Why Do People Misunderstand Mental Illnesses

Everyone nowadays knows and understands a lot about cancer and various other physical illnesses, but how many people actually know and understand mental illnesses like depression or schizophrenia. Many people misunderstand mental illnesses because you can’t see the effects of them and many think that it's the victim's fault they have the illness. The fact is that many mental illnesses are genetic like cancer and some are just as deadly, just no one knows about them. Since these illnesses and disorders aren’t well know, the public neglects them and the people suffering with them, and focuses on the popular and more well known diseases. Think of how much research and funding for cancer has come from fundraisers around the world; now think of
The average person would say that psychopaths are these mass murders when this is far from the truth. Not all psychopaths kill and many aren’t even violent. They are also described as insane and that also isn’t true because they know right from wrong and experience no hallucinations and don’t hear voices like an insane person would (Haycock). Psychopaths actually appear just like a normal person but they use their charm, manipulation, intimidation, and in some cases violence to get others to trust or believe them and in the end control them
Physical abuse and poor treatment as a child has been proven to increase the amount of psychopathic behaviors in people (Peterson). Studies show that violence in the community ,whether it directly or indirectly affects someone, makes them show more characteristics of a psychopath. In some cases the absence of a biological father during the first four years of a child’s life can cause that child to have traits of a psychopath. While the environment or genetics can sometimes explain why someone has psychopathy many times it's a combination of the two that really contribute to someone being diagnosed with