COVID-19 increased mental health issues for many Americans. Now that the restrictions on daily life have largely lifted, the aftermath of months in isolation is still playing out in many people’s lives. Aside from problems brought on by the pandemic, mental illness is a reality for almost one in five people in the U.S., according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Nationally, many high-profile people have gone public despite the continued stigma around mental illness. Among the prominent figures in the media announcing decisions in the interest of their mental health are gymnast Simone Biles, tennis player Naomi Osaka, actor Kristen Bell and basketball player Kevin Love.
Locally, Western Michigan University student Alex Lawrence stepped down from his position as vice president of Western Student Association (WSA) effective Aug. 29, 2022. He announced in an Instagram post that his decision to step down was an act to take care of his mental and physical well-being.
This story was originally published in the Western Herald, and is part of the Mental Wellness Project, a solutions-oriented journalism initiative covering mental health issues in southwest Michigan, created by the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative. SWMJC is a group of 12 regional organizations dedicated to strengthening local journalism. Visit swmichjournalism.com to learn more. A version of this story written in Spanish can be found here.
Lawrence has spent the last four years of his college career working to be a student leader. He served as WSA vice president for four months until he made the decision to resign.
Lawrence took a “holistic look” at his life and saw there were areas that were taking away from rather than adding to his well-being.
“For the last four months, I’ve been honored to serve as your student body vice president,” he said at a WSA meeting on Sept. 7, 2022. “I had to make some tough decisions to be able to get where I need to be next. And one of them was to resign from student body vice president.”
Holistic health includes taking all aspects of a person’s well-being into account when determining how to care for one’s health.
“Mental health and physical health are so closely intertwined,” WMU holistic health and wellness professor Amy Geib said. “You can’t look at a whole being and a person’s well-being overall without attending to mental health.”
Geib has taught holistic health for the past four years, and teaches to her students the importance of caring for their mental health.
“My goal, at least in the classroom, is to continue to give students tools to support all dimensions of their well-being, but certainly pay attention to mental wellness,” she said.
Those with serious mental illnesses face additional challenges beyond the symptoms of the mental illness themselves. While Lawrence and others who have voiced their challenges with mental health are not saying they have a serious mental illness, they still experience the stigma that accompanies their struggles with mental illness.
“[T]hey are challenged by the stereotypes and prejudice that result from misconceptions about mental illness . . . Although research has gone far to understand the impact of the disease, it has only recently begun to explain stigma in mental illness,” Patrick Corrigan and Amy Watson wrote in a 2002 World Psychiatry article.
However, more people are becoming accepting of mental health issues and serious mental illnesses.
An article published in 2021 in JAMA Open reported that “of 4,129 adults in the US, survey data from 1996 to 2006 showed improvements in public beliefs about the causes of schizophrenia and alcohol dependence, and data from a 2018 survey noted decreased rejection for depression.”
WMU professor in sociology Chien-Juh Gu attributes this trend to many factors, including the very fact that more people — particularly celebrities and famous athletes — are becoming outspoken about mental health issues.
“When we see a lot of discussions in the news and social media, the more likely people will think it’s okay to talk about it because a lot of people are experiencing the same issues as me,” Gu said.
Both Gu and Geib also acknowledged the toll the COVID-19 pandemic took on the world’s mental health.
“The topic of mental health comes up in the news a lot more than before because of COVID,” Gu said.
Gu and Geib have observed a difference between younger and older generations and their belief that people will only continue to get more comfortable talking about their mental health.
The 2021 JAMA study also found that generational and age shifts are associated with a shifting perspective on mental health.
“Perhaps in younger children, the conversation is starting at a younger age amongst school-aged children, so it’s being normalized,” Geib said. “I think that conversation will continue to grow, to become more normalized.”
