Why perhaps mental illness does need to be treated

Since the inception of psychiatry mental health crisis has disappeared
from view. Anyone suffering through crisis is either hospitalised or
heavily sedated such that their state does not manifest externally
though the internal experience may still be relatively unchanged.

Mental health crisis still happens to people who aren't yet treated by
the system or refuse treatment. This is the last bastion of madness
though changes to the American psychiatric system are seeing a new trend
that will likely see many people treated before they have a crisis. In a
stigmatising social environment the symptoms of mental illness - or the
behaviours that people consider abnormal - are freakish by their very
nature. A person going through a hypermanic delusion will do things that
are strange and unusual. During these states of reduced capacity where
an individual can be overwhelmed by their internal experience risky or
insane behaviour can cause negative consequences.

These behaviours are unusual and create a talking point. People like to
gossip and information gets passed from person to person. A good story
becomes embellished. These stories spread and the impact on the
individual to their social status or respect amongst peers can erode.
Each person tells the story differently in the chain of Chinese
whispers. As the story is told other pieces of information are added and
taken away. A person who comes out about having unshared perceptions
will have to explain a lot of information to a person without this
experience and the summary will leave out important details that
humanise and make normal the experience.

I wonder if this could be another factor in the worse outcomes for
severe mental ill health. The impact of rumour and the impact of the
seed of the rumour - the weird or unusual behaviour that people used to
call madness - I percieve as one of underappreciated impacts of mental
illness and why it makes sense for it to be 'treated'. Part of what is
described as mental illness is caused by a root stigma that creates the
bad outcomes and therefore the prognosis. An individual who is feared or
who is less respected because their behaviour is deemed mad will not do
as well in life so it is better to stop them being mad. It is far harder
to change society and make the people see that madness is as human as
rationality.