{"id":99,"date":"2016-05-02T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/?p=99"},"modified":"2025-12-29T01:23:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T06:23:35","slug":"mental-health-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/mental-health-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Health Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_105\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-105\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/resources-logos-300x172.jpg?resize=300%2C172\" alt=\"Mental Health Month. Photo courtesy of the National Alliance of Mental Illness \" width=\"300\" height=\"172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/resources-logos.jpg?resize=300%2C172&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/resources-logos.jpg?w=615&amp;ssl=1 615w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-105\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mental Health Month. Photo courtesy of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nami.org\/Get-Involved\/Awareness-Events\/Mental-Health-Month\/Mental-Health-Month-Social-Media\">National Alliance of Mental Illness<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yesterday was not&nbsp;only a start to a new month but&nbsp;the beginning of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nami.org\/Get-Involved\/Raise-Awareness\/Awareness-Events\/Mental-Health-Month\">Mental Health Month<\/a>.&nbsp;Mental Health Month raises awareness about mental illness and related issues in the United States. Many people have a hard time understanding Mental Illness, which can leave a negative perception in their mind. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nami.org\/Learn-More\/Mental-Health-Conditions\">Mental Illness<\/a> is a condition that impacts a&nbsp;person&#8217;s thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and to function on a daily basis. Each person will have different experiences, even people with the same diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>Mostly when people first think about &#8220;Mental Illness,&#8221; they usually&nbsp;think of what they have seen in the media, which frequently gives a bad perception on how mental patients should act.&nbsp; It\u2019s common to see horror movie villains in television and film portrayed as a <a href=\"http:\/\/psychcentral.com\/lib\/medias-damaging-depictions-of-mental-illness\/\">mentally disturbed maniacs<\/a> whose fluctuating moods cause them to commit unspeakable horrors. Similarly, perpetrators of mass shootings and violence are quickly assigned the narrative of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/mojo\/2015\/10\/mental-health-gun-laws-washington-post-poll\">suffering from mental illness<\/a>. Despite these high-profile crimes, studies indicate that people with <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ncsu.edu\/2014\/02\/wms-desmarais-violence2014\/\">mental illnesses are more likely to be victims of violence,<\/a> than to be violent themselves. Sufferers of mental illness are 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population.<\/p>\n<p>Even though there is some positive light, there is still a stigma out there that needs to be addressed. Stigmas are hurtful and damaging, but we can move past them. Educating the general public is the only way to get to a place of understanding without judgment. The most important lesson people really do need to learn is understanding the illness to widen our perception into a different direction.<\/p>\n<p>Break the stigma and be an advocate for mental health!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was not&nbsp;only a start to a new month but&nbsp;the beginning of&nbsp;Mental Health Month.&nbsp;Mental Health Month raises awareness about mental [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,27],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7told-1B","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}