The Herald Sun. Friday, July 27, 2001. p.26.

SUFFERING IN SILENCE By Tanya Taylor,

medical reporter

It is said that one in five Australians will suffer mental illness - most likely depression – at some point.
This means that if no one in your immediate family has the condition, chances are a friend or colleague
will.
So why is it that such a common disease has such a low level of understanding?
Mental Health advocacy group SANE Australia reckons the prevailing problem is that of stigma.
In its national phone -in last year aimed to pinpoint the needs of sufferers, the number one issue among
the 521 respondents was a need for greater acceptance.
“Misunderstanding of what mental and depressive illness is came up time and again,” executive
director Barbara Hocking said.
“People said they wished others understood that they weren’t lazy and couldn’t just pull themselves
together, that they had an illness.”
The issue extended to the medical profession, with suffers reporting they were often treated
disrespectfully.
Ms. Hocking said people with depression wanted health professionals to have better training on the
condition and to more readily dispense information as well as drugs.
She said a further problem in society’s inherent misunderstanding of depression manifested in people
not realising or accepting when they were ill and needed help.
The chief executive officer of beyond blue, the national depression initiative, Professor Ian Hickie, said
some people just thought they were generally off – colour.
“On the one hand, because of the psychological and physical symptoms, they would not necessarily be
able to recognise depression in themselves or in someone else,” he said.
“But if they do recognise there is a problem, they might know how to deal with it.”
A South Australian study last year found a distinct discrepancy between the perception of depressive
signs between teenagers and their parents.
The Mental Health of Young People in Australia found that while 12% of young believed that they
were depressed, 88% of their parents did not agree.
Professor Hickie said it was typical for people to ignore or dismiss symptoms of depression in others.
“ The tendency is to believe they have become self-destructive, consider it their problem and to leave
them alone,” he said. “But people with depression tend to withdraw themselves and to feel a loss of
social connectedness and support.”
Professor Hickie said the best thing friends or family could do if they noticed changes in a loved one
was to ask if they could help.
“ You don’t have to be a counselor, but can tell them you are worried and offer to accompany them to
a doctor,” he said. Professor Hickie said people most at risk of clinical depression were lifelong
worriers who had been depressed in the past or who had a family history of the illness.
“Most of us know if there is a history of heart disease or stroke in the family, but few of us know about
family history of depression,” he said. “Ask your relatives because mental illness does run in families.”