The Stigma is Deadly but not Dead
A brief summary about mental health
Too often, my naive, assumptive nature makes me conclude things that are not true. It has been a giant failing in my past and still occasionally presents me with problems. This story is about how I underestimated the power of misinformation about mental illnesses.
I write about mental health. People in my world mostly realize a stigma has been forced upon the mentally ill from the days of Noah’s Ark until now. Well, part of that is a guess.
A stigma is a bad thing, kind of like a scarlet letter, and it is unfair and inaccurate given the way stigmas generalize about large groups of people. It is a mark of shame that people have suffered under and fought against.
If you take stigma apart and look at each component from all angles, it must be reasonably likened to discrimination. In fact, that is exactly what it is.
Thankfully, discriminatory practices and beliefs have been mostly rooted out and exposed in this country. I do not mean discrimination has been wiped away, but a person will be shunned and discredited if that individual ascribes ignorant, negative stereotypes to large groups of Americans.
Well, that is true for many but is not the case for the mental illness community. For some reason, it is okay to malign millions of people and manage to not sound like a boorish dolt— as long as mental illness is the target.
It took a while for me to grasp just how pernicious the whole stigma thing still is, but I need no more convincing. Really, I just imagined our current, public avowal to cancel all the imbecilic and hateful discourse also applied to me and all others in some way part of the mental health system.
So, the stigma is real. Celebrity campaigns and the work of people to provide mental health services and disseminate information has not been enough.
Some recent interactions online were the final impetus that shook me out of that naive state of mind and sat me down in the nasty real world. A little backstory will help explain.
I am in the beginning phase of writing online on a few websites. It would be great if I could reach lots of people. My efforts toward this goal puts me in close contact with the words and opinions of other people who are striving for some kind of writing career.
In general, folks who write are progressive and open-minded. Yet, I have read handfuls of articles that disparage my community and question (or completely devalue) the validity of illnesses society categorizes as mental. There are no shortage of these, I have found.
Here are some of the ways in which folks dismiss mental illness and say hurtful things toward those who have them.
Some believe a mental illness is not real. A mental malady is not the same as a physical one. In fact, the word mental equates to “invisible” or “not of the body.” Actually though, the brain is part of the body, and Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia, and etc. are not floating around somehow separate from physical matter.
I cannot believe these things still have to be said, but they do.
There is a segment of the population who hate doctors and medicine, and believe whatever is wrong with a person’s mind can be solved by trying harder. There are lots of ideas out there I really do not comprehend.
However, some persist with arguments that meditation and spirituality are all the treatment that is needed. Or, the misinformed people talk about legitimate ways to feel better, such as meditation, exercise, and diet, but dismiss medications and therapy.
At least one person online thought that mental illness is a myth promoted by money-hungry doctors and their pharmaceutical sycophants. Where to begin with this nonsense?
For me, it is a truism of life not to take people’s experiences and throw them away as if they do not count. Someone can choose to chant or do whatever in order to help their mental distress without casting doubt on what works for so many others.
Many people I know grew up unsure if their sadness was real or a character flaw. This is very normal when society consistently urges that we should not take mental health very seriously.
Do you know what happens to these same people now, when they are stigmatized? They are made to relive childhood pain, or whenever it occurred, and all those insecurities about themselves are reawakened. `
Disease and disorders are bad enough, but the stigma adds more weight on top of a person and makes that person less likely to seek help.
This is the most unfortunate or tragic aspect of the stigma/shame that is still very much alive. To put it directly, those who stigmatize mental illness are part of the problem that can result in the suffering and death of people who need treatment instead.
I want to keep this story somewhat short in hopes that people will read and be positively affected by these words. So, I will not ramble on any longer. To summarize, please understand that some pain and illness is harder to recognize than others, but that should not invite the same old accusations and ignorant stereotypes that are, in fact, deadly.
Thank you for reading. You will be interested in other articles here, and most of them are free. Check out the stuff below.
For sure awareness has come a long way, but not as long as I thought. Your story is important to tell because so many went through something like that. Certainly I understand you not wanting to tell anyone, because crazy once applied to everything not considered normal. Hopeless is a good word for what I felt, as if every day was going to be exactly the same. Thank you for reading and sharing your comments.
I think the stigma is less now than it was 20 or 30 years ago, when I was a young man in the 80's I had a severe social anxiety disorder. I tried my best to keep it to myself and I worked through it by subjecting myself to my own form of exposure therapy. I did not want anyone to think I was crazy so I spent years dealing with it alone in a variety of healthy and not so healthy ways. If I had sought professional help I may have found a much quicker and more effective way to deal with it, or at least someone to share my burden with and not feel so alone.
I wholeheartedly agree that mental health needs to be less stigmatized and although we have made progress in that direction, it is still very misunderstood by people who never had to deal with a serious mental illness. They have no concept of the terror or hopelessness such an illness can bring. They have never had that awful moment of asking themselves "Am I always going to be this way?"