Why do people get more social stigma for being discharged from in-patient psychiatric care, than being discharged from a correctional facility? Both are stereotyped as a potential threat to society, so I don’t know why. More than likely more people will still contact you and ‘be cool’ with you after being incarcerated even though you don’t have access to anyone outside of family. Same official rules and regs apply in psyche care, but no one is barely around you after that discharge.
People who have been to psyche care usually don’t tell their friends that they have been in psyche care, while people take pride/show the world they were released from a prison. They’re even so reluctant to talk about their experience in prison. Others become inspired by your prison story, but all that inspiration is apparently gone once you tell your psyche hospital story. You do get teased for being arrested in school, but people tend to see you as much ‘less important’ for being admitted to a psyche hospital; they ignore you.
My guess is the high safety risk during incarceration. People still get attacked in psyche hospitals, but I believe the risk is much lower there. Psyche patients are less reluctant to make weapons, though everything made sharp is taken away from them supposedly.
It still boggles my mind b/c most people who are admitted into psyche care simply thought about hurting others, thought about hurting themselves, or unsuccessfully committed suicide. Most of these patients are a potential threat to themselves and are forced into being admitted, in spite of being told your admission is voluntary. So how does not doing something illegal cost more rejection from society than doing something illegal?
I too question the initial premise. My patients are all convicted felons, many of whom are returning to prison for further incarceration, and they almost universally report a huge stigma attached to their status as ex-cons. They claim it prevents them from finding meaningful work, places to live, non-criminal people to socialize with. And what hard data I’ve seen on the subject supports those claims.
Granted, it’s even worse for those ex-cons with mental health issues. But if most of them don’t act out in front of non-cons, they’re not stigmatized that much more.
My experience with psych hospital patients who have not been incarcerated is 15 years old, but it was extensive back in the day. In the communities I served back then, their stigma, while present, was not as severe as those of ex-cons.
That’s my idea anyway, from having experience in both worlds.
In addition I’d also add that the stigma associated with mental illness and psychiatric hospitalization has decreased dramatically in recent decades. My early medical training was back in the 1970’s when mental hospitals were still ubiquitous, and the place to warehouse the mentally ill. Stigma then was huuuuuuge. Such patients were feared by the public, ostracized, marginalized, and often not allowed to be discharged from mental facilities for fear of endangering the ‘normal folks’. (I vividly recall the D building of the old Baltimore City Hospitals).
But thanks to decades of widely publicized cases of celebrities and ordinary folk with mental illness seeking help and getting well, combined with ‘revolutionary’ mental health drugs (some of whose effectiveness is more than a bit questionable), the stigma has gone down quite a bit. It’s not what it ought to be, and in some areas of the country and the world, it’s not much better than it used to be, but progress has, and should continue to be, made.
Second, if I may, you sound like many many people, myself included, who are or were wrestling with a new (or not so new) issue of treatment do mental illness–and, like so many (myself included) are responding to your emotions (the whole lot, in my experience–guilt, shame, anger too, at yourself for being sick, or–as in your post–at what you think motivates the mental health profession or how people view ex-prisoners and people who have mental illness currently or in the past.
I think perhaps your emotions are so high that obscure the reality on the ground, that is, in general society and experience, which for most common endeavors and employment is far more benign, and frankly, uninterested, in the past medical condition of anyone.
Ask a mod to perhaps repost your query in the In My Humble Opinion forum, where, if you want to explore it this way, you will find I’m sure a good discussion.
The following resources are related to mental illness, involuntary and voluntary psychiatric commitment:
Written by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Helping Someone with Mental Illness is a book which includes information about the stigma of mental health issues, caregiving for the mentally ill, and advocacy. The book details are:
Carter, Rosalynn. Helping Someone with Mental Illness. 1999. Times Books. ISBN 0-8129-2898-9.
Another book that gives a historical view of the stigma and treatment that the mentally ill have endured is:
Whitaker, Robert. Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. 2002. Perseus Publishing. ISBN 0-7382-0385-8.
Online, available resources include:
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) at www.nami.org
NAMI is an American non-profit organization and their website includes a section with fact sheets about mental illness, available at: http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Fact-Sheet-Library Mentalhealth.gov is the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services website which contains information on different illnesses and includes a section with resources in Spanish: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/
In the U.S., involuntary and voluntary commitment statues vary by state and can be found by searching for “involuntary commitment” or “voluntary commitment” and the name of the state. Websites that end in .gov or .us should contain state specific information.