the most common mental health prob- lems are anxiety and depression. These are present in a large percentage of the population, and they are far more pronounced in some people than in others. There are also a lot of different forms of these mental health issues. For ex- ample, some people have social anxiety, where they strug- gle to go out and interact with other people. Some people have health anxiety, so they either avoid the doctor for fear of what might be found wrong or they go to the doctor all the time, thinking that there’s some serious physical health problem happening in their body.

12

Contemporary Issues: Mental Health