How Mental Illness is Poorly Represented in Media

What is mental illness-

Mental illness, also called mental health disorders, refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behaviour. Many people have mental health concerns from time to time. But a mental health concern becomes a mental illness when ongoing signs and symptoms cause frequent stress and affect your ability to function. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviours.

How is mental illness represented in media-

Studies have consistently showed that entertainment and news media provide overwhelmingly dramatic and distorted images of mental illness that emphasise dangerousness, criminality and unpredictability. Not only does most of the media exaggerate and ridicule mental illnesses they also provide inaccurate information that might give viewers the wrong idea about these highly stigmatized mental illnessses. Such representation not only negatively effects the average public’s understanding of mental illnesses but also the people who have been diagnosed with those same illnesses.

For instance, common depictions are that all people with depression are suicidal, and all people with schizophrenia hallucinate. In reality, only between 60% and 80% of people with schizophrenia experience auditory hallucinations. An even smaller number of people experience visual hallucinations. This is particularly egregious or poorly done when it comes to depictions of depression where a charecter must always be severly bullied or harassed as a justification for their depression. When in reality a person can have multiple reasons for being depressed from bullying to being overworked and under high pressure to simply just going through a rough patch in their life.

People who struggle with Schrizophrenia are almost always shown in a negative light. They are often shown as ‘psycho’ killers and slashers with violent tendencies. The portrayals of schizophrenia often focus on symptoms such as visual hallucinations, bizarre delusions, and disorganized speech, and presented them as commonplace.

In reality, symptoms like decreased motivation, poverty of speech, and flat affect are more common.

People with mental illness like OCD can also be inaccurately represented as being overly concerned with cleanliness and perfectionism. A lot of people with OCD can have odd tendencies that have nothing to do with hygiene and cleanliness. The obsessive thoughts that drive their compulsions are overlooked or absent. Many people with OCD have said that they feel like they have to take part in these tendencies otherwise they or their loved ones may face immeidiate harm. This leads to many people trivialising ODC as a quirky personality trait rather than a serious mental illness.

Eating disorders are also poorly represented. Many people with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa feel that their condition is made out to be less severe than it really is. This is in part because people with the condition portrayed in the media often minimize its seriousness and hide the severe consequences of the disease. Over the years there have been many exploitative movies and TV shows that deal with eating disorders that make eating disorders out to be a small hurdle that one must overcome instead of the life ruining disease it is. It is potrayed as a disease that is born out of vanity and can be cured by just developing a higher self esteam and not caring about what people say. In reality people can fall pray to eating disorders to feel or exert some sort of control over their already stressful lives. It also ignores the fact that sometimes eating disorders can be caused genetically and can be hereditary. By trivializing eating disorders and by showing that it can be magically cured by simply eating food or by not obsessing over one’s body has real life consequences. Anorexia Nervosa is the most deadly psychological disorder with a 5% death rate but it recieves less funding when it comes to research than other disorders like Schrizophrenia.

Romanticing of mental illness-

A lot of charecters struggling with mental illnesses are potrayed by white, cisgendered, able bodied, neurotypical, and conventionally attractive actors. No matter what their character is going through they are always put together and look attractive. An example of this would be In The Queens Gambit where Beth Harmon (the main character) is going through a rough patch as her life is falling apart around her. Despite the fact that the show is telling us she is that she is at a low point of her life, she still remains and looks glamorous and chic. The same can be said about Effie from Skins who was a character struggling with depression and Bipolar disorder. The show frames her as a cool and chic character who is careless, beautiful and complicated.

Portraying mental illness like this has far reaching consequences. Firstly, it tells us that only white, cis people deal with these disorders and secondly tells us that these disorders are cool and chic and makes others more mysterious and complicated rather than disorders that can have huge negative consequences on the people who are suffering from them.

Eating disorders are also often portrayed by conventionally attractive thin women that leads to people often glamourisng and romanticizing it. The media does not show the negative effects of eating disorders that may disgust viewers. They do not show the loss of hair, the yellow teeth the people who struggle with bullimia go through or the slow heart rate that people go through. Also by only showing women who suffer from eating disorders it tells us that only women can suffer from these disorders and that men cannot be victims of eating disorder.

Suicide is also romanticized on shows like 13 Reasons Why as a act of ultimate revenge over the people who have wronged you. Due to the shows negligence there was a 28.9% rise in suicide after the show aired. This shows that the content that is created effects people and if sensitive topics are not treated with care and the respect it deserves then it can do more harm than good.