Not to long ago I came across a story of a police officer who made a false report to cover his suicide attempt and it make my heart drop into my stomach. Not only because this man was suicidal and was unable to get help, but that he felt he had to go as far as making a fake claim because of.......STIGMA!!
Ultimately, the false report cost him his job. So now, he has suicidal tendencies and dealing with unemployment and probably unable to ever work as a police officer ever again....and all for what?
Because of SOCIETY'S viewpoint and cruelty towards the entire topic of mental health and illness. This is the LIFE-DESTROYING problem throughout the world. All of the misinformation and stigmatizing idealization of what exactly mental illness is all about.
-Point blank....it has to do with PAIN! Plain and simple....something WE ALL have experienced or are currently experiencing.
No one is immune.
Not all of us are gifted to being emotionally numb to the hardships life throws our way....many times, those hardships get the best of us, and we are unable to cope with what we are feeling and experiencing; so people are left to suffer in silence and alone...like this former police officer simply because he had to "act like a man" And often, the results are tragic and even deadly!
To me, this is a particularly cruel way to treat another human being who is already suffering a great deal. By making them appear weak when actually they are aware of what they are experiencing...makes me shake my damn head. It infuriates me to think of how some in society feel they are somehow invisible and will never face mental health problems themselves, and to me, this is the most dangerous ideology out there today. That ideology is literally killing people.
