Mental illness, even today, is still a foreign concept for many people. Even though it is the year 2015, there is still a negative stigma that goes along with psychological disorders that needs to be addressed. The most beneficial way people can learn about mental illness is by having a complete understanding of the history surrounding it. The best way to eliminate the stigma is to educate people. When people are uneducated about a topic, they often are scared of it. Mental illness is still a controversial topic around the globe, but is slowly becoming an everyday thing. One time frame that can be focused on is the late nineteenth century and how they feel about mental illness. Before most people knew what mental disorders were, they thought they were abstract concepts where minds could be "sick." It was hard for many people to understand what could be wrong with the brain and how it affects everyday life. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a significant part of the spread of knowledge about mental illness when she wrote the short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892). Gilman's sharing of her own experience was a catalyst in the understanding of mental illness in society, and shows people that mental illness is as important as physical health.

To understand how Gilman helped advance the knowledge of mental illness, one should learn about her personal struggle with depression. Gilman fell into a deep depression after she had her first child. She had a nervous breakdown and suffered from what is now called Postpartum Depression. Postpartum Depression by definition is "depression suffered by a mother following childbirth, typically arising from the combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue" (Mayo Clinic). In Gilman's time, Postpartum Depression did not have a name and could not be diagnosed. This affects many people worldwide every year, whether they know what it is or not. This severe depression led to a divorce from her husband and Gilman ultimately leaving her daughter to pursue her writing (My Postpartum Voice). One major tool for Gilman was her writing, which pushed her to express her feelings in a healthy way.

Gilman's nervous breakdown caused her to write about her experience, which ultimately helped society by spreading education about the topic of mental illness. One of Gilman's most famous pieces of writing about mental illness, The Yellow Wallpaper, was written in 1892. This piece is a reaction to how Gilman felt about not being taken seriously when she said she was sick. In her life, the doctor Gilman saw about her depression said that she needed to be on bed rest until she felt well again, which only made her have a mental breakdown (Simone 3). The doctor and her husband did not believe she was as sick as she claimed. The doctor and her husband also did not understand the realm of mental disorders because of the time period they were living in. In The Yellow Wallpaper, she starts to describe the bedroom and how the yellow wallpaper is "revolting" to her and that she can't stand it (Gilman). The Yellow Wallpaper states how she sees a women slowly emerging from the wallpaper. The woman seems to be trapped behind the wallpaper and the patterns. This represents how Gilman feels trapped in her head and in her house. The depression is holding her mind hostage and this is the only way she can express the horror she is feeling. Her doctor belittles her depression, along with her husband, and this short story is the only way she can express her innermost thoughts. 

Gilman used imagery to give the reader insight on her feelings of depression through the hatred of the wallpaper in her room while she is on bed rest. Gilman writes, "there is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down" (Gilman 649). Gilman compares the wallpaper to a "broken neck," and it shows the reader how disturbing her thoughts are. She is thinking about death, whether it is her death or just death in general, which usually is not a thought that passes through a mind of someone without depression. Again, Gilman is looking at the wallpaper around her room and notices how some parts are deteriorating: "But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so - I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design" (Gilman 650). She begins to see a figure behind the pattern. Everyday she slowly starts to see more and more of the figure, which appears to try to be escaping. The figure that is trapped is a parallel to Gilman and how she feels trapped in her room physically and in her mind emotionally. Gilman then spends a few pages analyzing the appearance of the wallpaper: "Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes - a kind of " debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens   go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity" (Gilman 651). Her obsession gets the best of her when she continuously concentrates on the patterns and shapes surrounding her. A person that is mentally sound would not look at the wallpaper and go into a deep analysis of every detail presented to them. Gilman, on the other hand, discussed the wallpaper for what seemed like forever. Her mental illness took consumed her at this point and readers did not know how to handle the information.

Gilman got a lot of criticism for The Yellow Wallpaper because people did not understand what she was going through. Many doctors went against her and agreed with her physician because they still did not understand what was happening. In response to many of the critics, she wrote a reflection on The Yellow Wallpaper in The Forerunner. The article, "Why I wrote The Yellow Wallpaper," says how many doctors were mad that she talked badly about them. At one point she says "This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me" (The Forerunner). Her doctor told her bed rest was the cure and she believed him until she had a mental breakdown. The people around her did not understand her because they were not in her shoes. She is very distraught that the doctor would send her home pretending nothing is wrong with her when there clearly is something wrong. The Yellow Wallpaper was supposed to inform readers how she was feeling at the time and the article "Why I wrote The Yellow Wallpaper" was an explanation that touched upon people who do not understand mental illness. This article was another way she was spreading knowledge about her experience and mental illness in general. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one of the first advocates for mental illness in the late nineteenth century through her writing of The Yellow Wallpaper and her article in The Forerunner, "Why I wrote The Yellow Wallpaper". Gilman's writing spread knowledge of her experience with depression, which gave readers today a good idea of the overall education level on mental disorders in society. Even now, there is still a negative stigma toward mental disorders that has been around since the late nineteenth century. Then and now, many people do not understand that mental health is as important, if not greater, than physical health. Gilman tried to prove how she was depressed through the writing of her mind being trapped. Throughout the past few centuries, people have had a hard time understanding that. Even though the stigma is not, or will not, be demolished soon, Gilman does an incredible job educating her readers on her depression and what she was feeling at the time.

