This evening I heard Valerie Pringle of Midday, Canada AM, The Antique Road Show, and many more speak on mental illness and stigma in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Her talk focussed on her daughter and her experiences with anxiety and panic attacks. Growing up her daughter would always be anxious about things like tests and exams at school, and then finally when she graduated university it got to the point where she could no longer function. This was when Valerie, and her daughter realized this was something more than just simple nerves over a test. She was suffering from something much bigger. And Valerie learned that saying “everything will be fine,” was the least helpful thing she could have done.
Valerie mentioned statistics of the proportion of the Canadian population suffering from mental illness, which is expected to rise over the next few years. Of youth suffering from mental illness, only 1 in 5 will receive treatment. I do not remember the exact statistics, other than they were high and growing fast, but here’s what I found from the Canadian Mental Health Association website (I think these are a bit old).
Regarding stigma and mental illness, Valerie pointed out how in a research project investigating the usage of terms associated with mental illness in newspapers, such terms were never used in obituaries. Occasionally the terms like schizophrenia may be used to describe the weather, but you would never see it written in an obituary to describe a person. Often it will say, “this person died of cancer,” but you would never see something like “this person suffered from depression and committed suicide.”
After the talk there was a question and answer period. Many people shared their own experiences, frustrations, and Valerie was even encourage at how some people were able to admit and tell the world that they suffered from mental illness.
When everything was done I thought of one question to ask her, which I figured she should could provide a lot of insight. I asked her how journalists can help to remove the stigma associated with mental illness. Her answer was to tell stories, like those of whom were at the talk this evening, came to the point where they could share and talk about their own experiences with depression, anxiety, and how they received the courage to tell the world this is what I suffer from. I asked her a follow up question, which she may not have been well prepared for, or perhaps the question itself was not that great, but I asked her if there was anything journalists could when covering everyday stories, stories such as politicians behaving badly at airports, or teenagers acting out violently. This was a tough question, because as she said, a journalist cannot diagnosed mental illness in people or teenagers, but they can certainly ask questions, or ask if it was a factor. I guess ultimately it is up to those people to talk about their lives.
Perhaps my favourite example of journalism helping to remove the stigma, in an everyday story, is the story done by our local CBC Radio station covering the hijacking of a Cessna aircraft from our college flight school. The reporters did an honest job of showing who the hijacker was, how he was a normal person, who everyone respected well, who suffered from depression.
Maybe the point is mental illness needs to become an everyday story, like cancer and hip replacements.
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