Stacie Leap, Jeff Shair, Frank Dietrick and Sterling Johnson from Mental Health Partnerships visited our class last Thursday to discuss the intersection between mental health and addiction. They each shared their own personal stories with addiction and mental health. They also discussed the ways people with mental illness are disrespectfully covered in the media, just like people with addictions. Journalists often don’t respectfully portray people with both an addiction and mental illness in articles, such as by using person-first language.

We discussed how talking about mental illness often accompanies recent shootings. The mental illness of a shooter is often the focus of profile pieces on shootings, like with the recent shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. People are quick to jump to blaming the shooting on the shooter’s mental health, citing depression and other illnesses.

In reality, though, the percentage of people with mental illness who are violent is way less than the percentage of the general population with a mental illness. Media stories that blame shootings solely on mental health unfairly paint everyone with mental illness as violent. The articles also discourage people from getting help for mental illness by stigmatizing them.