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After the deaths of two friends, Alex Lindley, founder of Project Wake Up, looked for answers for suicide prevention. In one friend’s case, Lindley says stigma surrounding mental illness might have played a role because “four years ago at Mizzou, a 20-year-old fraternity guy would not reach out to anyone and admit to battling invisible aliments for fear of being ostracized.”
Lindley's search led to him and his friend Danny Kerth to establishing Project Wake Up, a 501(c)3 status organization, to create a “legitimate documentary to address the stigma around mental health and eradicate it.”
The organization will be hosting an inaugural comedy night benefit headlined by St. Louis natives, the Sklar Brothers, on Saturday, November 24 at Chaminade College Preparatory School (425 S. Lindbergh). Proceeds will go to the post-production costs for their documentary, which focuses not only on one of his friends' stories, "but also with diverse Americans dealing with mental health and suicide in various ways,” says Lindley.
“We both deeply believe in shining a light on mental health issues that can lead to deep depression and, in some cases, suicide,” Randy Sklar said about the brothers' involvement in the event. “We as a society need to get better at reading warning signs and treating mental health issues the same way we treat all other health issues.”
Jason Sklar added: “My wife is a therapist, and so I understand the impact that mental health care can have on people who are struggling. This is a worthy cause and organization born out of tragedy. We are thrilled that we can come in and help them raise awareness and money.”
According to the CDC, suicide rates increased between 1999 and 2016 in Missouri (36 percent) and Illinois (23 percent). And, according to Mental Health America, Missouri has higher prevalence of mental illness compared to Illinois. So why is mental illness still stigmatized today? Dr. Jessica Gold, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, says it might be a combination of five factors.
1. History. Those with mental illness were often shamed and ostracized. Dorothea Dix pushed for the establishment of asylums along with better treatment for mentally ill individuals during the 1800s, but the issues continued with people with mental illnesses being used for experiments, sterilized or killed during World War II. Simultaneously, “psychiatric hospitals began to be used inappropriately,” says Gold. People would institutionalize family members with mental illnesses to get them out of the home.They were able to do this because of very low standards. Sometimes all it took was “two signatures and someone could be institutionalized for life.” This was frightening in itself, hence reinforcing the stigma. In the States, this led to “extreme political reform,” where many were deinstitutionalized because the facilities were poorly run which often resulted in mass incarceration of those with mental illness.
2. Public Perception. Due to federal government budget cuts, no outpatient resources were created, causing many of these individuals to go without help. Sometimes, people who had serious mental illnesses could not function on their own and became homeless. Due to fear of the unknown, and new exposure to some of the more overt psychiatric symptomatology—talking to oneself for example—led many to fear them and wrongly believe everyone with mental illness is untreated or violent. Also, many people do not perceive mental illness as a brain disorder, but instead something that people can get over at will or even prevent it from happening in the first place.
3. Varying Degrees of Stigma. Stigma regarding mental health varies depends on many factors, including cultural background, geographical location, type of diagnosis, and even a family’s openness to mental health treatment. Consequently, these factors can impact a person’s wiliness to seek help.
4. Media. News can sometimes contribute to the stigmatization by covering the “sexier stories” like mass shootings (or suicide deaths, or murders), and/or citing mental illness as a cause for said act. Hollywood can portray people with mental illness as violent while limiting (if at all) the focus on treatment or treatment efficacy (as seen in 2017 with the reaction to Split). This creates false associations and discourages people from seeking help fearing they will be permanently labeled with an incurable diagnosis and/or will be perceived as violent, Gold says.
5. Limited access to treatment. Another negative consequence of stigmatizing mental illness is limited access to psychological treatment, and hence inadequate mental health or substance use insurance coverage. This supposedly changed after passing mental health parity laws and Obamacare, “but clinicians still struggle to get psychiatric hospital stays covered, find resources for patients that are covered (providers in the community, partial hospitalization programs or intensive outpatient programs), and/or get medications approved. Substance abuse treatment is often, even worse,” states Gold.
According to Gold, the primary way to destigmatize mental illness is to talk about it openly and without shame. This helps normalize the topic. She adds that while we have become more comfortable with the diagnosis part of mental illness, we haven't with admitting we sought treatment for it.
If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours, every day. You can also reach out to the National Alliance on Mental Illness at 1-800-950-6264 or the Behavioral Health Network of Greater St. Louis at 314-449-6713.
