Break the Power of Stigma

Steps to cope with stigma.

Doesn’t stigma start with us, the terminology we use, how we view Mental Illness? Words matter. Attitude matters. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times—read the change, be the change, see the change.

 

Get treatment.

You may be reluctant to admit you need treatment. Don't let the fear of being labeled with a mental illness prevent you from seeking help. Treatment can provide relief by identifying what's wrong and reducing symptoms that interfere with your work and personal life.


Don't let stigma create self-doubt and shame.

Stigma doesn't just come from others. You may mistakenly believe that your condition is a sign of personal weakness or that you should be able to control it without help. Seeking counseling, educating yourself about your condition, and connecting with others who have mental illness can help you gain self-esteem and overcome destructive self-judgment.


Don't isolate yourself.

If you have a mental illness, you may be reluctant to tell anyone about it. Your family, friends, clergy, and/ or members of your community can offer you support if they know about your mental illness. Reach out to people you trust for the compassion, support, and understanding you need.

Don't equate yourself with your illness.

You are NOT an illness. So instead of saying "I'm bipolar," say "I have bipolar disorder." Instead of calling yourself "a schizophrenic," say "I have schizophrenia."

Join a support group. 

Some local and national groups, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), offer local programs and internet resources that help reduce stigma by educating people who have mental illness, their families, and the general public.

Speak out against stigma. 

Consider expressing your opinions at events, in letters to your university, or on the internet. It can help instill courage in others facing similar challenges and educate the public about mental illness.

When a person is labelled by their mental illness, they are no longer seen as an individual but, rather, as that illness—as part of a stereotyped group.

Negative attitudes and beliefs toward the person can create prejudice and lead to negative actions and discrimination. Stigma can also prevent people from seeking help for their mental health struggles due to shame, embarrassment, and fear of judgment. 

Additional harmful effects of stigma can include:

  • Lack of understanding by family, friends, co-workers or others
  • Fewer opportunities for work, school or social activities or trouble finding housing
  • Bullying, physical violence or harassment
  • Health insurance that doesn't adequately cover your mental illness treatment
  • The belief that you'll never succeed at certain challenges or that you can't improve your situation 

The stigma around mental health has significantly changed since the conversation first began; nonetheless, negative attitudes and beliefs toward people who have a mental health condition are still common. So, the work isn’t done yet.

Useful Literature:

Nobody’s Normal

by Roy Richard Grinker

In Nobody’s Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma—from the eighteenth century, through America’s major wars, and into today’s high-tech economy. Nobody’s Normal argues that stigma is a social process that can be explained through cultural history, a process that began the moment we defined mental illness, that we learn from within our communities, and that we ultimately have the power to change…

Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

by Erving Goffman

Drawing extensively on autobiographies and case studies, sociologist Erving Goffman analyzes the stigmatized person’s feelings about himself and his relationship to “normals” He explores the variety of strategies stigmatized individuals employ to deal with the rejection of others, and the complex sorts of information about themselves they project. In Stigma the interplay of alternatives the stigmatized individual must face every day is brilliantly examined by one of America’s leading social analysts…

Normality: A Critical Genealogy 

by Peter Cryle and Elizabeth Stephens

In Normality, Peter Cryle and Elizabeth Stephens offer an intellectual and cultural history of what it means to be normal. They explore the history of how communities settle on any one definition of the norm, along the way analyzing a fascinating series of case studies in fields as remote as anatomy, statistics, criminal anthropology, sociology, and eugenics. Cryle and Stephens argue that since the idea of normality is so central to contemporary disability, gender, race, and sexuality studies, scholars in these fields must first have a better understanding of the context for normality…

Ethical Relativism: “Normality, in short, within a very wide range, is culturally defined. It is primarily a term for the socially elaborated segment of human behavior in any culture; and abnormality, a term for the segment that that particular civilization does not use.”

— Ruth Benedict

 
Normality was an average but it has now become the ideal—what we value the most, what is “good.”
For those with Mental Illness—you are a normal person in abnormal circumstances.