What Does it Mean to be Mentally Ill?

My name is Harry.

In PHSE, we have been learning all  about mental health and the stereotypes that some people hold about people with mental illnesses.

There are lots of different mental illnesses. Here are some you might have heard:

Schizophrenia- where you hear voices or have hallucinations

OCD- where you have obsessive thoughts and behaviours

Depression- where you feel sad and don’t feel like eating or sleeping much

Eating Disorders- where you struggle with eating. You might eat too much or too little.

People with mental illnesses are NOT dangerous at all. Sadly, some people think that they are violent are but this is not true.

Asda made a Halloween suit and it was called ‘mental patient’ and that sparked a row and Asda said they were deeply sorry and said they would never do it again -but stuff like the suit still exists for sale on Amazon!

Here is the original costume:

But this is NOT what mentally ill people look like!

Here is Amy. She is a real person with a mental illness. She has depression:

This is a picture of Miles. He also has a mental illness. He has schizophrenia:

‘Mental patients’ are not dangerous or frightening.

We need to stop stereotyping!