19 Statistics That Prove Mental Illness Is More Prominent Than You Think
Whether you’re aware of it or not, chances are you know someone who has been personally affected by a mental health disorder.
Depression is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide and other mental health disorders are growing in numbers.
And while mental illness is starting to be considered the serious medical condition that it is, when it comes to healthcare, we still have a long way to go before mental health patients are treated with the respect afforded physical health patients. Research shows there’s still stigma surrounding these disorders.
Below are 19 statistics that prove these disorders touch more people than you might think.
61,500,000
The approximate number of Americans who experience a mental health disorder in a given year. That’s one in four adults.
$100,000,000,000
The estimated economic cost of untreated mental illness in the U.S. This includes unemployment, unnecessary disability, substance abuse and more.
70 – 90%
The percentage of individuals with mental illness who saw improvement in their symptoms and quality of life after participating in some form of treatment.
800,000
The estimated number of people globally who die by suicide each year.
25%
The approximate amount of people with a mental illness who feel that others are not compassionate or understanding toward those suffering from one of the disorders.
350,000,000
The number of people worldwide who are affected by depression.
79%
The percentage of suicides that are completed by men.
40,000,000
The number of adults who suffer from anxiety disorders in the U.S.
30%
The number of college students who reported feeling depressed to the point where it negatively impacted their ability to function. Approximately 7.5 percent of college students also reported earlier this year that they seriously considered suicide in the last 12 months.
22
The (potentially underestimated) number of veterans who die by suicide each day, according to a 2013 report by researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
10%
The percentage of children and adolescents whose mental and emotional disorders disrupt their day-to-day lives.
3,500,000
The number of Americans who suffer from schizophrenia. The disorder usually develops between ages 16 to 25.
60%
The percentage of adults who didn’t receive mental health treatment in 2012.
6,100,000
The number of individuals in the U.S. who suffer from some form of bipolar disorder.
21%
The percentage of mothers polled in a recent BabyCenter survey who stated they have been diagnosed with postpartum depression. Approximately 40 percent of them did not seek medical treatment.
5,200,000
The estimated number of adults who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in a given year.
7
The number of people who die by suicide per hour in the Americas.
11%
The percentage of adolescents who have a depressive disorder before the age of 18.
90%
The percentage of people who die by suicide who also had a mental health disorder.
Filed under: General Problems
As time passes things change, I grew up during the 1970’s, 1980’s ,these where the best years of my life before the chronic pain came about in 1995. Yes drugs were everywhere but that doesn’t mean you have to take them. Marijuana was smoked by everyone I knew accept my parents. I had my share back then but now days I cant even think about using it ,paranoia sets in big time. The last time I took a few puffs back in 2003 I thought every cop in my city was after me, don’t know how it changed but it did ,guess you cant stop for 25 years and start again.
Time passes things change a generation of Adderall kids where brought on by psychiatrist, I’m not saying this was wrong but there was no good proof that this type medication did indeed help that generation of young kids. I could have used something like that when I was a kid because I couldn’t sit still in my classroom.
Don’t know if it would have helped or not but they said it helped calm down kids like me that where hyperactive and had attention deficit disorder , I was so full of energy when I was as a kid, wish I had some of that energy now , Adderall etc.is a amphetamine ,so how can it calm down kids , does this medication work in reverse in some kids brains that have attention deficit disorder , I don’t know and never will. I think the Soccer Moms of these kids liked adderall and it gave them energy plus to make it thru the that busy day, that’s why they kept having it filled. 2 for Mom ,a half a pill for the kid, opposite of Mothers Little Helper, some more of these outside the door she ask for more. See how time changes things.
Now that generation has passed and the Time Released Opioids came out around 1996 , in 2001 a Pain Specialist successfully got my chronic pain under control FINALLY with OxyContin, I was amazed because hydrocodone was not doing the job and it took too many of them to really help and that looked like abuse. All that acetaminophen that passed through my body for 10 years makes me wonder how much damage it did to my liver taking hydrocodone 10/ 500, most people don’t know this means 10 mgs of hydrocodone and 500 mgs of acetaminophen, a lot of my friends in chronic pain thought if they got 10/750 of hydrocodone they where getting more hydrocodone , not true they where getting more acetaminophen or APAP. I told them this but it didn’t sink in. My body would get tolerant to the dose of OxyContin that helped so much, it was like a miracle medication to me but the increases every 3 months I saw no end to. This was the first batch of OxyContin not the abuse deterrent batch that was ruined by putting glue sludge in it so people cant abuse it and pain sufferers couldn’t digest it. I never knew the catch word Contin in OxyContin meant, Continues release of Oxycodone. I asked my doctor to change me to something that didn’t need to be increased every 3 months, Methadone did this for me at a much lower dose than OxyContin.
Till this day no increases and its been 14 years I’ve only lowered the dose and it still works.
