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Types of Stigma About Mental Illness
Former Member
Posts: 1,875,648 The Mix Honorary Guru
I've been thinking about different forms of stigma about mental illness and wondered if other people have thought about this too.
Last week a new friend noticed me doing a compulsive habit that I do in response to a particular intrusive thought and asked me what I was doing. Even though she was nice about it, I felt humiliated that she had noticed and I've been obsessing about it a lot. I know that me obsessing about it is partly due to the symptoms of my anxiety but I think that it's also due to the stigma about mental illness.
This made me think about the different ways that I experience stigma about my anxiety. One way that I notice stigma is when I feel embarrassed to tell people that I have anxiety. I feel embarrassed because I know that people are sometimes judgemental about mental illness. After I tell people, I feel like I have to somehow prove that I can still behave "normally".
But the embarrassment that I feel about telling people that I have anxiety feels different to the embarrasment I feel when people notice me doing compulsive habits. I feel like there is a whole other level of stigma attached to behaving in a way that is outside of what is considered "normal" behaviour.
I'm also aware that I have a lot of privilege because my mental illnesses are less stigmatised than some other mental illnesses (and maybe also because I can usually hide my symptoms?)
I don't know if this makes sense, I'm very tired while writing this. Has anyone else thought about this?
Last week a new friend noticed me doing a compulsive habit that I do in response to a particular intrusive thought and asked me what I was doing. Even though she was nice about it, I felt humiliated that she had noticed and I've been obsessing about it a lot. I know that me obsessing about it is partly due to the symptoms of my anxiety but I think that it's also due to the stigma about mental illness.
This made me think about the different ways that I experience stigma about my anxiety. One way that I notice stigma is when I feel embarrassed to tell people that I have anxiety. I feel embarrassed because I know that people are sometimes judgemental about mental illness. After I tell people, I feel like I have to somehow prove that I can still behave "normally".
But the embarrassment that I feel about telling people that I have anxiety feels different to the embarrasment I feel when people notice me doing compulsive habits. I feel like there is a whole other level of stigma attached to behaving in a way that is outside of what is considered "normal" behaviour.
I'm also aware that I have a lot of privilege because my mental illnesses are less stigmatised than some other mental illnesses (and maybe also because I can usually hide my symptoms?)
I don't know if this makes sense, I'm very tired while writing this. Has anyone else thought about this?
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I soon began to learn that I was in the *not that bad and general pain in the ass* category. The way that professionals spoke to me changed and it was like they didn't care anymore, like they just wanted to get rid of me. My mum thought that I needed the intervention from religion and become more weary and distant from me.
I don't tell people about it and my experiences have left me unable to to return to MH services. I worry that I might be too much for other people so I don't allow myself to have close relationships because I'm scared that I will be the very thing I didn't want. I'm obsessed with being good and having to do the right things just to be accepted.
I don't know if this really answered your question but it bought up something, I could go on all day lol
Thanks for posting this by the way, hopefully more people will see this and give their 2 cents
V
In school it was the 'emo thing' to do, self harm is often taken the mick out of due to people not understanding it. Whenever I see something about self harm on facebook etc, theres lots of nasty comments calling people idiots, freaks and attention seeking.
I used to volunteer with Samaritans, something I took very seriously and a lot of people (my own father included) joked about saying 'oh tell them to jump hahaha', coz its just so funny....
I think with stigma around things its often ignorance and not understanding. Or general nobheadness, im not sure
There are great amounts of stigma surrounding mental illness so it's understandable that people would be embarrassed. I can empathise greatly with what you're saying. Often things which are highly stigmatised aren't openly talked about, and you would be surprised how many people suffer from poor mental health at least once in their lives, whether it is to a high extent or mild. Because people don't speak much about it, I think if people did talk more openly about these things, many would almost get used to the fact that people suffer from mental health issues, and hopefully then the stigma wouldn't be as bad! That would be a perfect world solution though!
