One in five people will have some kind of mental health issue in their lives, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
“Mental illness is much more common than cancer or diabetes, but there’s often shame associated with it. We need to break that down if we want to save lives and help people thrive,” says Carol Meade, Director of Behavioral Health at UnityPoint Health – Cedar Rapids.
Meade is passionate about addressing the growing number of people experiencing mental health disorders across Iowa. According to a January 2021 U.S. Census Bureau survey, 27.7% of adults in Iowa reported experiencing symptoms of mental illness, compared to 18.5% before the pandemic from 2018 to 2019. One of the most significant barriers to identifying and treating mental illness, Meade tells us, is stigma.
Normalizing the conversation around mental illness
To overcome this obstacle, Meade’s team at UnityPoint Health began a crusade against mental health stigma by implementing Make It OK across their health care system. Make It OK – Iowa, launched in collaboration with HealthPartners and the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative, is an anti-stigma campaign that seeks to provide tools and resources to help employers, families and community members increase their understanding and normalize the conversation surrounding mental illness.
“The message in the name is so simple,” Meade says. “We need to make it OK to talk about mental health.”
Make It OK helps those dealing with mental health disorders feel understood, less alone and supported. Individuals are more likely to seek treatment when stigma is eliminated and discuss their well-being with others.
The three steps that make up the core of Make It OK are:
- Learn about mental illness
- Talk about it
- Share by encouraging others to pledge to take a stand against stigma
Meade believes that it's imperative to have conversations about mental health at home and on the job. The average adult spends one-third of their day at work, where many triggers can affect their well-being. Unfortunately, due to stigma in the workplace, approximately 85% of workers’ mental health conditions go undiagnosed and untreated. Utilizing programs like Make It OK to address stigma is crucial for businesses and the economy.
Mental illness can affect anyone regardless of gender, race, age, religion or economic status. The more people start talking about their experiences with mental illness, Meade tells us, the more it will give others permission to share and seek out resources to improve their mental health.
Mental health stigma causes some people to wait to seek help
“I stand before you as a stupid and stubborn man,” Steve Karlin, a news anchor at KCCI-TV Cedar Rapids, explains in an Iowa Healthiest State Initiative Make It OK blog article. “Pretty much my entire life, I’ve known that I have depression. I just didn't recognize it until I was 58.”
Ben Rogers, Linn County Board Supervisor in Iowa, shares a story similar to Karlin’s. Rogers struggled to understand his depression throughout his life and found this to be a common thread for many who experience mental health disorders.
“It can be very challenging for people to recognize that they have a mental illness, accept their diagnosis and understand that there are treatment options available,” he explains.
According to NAMI, 50% of mental health disorders begin by age 14, and 75% begin by age 24. And while millions of people are affected by mental illness in a given year, 55% of adults do not receive professional help. Mental health stigma causes most people to wait an average of 11 years before seeking treatment.
“You can’t coach yourself out of mental illness,” says Lyndsey Fennelly, a former Iowa State women’s basketball player and current color analyst for the team. Fennelly also lives with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. As she explains on the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative’s blog, “All you can do is get the help and support that you need.”
“I think asking for help can often be the most difficult thing to do, but when you do it, you realize it wasn't so bad,” Rogers explains. “Why did I wait so long?”
And Karlin echoes Roger’s sentiments, describing how he doesn’t regret seeking help.
“If you think you or someone you know may have a form of mental illness, please seek help,” Karlin asks. “Life with it under control is wonderful. Please don’t be like me and wait so long. You won’t regret it.”
Although mental health disorders are challenging to recognize, they are usually highly treatable. The sooner people seek treatment, the better their chances of recovery. An estimated 70% to 90% of mental health symptoms are reduced when individual treatment plans are followed.
“When a person finds the medicine or therapy that works for them, and they're able to see improvements, they can look back in the rearview mirror and think, wow, the symptoms of my depression were more significant than I realized,” says Rogers. “It was such a heavy burden that now has lifted.”
Karlin and Fennelly agree that they’re in a much better place in their lives because they received the appropriate treatment. “The result has been remarkable with my therapy, and my one medication has no side effects,” Karlin says. “It puts me in a place where I can be happy.”
“I go to therapy every week,” Fennelly continues. “It’s OK. And I take medication. Just in the same way someone takes medication for cancer, somebody takes medication for mental illness. But we don’t talk about this. We need more people talking about it because it’s OK to not be OK.”
Asking ”how can I help?“ is an important first step
The Make It OK Ambassador program helps people learn how to talk about mental health. Individuals interested in becoming ambassadors are not required to be experts on mental illness, but rather advocates who help reduce mental health stigma in their community. Ambassadors receive a two-hour training session to learn about mental illness and practice what to say and not to say when speaking about mental health.
Carol Meade is a trained Make It OK ambassador. She believes that by removing obstacles, we can make it easier for people to talk about mental illness. And this benefits individuals, businesses and our communities. By investing in mental health care for workers, organizations can increase productivity, reduce absenteeism and save more than $100 billion nationally in medical costs per year.
Her advice to those involved with the program or to anyone having a conversation about mental illness is to be empathetic, understanding and compassionate. She tells us that doesn't mean you have to know exactly what to say or try to fix the situation — just find ways to help individuals access the resources they need to improve their mental health.
“Often when somebody comes to us and says, ‘I’m experiencing a bout of depression this weekend’ or ‘I struggled,' we don’t know what to say,” Meade explains. “Just offering a supportive answer of ‘what can I do?’ or ‘how can I help’ and asking people if they are OK are important first steps.”
Employers who register to become a Make It OK workplace will have access to the ambassador program along with a toolkit and other resources to help eliminate stigma within their organizations. Pledging to Make It OK is a declaration that signals their commitment to their employees and their community that they are going to make it OK to talk about mental health.
“It all goes back to your health,” Meade says. “It’s so much easier to sell me on taking medication for my high cholesterol than it is for my depression, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
Learn more about what the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative is doing in Iowa to help reduce mental health stigma through the Make It OK Iowa program. Register your workplace, sign up for ambassador training, access resources and stories, and more.