This past summer I couldn’t get my in hand ,on time, legit script of methadone filled and I did the pharmacy crawl for the 1st time. I was so annoyed I decided to take myself off methadone this past summer ,dropping off 5 mgs every 7 days.
After many years of good pain relief I forgot about that never ending, life altering, nagging , annoying , paralyzing chronic pain that made me start this medication to begin with. So I hit a brick wall after 3 months ,so I went back up 5 mgs and that’s where I stopped. But it wasn’t a waste of time and effort it did some good because now I take less than half of what I use to take each day.
So thanks to the pharmacy crawl , I’m now getting by okay and my script gets filled each month when its less than half just 5 months ago.
You might think I would get some brownie points for this but still my family does not understand why I take this medication to begin with, maybe I should have told them I stopped all together, but that would have been a lie. And it seems I always pay a price when not telling the truth.
I have found that the people who don’t understand how difficult it is to live with chronic pain are also the people who believe that pain is something we can just ignore, if we want to. The kind of people who believe that chronic pain shouldn’t be treated with drugs, but with, I guess, your own courage and fortitude. I don’t doubt that some chronic pain survivors are able to manage without drugs or other treatments, but I’m not one of those survivors.
The holidays are a hard time to deal with chronic pain, especially if you don’t have a lot of friends or family. It can be jarring to be out and about and surrounded by the marketing signs of the season — almost a forced kind of loud cheerfulness. As one of these people, to cheer myself up, for Native American Day, I filled up my apartment with the scent of homemade yeast rolls… with melted butter, they were delicious.
I don’t know how to help other chronic pain patients either. At this point, all I can do is listen. (And hopefully, spread the word.)
I thank God every day I don’t suffer from depression along with the chronic pain I’ve had for 23 years but I do have anxiety ,this pain sure gets old and it takes all I have to deal with it and family members don’t help because they don’t understand the life of a chronic pain sufferer. For thanksgiving my own brother didn’t invite me over for dinner but invited everyone else, he thinks I get a buzz from this medication I take for chronic pain and because I don’t show up for birthdays ,etc. he emails me back saying you have set bad reputation for not showing up anyhow so what difference does it make if I invite you or not , you wont show up, never giving thought to the chronic pain that consumes me, I’ve never missed not one Thanksgiving or Christmas ever, what a jerk my own brother can be. So I had a frozen food dinner for Thanksgiving , a tasty Swanson Hungry Man Turkey dinner, o-boy .What idiots the closest people to you can be.
I see what depression does to friends of mine that are also chronic pain sufferers. The pain alone takes everything from you then the depression I see my good friends in keeps them confined, its terrible. Now they cant get their scripts filled for their chronic pain and their going downhill fast, and I don’t know what to say or do to help them. Keeping much needed medications from those that need it the most is killing off not just my friends but all that suffer from chronic pain and depression and its upsetting as all hell. The holidays mean nothing to some people who have very little money and being denied much needed medication.
This needs to stop ,life is bad enough living with chronic pain, adding depression is bad mixture, its a recipe for a sure disaster. Why is it people who can make this better not understand.
Unfortunately chronic pain isn’t on the list. How many suicides are from under- or not treated pain. Of course this could be linked to the depression and anxiety. Being physically unable to do anything enjoyable quickly leads to depression. I am noticing a lot of ptsd related to physician visits on the Facebook groups because of the mistrust and discrimination people with chronic disease face just from health-care. The ones we go to For help are now treating patients as criminal in some cases. Thank you for looking into these suicides and why the rate is so high.
Unfortunately, in our latest wars, the VA chose to treat PTSD with opioids. And isn’t it funny how the war on pain patients began to really amp up about the time we started the American war against terrorists? Is this epidemic being blamed on chronic pain patients and those suffering from addiction, when it should be blamed on the VA?
“Widespread addiction to opium-based drugs has raged off and on through the decades, often following war – including the Civil War and both World Wars – when soldiers’ pain was treated with morphine and they became addicted to it.”
Is the DEA investigating the underground market in the military? Or just the NFL?
I live every day with it….husband is bipolar, oldest son is OCD and youngest son is OCD, anxiety/depression and ADD. Majority of the time time my husband has been pretty stable on his medications, I thank God he is med compliant, but Fall is a bad time….he cycles into depression. I used to like Fall as a season, but not any more. I am grateful for the support of NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) Anyone who has a family member with mental illness, this group provides family and peer support with meetings, they also provide education classes on mental illness. I highly recommend looking into this group, it has helped me with ways of dealing with my husband when he cycles. Nothing like a mental illness to find out who your real friends are. My boys are doing well on their medication, but I wish my youngest would go back to therapy. I have no say on that as he is an adult. My ex and I feel like therapy would help him develop better coping skills. At one of my NAMI meetings, it was stated that treatments/cures/money for research for Mental Illness is where cancer was 50 years ago.