SHAME ON STIGMA

How mental health STIGMA plays out in daily life.

Siri tells me the definition of stigma is:  

"A mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person."

Back in the day, mental illness was something families kept hidden.  If your family member was mentally ill, stigma felt like a thick, dark, looming cloud.  It choked off conversation about the realities and difficulties facing families dealing with fragile psyches.  It was too painful to be open about, because everyone judged.  The stigma was palpable. Those struggling were misunderstood and most folks feared them.  As time passed, mature reasoning and education has enlightened the masses.   Now, we realize that depression and anxiety, for example, can be normal reactions to life's hardest challenges.  We all have emotional days, to a certain degree.  We all have individual DNA, unique experineces, and we all handle things in our own way.  Depending on what you've experienced, your emotional reaction will reflect that.  It's Newton's third law:  "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."  Life is balanced like that, and that's normal.

We all feel sadness, joy, fear, anger...  We have these wonderful emotions for a reason.  They make us human, they connect our hearts.  Without emotions, there would be no feelings...no color. Yuck.  I don't know about you, but living in shades of black, white, and gray isn't how I want to see or FEEL life!  There would be less beauty, art, expression, less affect/affection, and NO LOVE.

No, thank you.

I'm not an expert, but I believe that's one reason Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is easier to have compassion for than other diagnosed mental disorders.  It's tangible. We see the images in media. We are able to grasp why a soldier that has lived through things no human should, comes home from war with PTSD.  It will take time to recover from those emotional traumas, if they ever fully can.  It takes therapy, time to decompensate from the horrible experiences, and would be helpful to be surrounded by tenderness, free from any assault to the already broken spirit.  Our human hearts find it hard to see torture, death, war, babies dying...this is not normal.  Those are not healthy experineces.  Thankfully, there is much empathy for those suffering with the effects of PTSD.

It's the same with other traumas, only it's the "unseen" and "unspoken" trauma that complicates compassion.  Children that experience great loss, poor nurtition, abuse,  bullying, injuries, poverty, neglect, that are sensitive, with low self-esteem, and made worse if they are in a single-parent family, no matter how great that single parent is.  It's HARD.  Don't get me wrong;  Kudos to all the single parents out there doing a great job.  I grew up in a single parent family, and I admire all that goes into raising kids, alone.  Sadly, these conditions, can lead to growing up and facing a life with a fragile psyche.  These things make adulting, harder.

The world can be cruel.  Even being "tough" and having a thick skin are sometimes a defense mechanism in an injured brain, because ya gotta "handle it"  And sure, that is life.  It's complicated.  But just because YOU can handle it, doesn't mean the other guy can. His experiences have been different than yours. Try wearing HIS shoes, and get a handle on this:  YOU are you, and HE is him.  He might bot be able to "snap out of it" like you might be able to.  Give him a break...

My family has "mental illness."  I personally don't allow stigma to enter my realm.  It's easy now to speak openly in order to enlighten and educate.  I do consciously try.  It was tough thirty/forty years ago when I was growing up - when I felt shame from stigma.  But now I realize shame gets us nowhere.  There's nothing to be ashamed of.

Only a couple of years ago, Conan O'Brien's late night comedy monologues included him joking about a homeless woman in Los Angeles.  She was seen under a bridge, having auditory hallucinations.  He made a joke of her because she was either talking to no one, or was ranting aimlessly.  It angered me that he was mocking this lady.  I posted on Facebook about it.  People still using "crazy" as the butt of jokes on talk shows...really?  No.  Stop.  We have to do better.  Making fun of a delusional person is in no way funny, and should elicit compassion, instead of ridiculous ridicule.  The word "bum" when referencing homeless men, is also deplorable, to me.

My brother has been homelesss many times, but he will never be a bum.

I figure, if people know me, know my family, and if I can spreak to mental illness in a personal way, then maybe, one by one, talk by talk, folks will start to understand it's not just "crazies" out there, allowed to be made fun of, forgotten and shunned.  I think of them like my brother.  And, "He Ain't Heavy."  At all.

Communicating about it has made a difference.  It's beautiful, like emotions are beautiful.  LOVE being the KING of all emo...  So, let's try seeing through a lens of love, shall we?  It sure can't hurt.

One step at a time.  Stigma be damned.  #preach J