It’s a sad fact that mental health issues still have an awful lot of stigma attached to them, despite efforts that have been made in the past to change the negative attitudes. Personally, I’ve not experienced much stigma myself because my mental health isn’t something I discuss with people outside my family and close friends.
I shouldn’t have to feel as though I have to hide the fact that I’ve had a psychotic breakdown. I shouldn’t, but I still do, because that’s the way our society seems to have evolved. Mental health issues aren’t talked about even though they should be. We’re almost a decade into the twenty-first century, but the Victorian-era attitudes to mental health still abound.
I can’t quite imagine what it would be like if stigma was outlawed completely. It would be a different world, for certain. A better world? A world without shame? I don’t think even the best fantasy writers could successfully conjure that up, because it’s so far away from where we are now.
The stigma is rather like a vicious circle. It comes about because of ignorance — it’s a facet of human nature to fear things we don’t understand — but because people don’t understand, the fears and misconceptions lead to a situation where it becomes taboo to discuss those things, much less admit to them. If nobody talks about mental health, how can the ignorance and misconceptions be alleviated?
The Time to Change campaign does go quite a distance in challenging ignorance towards mental health issues. It’s hard hitting, to the point, and is backed by well-known celebrities trying bravely to break down the barriers of ignorance by admitting their own battles with mental health issues. But is it enough?
The problem with any campaign is that in a world of freedom and democracy, people don’t have to listen if they don’t want to. Nobody can force them to let go of their misconceptions. Nobody can make them change their prejudices.
Freedom of speech is a bit of a monster in that sense, because despite the Time to Change campaign and the constant battle against stigma, ignorance is still endemic. Until the day some law is passed forcing every citizen to attend some class to debunk their ignorance, stigma is not going to go away. I’m not ashamed of my illness, but the plague of ignorance means I can’t be as honest as I would like.
Article comments
1 - Dr. Juliann Mitchell, PhD
Martine,
Thank you so much for having the courage to share a bit of your story. I agree completely, that there is still a stigma attached to having a mental health challenge.
However, you are channeling the negative things that have happened to you into something positive. Education is key, never speaking up perpetuates the cycle of ignorance.
Be good to you.
Best wishes,
Juliann Mitchell
2 - Joanne Huspek
Mental illness (or health) is dependent upon many things, including chemical imbalances. There should be NO stigma. Would there be if you had heart trouble? People who still view it as such don't realize it.
3 - dan umanoff, m.d.
I spent my entire life learning how to be and then being the best doctor I could. In fact, I did actually that. I had the highest score on the third part of the national boards (testing all areas of medicine in all first year residents) at the Medical College of Virginia in 1972 among hundreds of other interns and was about 30th in the country on that rigorous test among over 6000 interns. I was invited back year after year to do all my training at MCV, a prestigious medical school and teaching hospital, as well. In fact, I always had the best reputation possible as a physician that is until I was discovered in 1986 by the NYS health department to be a hydrocodone (vicodin, hycodan, etc.) addict. Although my practice had always been impeccable with a spotless reputation, never having any complaints (stipulated by the health department) about my very public practice as a board certified Nephrologist at seven local hospitals and medical director of my own 21 station dialysis unit, the health and education departments of NYS made me out to be the equivalent to a mass murderer with nothing objective to back that up. As nothing more than being an addict, my license was revoked and despite being documented clean for over eight years was denied license restoration for no objective reasons whatsoever. The only "evidence" they had against me was that I denied being dangerous (which was in fact true) and had no remorse for things I didn't do but could have (which was also true). That was evidence? As an addict to opiates it is automatically assumed I was not only dangerous, negligent, and irresponsible, but willfully dangerous, negligent, and irresponsible despite never actually having done anything dangerous, negligent, and irresponsible. In fact, I was assumed to be mentally ill with that additional stigma as well despite four board certified addiction psychiatrists saying I was fine to resume practice. By claiming I wasn't dangerous, which was in fact the truth and was well documented, I was told by NYS that that is exactly why I was dangerous (the old catch 22). NYS said I was also dangerous by "not having remorse for things I didn't do but could have." Although I didn't know it at the time, the fact is that for me to have had my license restored I had to admit I was dangerous and had remorse for things I didn't do but could have. No other doctors have to make such admissions, even doctors who had actually hurt and injured patients many times - non-addicted but documented dangerous doctors, that is. In fact, documented dangerous doctors are given slaps on the wrist while documented non-dangerous addicted doctors who get clean have their licenses revoked for life. NYS claimed this was not discrimination. In fact, it was Eliot Spitzer, as Attorney General, who made this argument against me.
Well, like you, I wrote a book, Hypoic's Handbook, about all this, how addicts are stigmatized, discriminated against, and why. My book also discusses the science of addiction causation, science that is completely different from the science stated by board (self) certified addictionologists (bought and paid for by NIDA) and NIDA, the US government's hand picked and politicized addiction department, as the cause of addiction. In fact, my book completely revolutionizes the field of addictions, so, the book is a little more than just my story. My story is on my web site.
Stigma and discrimination against the mentally ill, including addicts, is all about misconception of mental illness and addiction originally as a sign of the devil or other evil spirits and later self-induced by psychobabble etiology and other pseudoscientific nonsense. In fact, all mental illness occurs for biological and frequently genetic reasons out of the control of those inflicted and is never willful or self-induced. Unless someone is already dangerous there is no evidence that people with mental illness are more prone than otherwise to be dangerous. As you note, the stigma is undeserved, but because brain diseases are feared more than other diseases and are misunderstood biologically they are believed to cause their victims to be dangerous. The ignorant population has no reason to think otherwise. Thus, we have much work to do. Personally, I have been doing this work since 1992 but have been ignored and censored by the addictionology establishment as well as by the media. This work is hard and frustrating but I will never give up. I hope you won't either. Good Luck.
4 - Ken Skiba
Great article. I worked w/ Psych in Pharma as a sales leader..Stigma better, but not there yet. Thanks for articulating what needs to be understood.