Why Is the Stigma Around Mental Illness Still Holding Us Back
- Brainz Magazine
- Apr 9
- 7 min read
Written by Justin H. Briggs, Writer
Justin H. Briggs is the author of "Insanity Comes To Mind: A Memoir On Mental Health." which was published on May 1st, 2020. He is a good writer working at being great.
With mental health, and, in turn, mental illness, being rather en vogue these days, at least in polite conversation, why is there still a stigma surrounding the subjects? Mental health is something we all have, just as we all have physical health.
A contrast may be drawn, however, between the medical practices of physical health and those of mental health. If you break your arm, do you not see a doctor to set the bone and apply a cast? So, if your brain is damaged or even functioning poorly, why not see a doctor?
Of course, it is not as easy as that, and therein lies the stigma. Mental health, both as a concept and a medical practice, is sorely lacking in effective, permanent treatments. This leads to results as varied as the diversity of humanity may allow.
Thus, simply as a result of human nature, mental illness, both as a concept and in medical practice, is chaotic and expansive as well. Overwhelmingly complicated for those of us who live with mental illness; incomprehensibly so for the uninformed, misinformed, or openly ignorant of mental health issues.
Mind matters
A broken arm is an injury that is not only quite common but also quite easily remedied in terms of traditional medical practice. If you are injured with a broken arm in most developed countries, at least, you are likely to find a medical facility that can address the injury with physical remedies such as x-rays, bone setting, and cast placing, all allowing the bone to heal anew.
Remedies are readily available for physical illnesses, from broken arms to viruses to cancer. Not so with mental illness. Both psychology and psychiatry, as medical practices, are relatively new, limited in the availability of services, and often called upon only as a last resort at the end of a series of troubled circumstances. The results of said practices, as well, are not so easily seen as the improvements resulting from the setting and casting of a broken arm.
As stated in a previous post, we are evolutionarily predisposed to fear the unknown. Furthermore, poor mental health, or mental illness, is so misunderstood in both historic and modern contexts that the result is a gluttony of information overload, poorly communicated in terms of either consistency or availability, which leads to further ostracism of the afflicted: people with mental illness.
We people with mental illness are required to do the vast majority of the “leg work” of treatment, regardless of cost, which is generally exorbitant relative to more traditional medical treatments, such as those for a broken arm.
We people attend meetings with counselors, talk therapists, and psychiatrists. We often have a daily medication regimen. We face temporary or permanent in-patient stays in mental institutions, at least in the communities where people like us receive some level of care and not outright banishment or incarceration.
On a personal note, as a person with schizo-affective bipolar disorder who has stayed in a mental institution as a result of an event in which I threatened the lives of myself or others, the state in which I live, within the United States of America, has revoked my Second Amendment right to bear arms.
In effect, due to a condition which I did not create, for which I alone am responsible, and without being charged or convicted of any crime, a founding “inalienable” human right of my country is no longer available to me in my home state of Kansas, a human right lost due to a reality of the human condition.
Invisible stigmata
Herein lies the problem: you can’t just set a brain and put it into a cast for healing to occur. Quite often, in fact, the reality of illness in the mental health sense is either ignored or outright completely misunderstood. The illness could be due to physical trauma, emotional trauma, chemical imbalances of the nervous system, or any combination of the three, and then some.
Lifestyle choices such as substance use, overworking, or any of a plethora of uninformed excuses are often blamed for conditions that are otherwise considered medically to be a reality of the human condition. This leads to further stigma for those of us who live with mental illness.
We may do a quick internet search, read about symptoms, and even self-reflect on our emotions, thoughts, and realities. But most of us are not conditioned to reflect upon our potential weaknesses, ignoring any personal Achilles’ heel until the arrow of mental illness strikes.
By then, it is often too late, suicide is merely one way a mental illness can conquer an otherwise competent, respectable, and successful individual. It often takes intervention at the legal level to get someone to face themselves in the mirror, and said mirror often has to be repeatedly shoved in our face for the image to begin to develop.
