croissantkatie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
croissantkatie) wrote2012-11-27 02:25 pm
croissantkatie) wrote2012-11-27 02:25 pm
Entry tags:
Mental Health and Stigma
This is a post about mental health and stigma which I ended up thinking about a lot after Ed Miliband made his speech. The bit which struck me in particular was this: “good mental health doesn't start in hospital or the treatment room, it starts in our workplaces, our schools and our communities.” Writing this got put on hold for mental health reasons so has been in the works for a fair while now.
Please note that these are just my thoughts, experiences etc.
Trigger warnings for discussion of mental health issues, suicidal thoughts and self-harm. Other illnesses (type one diabetes and epilepsy) are also discussed.
I’ve always considered myself fairly lucky in regards to mental health stigma. There hasn’t been a moment which has stuck out to me where I’ve been able to go yes, I’ve been discriminated against because of my depression. I have never been denied a job because of it. I haven’t had any opportunities denied to me as a result. But after I’ve thought about it though, stigma has affected me. More so than I thought. It wasn’t always obvious but it has happened.
Once I’d come to terms with the fact that I was depressed, which took a while, I became fairly upfront about it. Most people I spend a fair amount of time with, I tell about my depression. I do this because I want people to be aware of it. If something happens to me say, and an ambulance has to be called, I think it’s important that the people I’m with are able to tell them about my depression. I treat it the same way my Mum treats her diabetes in this respect. I tell people both for my safety and theirs. So, if something strange happens with me, people know to ask me how I’m feeling emotionally and if there’s anything I need to do, in the same way I can ask my Mum what her blood sugar is and if she needs any food. For me, it’s something which makes sense for me to do (also, I’m in a position where I’m able to do it).
When I tell people I have depression, most don’t know how to react. Most people are shocked and confused and genuinely don’t know why I am telling them. When I moved in to my university accommodation, I told my housemates. I felt they should know. I still feel this way, even though their reaction wasn’t positive. I had explained I wasn’t drinking because of my depression, they attempted to convince me to have some anyway and that it would help. That still grates on me. I have been dealing with this for years now, and people I have only just met assume they know how I feel and how to fix it better than I do. I think this is something which can be applied to a lot of things actually. People are always jumping to conclusions about what my parents should or should not eat.
I also got thinking about my old secondary school and sixth form. For the most part, people at both of those places were really supportive and helpful. I have a vivid memory of hiding in my house office at secondary school, crying my eyes out, and every single teacher who came in to use the coffee machine seeing how I was and if there was anything they could do. Now onto the more negative parts. There was a running trend to suggest that this was all my fault, that I wasn’t trying hard enough. At secondary school my drama teacher told me that all my group’s problems were because of my anxiety. At sixth form, my tutor told me that I should try harder to be in college more often, which went against everything my psychiatrist said. This was after I had convinced them that I actually was depressed. That in itself took a long time. I didn’t think so at the time, but I suspect that their unwillingness to believe I was actually ill was related to the stigma surrounding mental health. The idea that there was nothing really wrong, I was just overreacting, I just needed to try hard enough. It took my tutor making me want to commit suicide and my Mum telling her this and that her behaviour was inappropriate for anything to change, even by this point they had numerous pieces of medical evidence. (I am maybe a tiny bit bitter about their supposedly “excellent pastoral care.”) I was always trying as hard as I could and I think that's not something people always understand. Just because you can't see an illness doesn't mean it's not there.
I think there is partly an issue of language involved in all of this. Depressed is so often used as a synonym for sad that quite often, I feel, things get confused and muddled. Whilst I might be talking about my medical condition, other people might just be talking about how they felt sad for a while. They are not the same thing. I try to use the phrase clinical depression to avoid confusion and make it clear to people that no, I’m not just a bit unhappy today. But really, I wish there was another word I could use. Something which was just the term for my medical condition.
But I think my biggest experience with stigma is in myself, in how I expect people to react. I expect people not to believe me. I expect people to be horrible to me as a result. Every single time someone is understanding or tries to help me live my life regardless of my depression, I am surprised. Whilst this is partly because I nearly always expect people to be horrible to me, I think it is in part because I am scared that people will regard based on what they think they know about mental health and all the stigma surrounding it.
