The Mental Health Commission of Canada is hosting a three-day conference that is ending today. The Commission believes it is the largest conference ever organized on mental illness stigma. (We apologize Psych Central couldn’t make this conference — but we’re there in spirit.)
Stigma and prejudice of mental illness is still a serious problem. It’s one of the few areas in health where people are regularly blamed for their illness, and the perception remains in some sections of society where it’s seen as a personal failing or weakness.
Because the mental health system is disconnected from the regular health care system in the U.S., it suffers a second stigmatization as well — as a second-class delivery system that is too often ignored by mainstream medicine and healthcare. While “Health 2.0″ is all the rage in healthcare, few talk about Mental Health 2.0.
Put these two together and you have a recipe for misunderstanding, gross generalizations — even by medical doctors and family physicians who should know better — and marginalization. Mental health care is an afterthought on the stage of health care.
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Thanks for the links John. May was Mental Health Awareness month in the US and I posted two articles on stigmas on my blog recently because I am someone who faces those stigmas.
http://strangelydiabetic.com/2012/05/22/may-is-mental-health-awareness-month/
and
http://strangelydiabetic.com/2012/05/29/stigmas-and-empowerment/
Thanks!
Mental conditions are very difficult just by themselves. Add to the fact that mental diseases are hard to believe so it’s a lot easier to blame the person. Thanks a lot for this.
I was diagnosed with a mental illness in 1974, after a cataclysmic psychotic episode essentially disintegrated my personality. I was affected by the illness about the time I started the 9th grade, although I was never diagnosed with any mental illness until “the big one.” I never paid any attention to mentally-ill people then. I grew up on an apple orchard, way out in the country. I never knew a crazy person before myself.
I put myself back together, with the help of my Higher Power and the fellowship of AA. I was an avid self-medicator. Anything that would lift me out of my pain and depression for even a little while became my drug of choice for the moment.
I don’t attract so much attention anymore. I got over my agoraphobia. I faked it until I made it. After nearly constant depression for 30 years. I was never happy. I worked on myself hard, and one day, I was optimistic. I have been optimistic on most of the days since. I learned how to manage my mind and my emotions. I quieted my mind, and I learned how to manage my emotions. I learned how to sever the dreadful oneness of mind and emotion, so that I could see each separately. I stopped thinking about my emotions. I appear like a “normal,” not like a person with disabling bipolar disorder.
Most people don’t suspect that I am mentally ill, these days. Many of those who do know from personal experience have abandoned me and shun me even now. My family has completely disowned me. I can’t be honest when I am looking for work. To disclose my mental illness would be asking for a pass out of the building. It affects many things, so I usually don’t tell anybody but my friends.
I never really advertised it. It was a kiss of death in some ways, in some circles.
Yes, the stigma is still there, and I do notice it from time to time, but I don’t think about it regularly. It is what it is. It is my fate – my destiny – in life. It is God’s will. I should be grateful. I could be dead, a dozen times over. I know that without the tearing down of my own personality and my cautious re-building of it, I would have ended up in the flames, one way or another. I had virtually no spiritual consciousness before I went crazy. Today, I do, by the Grace of God.
The stigma is a lot less than when I started this journey. Lots less. It’s still there, but it doesn’t really bother me. I sort of live around it. I’ve written many times about it. Yes, the stigma has to go. The good news is that it IS going away. People are changing. A good suggestion for those affected by mental illness is 1) to be patient, for these things take time; and (2)be courageous, for only you have the ability to heal yourself, and it takes guts to look at ourselves, stripped naked, without our masks and our disguises, with or without our faked smiles. WE HAVE TO DIG DOWN TO THE ROOTS, psychologically. We have to undergo a psychic change. It’s hard to persevere, but I am like a guide, one who has been in the dark cellar, but who now sees the light. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to write to the good normal citizens and tell them about the stigma, and what they can do to mitigate the harshness that we mentally-ill people encounter as a result. I’m happy to add my two-bits worth here in that spirit. Educate your fellows about the illness. Come out of the closet. The water is fine. Come on, guys! You can feel a hundred times better than you do when you spend any time on the pity potty. Here, take my hand! I will help you out of the pits. Do what I did: Take the challenge and change! (thanks to Don Juan Matus.)