Stigmatised

The stigma attached to mental illness can make every day feel like a battle. People with a mental illness are often seen as liars, manipulators, or lazy benefits cheats. We're supposedly psychos and abusers; people no normal person would want in their lives. It doesn't matter that such descriptions are more often wrong that right, the notions persist and as a result the most vulnerable members of society are met with disbelief, disgust, and even anger. And that's if we aren't just dismissed outright.

Whether it's the friend who is 'done' because your mental condition makes you process things differently, the family member who says 'you're more trouble than your worth', the doctor who says 'we can't change your personality', the CMHT nurse who discharges you because you aren't 'engaging', being cast adrift is a common problem for patients. It's a lonely place to be. A place where even community mental health teams can gaslight vulnerable patients into believing there's nothing wrong or they just aren't trying hard enough. Family members abandon family members. Support networks disintegrate and people who are already suffering become costly statistics and nothing more.

We need to put more work into helping rather than condemning. Condemnation exacerbates the problem, creating a situation where already desperate people become ever more desperate. We need doctors and nurses to be up to date with current understanding and best practise. We need support groups for both patients and their families to ensure support networks say strong and have access to factual information rather than internet fallacies. We need more community facilities. We need more well trained nurses and psychiatrists. We need more counsellors and we need to stop limiting the number of sessions of talking therapy that patients can access as the current system allows people to be 'written off'. We also need to protect sufferers from discrimination, including in the workplace and by health professionals. People need to feel safe and supported, in all aspects of their lives.

Then there's moronic morning TV presenters who think they understand mental health better than doctors, nurses, and mental health advocates, spouting nonsense which encourages further stigmatisation and prejudice. When you make 'liars' into a bigger issue than 'sufferers' you allow the belief that people are faking to dominate the discussion. You breed discontent and allow claims to spread that the sick are lazy cheats, content to live off hardworking taxpayers money.  Of course, there are a MINORITY of people who misuse any system, but the vast majority of people using welfare are genuinely in need. No one would choose to live off £600 a month if they had a choice. It's bloody hard to do!

Many claimants have worked in the past and would work again if they could. They paid into the very system which they've since come to rely on. That's how the welfare system is supposed to work. When you can, you pay in, then if you can't, society will help you survive. Instead, we allow this myth to spread that claimants get thousands of pounds off the government and have no interest in work, and then the very people we should be helping become targets. The vulnerable become victims of a system set up to drag them under and no one defends them because everyone is too caught up in being outraged by fallacies. We need to stop encouraging an environment where people feel ashamed of, or feel the need to hide, their illness.

We need to start thinking about how we talk about mental illness, then we need to make some changes to what is 'acceptable', especially what is acceptable for public figures to say.

• LISTEN.
• DON'T DISMISS EMOTIONS AND EXPERIENCES AS UNIMPORTANT.
• DON'T AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME A PATIENT IS LYING OR MANIPULATING.
• LISTEN MORE. DO SO CAREFULLY AND WITHOUT JUDGMENT.
• STOP USING DISCRIMINATORY WORDS LIKE 'CRAZY', 'PSYCHO', 'NUTS', ETC.
• DON'T ASSUME PEOPLE ARE BEING DIFFICULT WHEN THEY SAY THE CAN'T DO SOMETHING. YOU WOULDN'T TELL A PARAPLEGIC THAT THEY JUST HAD TO THINK POSITIVE AND WALK, SO STOP TELLING THOSE WITH SOCIAL ANXIETY TO GO OUT/ANSWER THE PHONE, ETC.
• ENCOURAGE OPEN DUSCUSSION BUT DON'T PRESSURE ANYONE INTO TALKING IF THEY DON'T FEEL ABLE.
• DON'T ACCUSE PEOPLE OF NOT ENGAGING. IF TREATMENT ISN'T PROGRESSING, LOOK INTO ALTERNATIVES RATHER THAN ABANDONING YOUR PATIENT/FAMILY MEMBER.
• LISTEN. I KNOW IT'S IN THREE TIMES, BUT IT'S IMPORTANT THAT THE PERSON WITH THE ILLNESS HAS THEIR THOUGHTS ON THEIR CONDITION AND THEIR TREATMENT ADDRESSED.
• DON'T SPREAD MYTHS. THERE'S MORE THAN ENOUGH MISINFORMATION OUT THEIR FROM ANGRY EXS AND PSEUDO-SCIENTISTS AND 'HEALERS' WITHOUT ADDING TO IT.
• DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS BASED ON A LABLE. YOU WOULDN'T JUST A PERSON BECAUSE THE HAD CANCER OR EVEN SOMETHING MINOR LIKE A HEADACHE, SO WHEN SOMEONE IS BRAVD ENOUGH TO SAY THE HAVE DEPRESSION, SCHIZOPHRENIA, BIPOLAR, BORDERLINE PERSONALITY, SOXIAL ANXIETY, OR PHOBIAS, ETC, DON'T JUDGE THEM. I HAVE BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER, BUT THAT IS ONLY ONE PART OF WHO I AM, AND IT'S A PART I TRY TO CONTROL.
• IF YOU'VE HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE WITH SOMEONE WHO SUFFERS MENTAL ILLNESS, SEEK YOUR OWN HELP AND SUPPORT, BUT DON'T TAR EVERY PERSON WITH A SIMILR ILLNESS  WITH THE SAME BRUSH.
• REMEMBER THAT THOSE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS WANT TO BE BETTER. THIS IS NO FUN FOR US EAITHER.
• LISTEN. IF WE'RE TALKING, IT MEANS WE TRUST YOU TO SOME DEGREE. THAT'S A GIFT, SO LISTEN.
• REMEMBER, WE'RE PEOPLE TOO, AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS.
• STOP JUDGING, AND LISTEN.

Pseudonymous Zombie

xxx