I am not entirely sure what I wanted to say with this post but it has definitely been interesting to think about, even if I don’t feel like I’ve reached a decent conclusion. Stigma exists, whether it’s obvious or not, and I’d really like to see that change.
Please note that these are just my thoughts, experiences etc.
Trigger warnings for discussion of mental health issues, suicidal thoughts and self-harm. Other illnesses (type one diabetes and epilepsy) are also discussed.
I’ve always considered myself fairly lucky in regards to mental health stigma. There hasn’t been a moment which has stuck out to me where I’ve been able to go yes, I’ve been discriminated against because of my depression. I have never been denied a job because of it. I haven’t had any opportunities denied to me as a result. But after I’ve thought about it though, stigma has affected me. More so than I thought. It wasn’t always obvious but it has happened.
Once I’d come to terms with the fact that I was depressed, which took a while, I became fairly upfront about it. Most people I spend a fair amount of time with, I tell about my depression. I do this because I want people to be aware of it. If something happens to me say, and an ambulance has to be called, I think it’s important that the people I’m with are able to tell them about my depression. I treat it the same way my Mum treats her diabetes in this respect. I tell people both for my safety and theirs. So, if something strange happens with me, people know to ask me how I’m feeling emotionally and if there’s anything I need to do, in the same way I can ask my Mum what her blood sugar is and if she needs any food. For me, it’s something which makes sense for me to do (also, I’m in a position where I’m able to do it).
When I tell people I have depression, most don’t know how to react. Most people are shocked and confused and genuinely don’t know why I am telling them. When I moved in to my university accommodation, I told my housemates. I felt they should know. I still feel this way, even though their reaction wasn’t positive. I had explained I wasn’t drinking because of my depression, they attempted to convince me to have some anyway and that it would help. That still grates on me. I have been dealing with this for years now, and people I have only just met assume they know how I feel and how to fix it better than I do. I think this is something which can be applied to a lot of things actually. People are always jumping to conclusions about what my parents should or should not eat.
I also got thinking about my old secondary school and sixth form. For the most part, people at both of those places were really supportive and helpful. I have a vivid memory of hiding in my house office at secondary school, crying my eyes out, and every single teacher who came in to use the coffee machine seeing how I was and if there was anything they could do. Now onto the more negative parts. There was a running trend to suggest that this was all my fault, that I wasn’t trying hard enough. At secondary school my drama teacher told me that all my group’s problems were because of my anxiety. At sixth form, my tutor told me that I should try harder to be in college more often, which went against everything my psychiatrist said. This was after I had convinced them that I actually was depressed. That in itself took a long time. I didn’t think so at the time, but I suspect that their unwillingness to believe I was actually ill was related to the stigma surrounding mental health. The idea that there was nothing really wrong, I was just overreacting, I just needed to try hard enough. It took my tutor making me want to commit suicide and my Mum telling her this and that her behaviour was inappropriate for anything to change, even by this point they had numerous pieces of medical evidence. (I am maybe a tiny bit bitter about their supposedly “excellent pastoral care.”) I was always trying as hard as I could and I think that's not something people always understand. Just because you can't see an illness doesn't mean it's not there.
I think there is partly an issue of language involved in all of this. Depressed is so often used as a synonym for sad that quite often, I feel, things get confused and muddled. Whilst I might be talking about my medical condition, other people might just be talking about how they felt sad for a while. They are not the same thing. I try to use the phrase clinical depression to avoid confusion and make it clear to people that no, I’m not just a bit unhappy today. But really, I wish there was another word I could use. Something which was just the term for my medical condition.
But I think my biggest experience with stigma is in myself, in how I expect people to react. I expect people not to believe me. I expect people to be horrible to me as a result. Every single time someone is understanding or tries to help me live my life regardless of my depression, I am surprised. Whilst this is partly because I nearly always expect people to be horrible to me, I think it is in part because I am scared that people will regard based on what they think they know about mental health and all the stigma surrounding it.
I am not entirely sure what I wanted to say with this post but it has definitely been interesting to think about, even if I don’t feel like I’ve reached a decent conclusion. Stigma exists, whether it’s obvious or not, and I’d really like to see that change.
no subject
Thank you for sharing this. It had to be hard to do so.