How You Can Destigmatize Mental Health Every Day
Mental health stigma is real. Mental illness stigma is really real. It seems that we’ve reached a place in our culture where some mental health challenges are okay to talk about while others are not. If you ever want to kill a conversation, just tell the room you’re on antipsychotics, you have bipolar disorder, or that you’ve spent time in a psychiatric ward. Negative examples of these things and more litter the mediascape.
7 strategies to fight mental illness stigma
However, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do about it. Each of us can make an impact and work to destigmatize mental health topics in our everyday lives.
Learn the facts
It’s hard to destigmatize something without being able to fight fiction with fact. It’s helpful to research the area of mental health in which you are most interested. (For example, did you know that over a billion people live with mental health conditions worldwide?)1 You might also want to learn about a few notable and respected people with mental illness. Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and many others have come out publicly and stated they have experienced mental health conditions.2
Confront stigma
Don’t let stigma slide when you see it in front of you. When someone makes a joke in the breakroom about “that bipolar” who is “too crazy” to have a boyfriend, calmly state something like, “while it is true some people with bipolar disorder have trouble with relationships, millions of people are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and that certainly doesn’t describe all of them.” Or when someone makes fun of a person on the street who hears voices, you might say something like, “hearing voices is a part of psychosis, which is a medical issue that deserves treatment, like any other.”
Share destigmatizing information
Information cures ignorance, and people are less likely to stigmatize something they understand. This can be as simple as participating in mental health awareness campaigns on social media. For example, World Mental Health Day is October 10th, and the World Health Organization tends to provide a digital media kit with images you can share across platforms to help inform others. Whether you have 20 followers or 20,000, you don’t know who your voice might touch.
Share resources
When you learn of a high-quality, trusted mental health resource, share it. People often don’t know who to look to when it comes to mental health information, and you can help these people by vetting and sharing quality information sources with them. This includes numbers for help, such as 9-8-8. It’s easier than ever to get access to people who want to help others with mental health concerns.
Support groups that advocate for those with mental illness
There are many groups, like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), that work to advocate for those with mental illness. These groups try to change laws so that those with mental illness are treated equally, they run critical education campaigns, and they offer support to those with mental health conditions. They can’t work without your help, however.
Tell others they are not alone
One of the devastating effects of mental illness is that it tends to make the person think they are “crazy” or are experiencing something no one else in the world does. This is universally untrue. No matter what a person’s mental health concern, others out there share it. Have trouble showering? Can’t find motivation? Thinking about hurting yourself? I’ve written on all these topics and hundreds of others, and people identify with all of them.
Tell your story
And finally, if you have experience with a mental health challenge, and it’s safe to do so, you can tell your story. This option isn’t right for everyone for a variety of reasons, but if you can talk to even one person about your own experience, you can spread a real message of hope.
This or That
Have you considered telling your story?
Working together to live well with bipolar disorder
No single person can best mental health stigma, but if we work together, we can weaken its grip just a little bit every day.