We who survive a crisis or critical episode of mental illness often do so as a result of some combination of immediate in-patient attention, outpatient treatment, often cyclically, over a lifetime of struggles which we cannot even begin to understand for ourselves, let alone explain to others.
And when we do have the support, understanding, and audience for our lived experiences, the responses from many within earshot of our conundrum tend to vary from intentional ignorance to disbelief to aggressive disrespect, all common emotional reactions due to fear.
What we fear
Were mental illness truly analogous to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Wolfman, there would be a solution to the “evil,” so to speak, which these conditions often embody to the uninitiated. The problem of labeling mental illness as evil, or anything other than common human behavior, is that it further limits dialogue and comprehension, which even further limits treatment and enhances the stigma.
Furthermore, there is no magic pill or silver bullet for mental illness. The oblique nature of even the cutting edge of mental health treatment is daunting and disheartening for us afflicted, our support personnel of family and friends, and the medical practitioners themselves in the field.
So even if a solution is found, we people with mental illness rarely find the option to prove our improvement, resigning ourselves to labels many consider limiting or disabling, diagnosing ourselves, and thus creating miscommunication, misconceptions, and general confusion.
I myself have taken dozens of medications for a plethora of symptoms which are all considered related to my diagnosis of schizo-affective bipolar disorder. Fifteen years since the initial diagnosis, a dozen psychiatrists, half as many psychologists, three to four in-patient stays (depending on your definition), and the best I can show for results is that I am not dead or incapacitated to the level predicted by those more medically inclined than myself a few short years ago. So there is hope in the midst of horror. Wherever you are out there, hope springs eternal, if nothing else.
However, before my first emergency room visit from paranoia brought on by months of mania in 2010, I refused to believe there was anything wrong with me that needed to be addressed in terms of my mental health. It was some years later before I was able to even accept that I do indeed live with mental illness. I myself was intentionally ignorant and outright obstinate toward my own self. I refused to know myself.
The manifestations of our symptoms tend to result in the loss of relationships, job security, financial stability, housing, and, all too frequently, lives. Therein, too, lies the stigma. The wake of chaos we with mental illness leave behind is generally irredeemable, lined with unsalvageable wreckages of experiences for ourselves, our loved ones, complete strangers, and often whole communities.
Though statistical analysis would prove that someone with a mental illness is more likely to be the victim of a crime than the perpetrator, incarceration rates of the mentally ill do little to ease any stigma. Homelessness is often attributed to addiction and substance abuse issues, but the reality is that mental illness is often at the root of a person’s predicament when they have lost housing.
The odds are fairly heavily stacked against you should you be afflicted with mental illness, whether you are officially diagnosed as living with one or not.
What do you want me to do about mental illness?
There is a solution to the global, perhaps perpetual, mental health crisis: talk about it. Tell a loved one how you feel. Ask someone how they feel when you sense something is off. Inform yourself in any manner possible.
While misinformation is rampant with regard to any medical condition, the internet is a valuable resource for those of us people with mental illness, as well as those of us who support family or friends with mental illness. Wherever you are in the world, if you are reading this, you already have a better handle on what mental health and mental illness are, and are thus already reducing the stigma.
Remember, we all have mental health. If you are capable of pulling up this article, reading it, internalizing it with regard to your life, and asking yourself some simple questions, then you already have the cognitive faculties necessary to possess mental health.
If anything you have read so far with regard to mental health has caused you to pause in the mirror and consider the possibility that you may struggle with mental illness, then remind yourself that, if that is the case, living with mental illness is no more a crime than being human.
Read more from Justin H. Briggs
Justin H. Briggs, Writer
Justin H. Briggs is a writer located in Manhattan, Kansas, USA. He is more than his diagnosis and less than his potential for success, in his opinion, but he is working on that. His diagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar disorder manifests symptoms of depression, mania, delusion, paranoia, and hallucination. He is in no way medically certified beyond the occasional CPR certification, but he has been there and done that, so to speak.
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