Mental health can be a complex subject to talk about, and it's often misunderstood. Still, it is a subject that needs to be discussed more often than not because there are various misconceptions and stigmas associated with mental illness.  To break down the issue, we need first to understand what exactly constitutes an "illness." The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which the American Psychiatric Association publishes, defines an illness as:  "a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome associated with disability or significantly increased risk of death, which occurs in an individual and is typically associated with a particular etiology or set of risk factors."  Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels This means that the DSM-V defines mental illness as any "clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome."  The National Institute of…