Mental Illness Psychotherapy
Stigma (n.): shaming, blaming, or making fun of someone for a condition they cannot control -- like mental illness.
Mental health stigma can look like:
✨ Telling someone with anxiety or depression to "snap out of it"
✨ Making someone with mental illness feel irrational or ungrateful
✨ Creating a sense of secrecy around seeing a therapist or taking medication
✨ Discouraging vulnerability as a show of weakness or as emasculation
The stigma surrounding mental health is improving with the number of people who are publicly talking about their experiences, but that does not mean that stigma does not exist. If you have experienced stigma about mental illness, or about showing emotions in general, your experiences are valid, and you are not alone.
Everyone has a role to play in dismantling the culture of stigma surrounding mental illness. Whether or not you have a mental illness yourself, you can fight stigma by:
✨ Being open and honest about your own experiences with mental health
✨ Normalizing going to therapy or taking medication for mental illness
✨ Treating mental illness the same way you would physical illness -- you would never make fun of someone for having cancer or heart disease.
✨ Avoiding media that stigmatizes or stereotypes people with mental illness.
✨ Not using mental illnesses as adjectives -- i.e. "psycho," "bipolar," "OCD."
What other ways do you tackle mental health stigma in your everyday life? Let us know in the comments below!
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