Drea
Myself, it mostly comes from my family. My mom already likes to call be abnormal and she doesn't see half of the stuff i do due to ocd, lol, as if i'm a mess up and hopeless for being abnormal is the way she treats me. And it took several years before my brother understood my depression - several years of him constantly making fun of "emos" until he realised oh, his sister is an ""emo"" with a genuine health condition.
I was relatively...lucky in a way in terms of school? I got basically no stigma during high school for it. I went to a very...lower class school, which had only come out of special measures the year before I started. It's a very stereotypically poor area, and so all the other kids in my high school understood that stuff...because a whole lot of us there had mental health issues stemming from our awful backgrounds too.
When i did a project on mental health in that high school actually I got to talk to a year 8 or 7 class (i was in year 11 at the time) about mental health and it was really real. One...two actually admitted to having self-harmed before in that one 40 minutes ish session as well as various first and second hand experiences of a wide spectrum of mental disorders and there was no judgement, no stigma, it was all taken seriously...In that one high school it's exactly the same when I go to do drugs/alcohol lessons with them - it's real, there's no stigma at all for that either because drug problems are a very real thing to them that for some students is their daily lives, just as with all mental disorders too.
It seems to be the same with anxiety atm, i'm not the most clued up on anxiety but from what I've heard about panic attacks it sounds like a horrible experience, yet the term anxiety seems to be thrown around for any sort of dislike, e.g a crowded room. I'm quite interested if anyone else has any thoughts on this, its something that confuses me a lot lately.
The same goes for the word "depressed" - in my opinion, anyone can use anxiety/depressed to mean really..umm...anxious xD/really sad, but the way I see it is..it just doesn't compare to what a mentally ill person means when they say those words but they're still fine to use it.
Like a person without an anxiety disorder can say they have anxiety about a certain thing and to most i guess normal people it would suggest the thing highly stresses them out.
But if a perosn with an anxiety disorder hears the word anxiety they would think that it's to the extent of panic attacks, obessessions and such (when it likely isn't to that extent in the case of a not-mentally-ill person saying it.)
Same for goes to the word depressed compared to a person with depression.
It's not that those people who use "anxiety" and "depressed" aren't feeling extremely nervous/sad, but it's not quite the...long term life ruining extent to which we with mental illnesses feel it. I only really have an issue with it if a person claims they have a mental illness when they don't, which isn't really the case with those two words.
Idk if that makes sense tbh but that's the way i see it anyway xD.
I'm just stuck between people saying they an anxious disorder when they perhaps don't, or is it just that people feel more comfortable opening up about these feelings more than before? But I guess any opening up about feelings is great in the long run, aslong as you say they don't claim to have a mental illness when they don't
What I have experienced through the stigma are those who actually take an effort to try and understand what has not been taught to them by school or in the media and those who truly just leave others who they once called a friend just because of finding out about that friend's MH. I have not had this situation first hand aside from the first option of some people taking time to care and understand. This mostly occurs with some of the teachers at my school. I say some because others really need to learn more about it, especially since they basically deny that anything remotely serious concerning MH in general should be of their concern.
When it concerns people leaving their friends due to hearing about their friends' MH, my sister was the one whose friend treated her completely differently and wanted my sister to 'get over herself.' They are not friends anymore, but the stigma in society about MH conditions goes very deep in the minds of those who don't want to understand.
There should more people out there like those in this forum who are willing to educate the public, willing to learn from that education, and willing to support those who need it an not to just leave them.
While this is a little off topic from what you started this thread about, I looked into a few anti-stigma campaigns and found a website called Time to change (http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/news-media/celebrity-supporters). It highlights some celebrities who have spoken out about their mental health experiences with the intention of reducing the stigma around mental illness. i thought maybe this would be inspirational to read about!
As a Harry Potter fan, I was curious to learn about the narrator of all the books, Stephan Fry, who talks about his experience with bipolar disorder and even made a documentary about it ( which might be interesting to watch!).
I look forward to the day that mental illness is no longer stigmatised, as it is not in this community.