Yes, I am assuming that, since actions that any person with a conscience would consider shameful are part of the diagnostic criteria. You can say that’s just my subjective opinion, but that’s obvious. This is a board for subjective opinions, so I’m okay with it.
And I do know about antisocial personality disorder. I’m using the terms “sociopath” and “person with antisocial personality disorder” interchangeably because for most purposes, they are interchangeable.
I have a psychiatric diagnosis. I do not have a mental illness.
I am not ashamed of who I am. I’m so unashamed I don’t consider it to be an illness or undesirable condition. It’s just DIFFERENT.
Discretion is the better part of valor. The other day at work a coworker out of the blue read out loud some nasty limerick about how gays were going to burn in hell like it was a joke we were supposed to laugh at.
I wanted to tell this person off. I can’t stand bigoted sadism like that. Yet I choose to give it the response of icy silence and then a refocusing on work. I was really mad at myself, but that wasn’t the place.
Anyway what I guess I’m saying is you can’t fight every battle, you have to choose.
My culture is known to be very much against showing one’s “weakness” to others, and that goes for any problem or illness, mental or otherwise. Also, there seems to be an equally strong quality of wanting to offer help to anyone who is suffering or experiencing need, illness, or trouble.
I do not understand why these opposing characteristics seem to be in place, but I notice it when I find myself admiring a macho family member who proudly tells us that he has “no luxury time for a nervous breakdown”, or “therapy is for wimps”. I do not agree with this necessarily, and especially if I notice he is self medicating with alcohol or drugs.
I’m always amazed when I read about what happened to Thomas Eagleton, especially the outright mockery. Is there something to this story that I don’t know about? Or were attitudes towards depression then really that insensitive?
Wikipedia sez: ‘Time magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of the respondents said “Eagleton’s medical record would not affect their vote.”’ It may have been somewhat manufactured?
No there isn’t.
However, even though I know that, I still feel ashamed. How can I not? Decades of therapy, a decade and half of medication and no improvement. So I quit. Now two years later, after a brief stay in the psycho ward, I’m back in therapy and on medication. It must be my fault, right? I must not want to get better, I must not be trying hard enough.
I haven’t had a paying job in 18 years. I’ve been on disability for 16 years now. I’m a leech, a burden to society, a taker not a giver. I shouldn’t have the right to vote because I don’t have skin in the game. I should be locked away because I’m one cookie crumb away from shooting up a parking lot full of people.
I was crying the other day because I couldn’t get YouTube to play a 30 second video of cats. I was close to tears in the grocery store on Friday because I hate food shopping. What I should buy, what I want, & what I can afford have very little overlap. I’m fat, 200 pounds over what I should be. I know what people think about that, because a surprising number of people will tell me to my face. I should have self-medicated with drugs. I would get more understanding.
I am ashamed that I am a homo,
I am ashamed that I am a fat bastard,
I am ashamed that I am on disability,
I am ashamed that I am depressed,
This is all my fault. It’s because of my poor lifestyle choices. I should have known better.
There is nothing shameful about having a mental illness.
No there isn’t.
…but I am.
I agree with you there. I certainly wouldn’t talk about it at work, or anywhere where I think it would have negative consequences. I more mean among friends and family. I guess the general rule of thumb is, “If this were a physical illness, would it be appropriate to talk about it now?”
No, it’s when one self medicates with alcohol that the behavior becomes shameful.
So, my, er, um, friend, says.
[quote=“olivesmarch4th, post:28, topic:623885”]
I agree with you there. I certainly wouldn’t talk about it at work, or anywhere where I think it would have negative consequences. I more mean among friends and family. I guess the general rule of thumb is, “If this were a physical illness, would it be appropriate to talk about it now?”[/QUOTE
Well, that’s the thing. If I a coworker told me that she had a yeast infection, I’d be like TMI! But if she told me that she had diabetes or a brain tumor, I wouldn’t feel that way. If our boss sent out an email informing everyone that she is in the hospital because of cardiac problems, it would be no big thing. But if he sent out an email informing everyone that she’s in a mental hospital, I would see that as a major breach of privacy.
I don’t think mental illness will EVER be as openly discussed as physical problems. But I don’t see this as a grand tragedy. Sure, there may be some shame that keeps me private, but why is that bad? Shame hasn’t stopped me from getting help or taking care of business in general. That’s all that matters.
I guess I don’t care so much about fighting stigmas.
Oops.
My TMI threshold is a lot higher than most other people’s. When I was in college I was part of an organization dedicated to fighting the stigma of mental illness. The group was created by people with mental illness, and we would write short plays, go into schools to educate, and sit on a panel for audience members to ask any questions they had.
This is actually how my husband and I came together - he was required to attend one of my performances for extra credit in his psych class.
Personally I loved the experience. It was so liberating, for both us and the audience. It even got my grandfather, the world’s most private person, to open up to me about his own depression.
I really just want to live in a world where having a psychiatric diagnosis isn’t viewed as a character flaw or a liability. I’m going to do my part to make that happen.
That’s a noble endeavor, and I hope one day it happens. And I think it will for some psychiatric diagnoses–such as depression and anxiety. Which I think is good, because those are the most commonly diagnosed problems.
I just don’t think it’s realistic to expect all psychiatric diagnosis to be unstigmatized to the same degree, not only because society isn’t ready to accept all disorders/diseases as being equal, but because the people with these conditions often have a very good reason for being private about them. The anti-shaming is very well-intentioned and respected from me, lest I be misunderstood. It’s just that I think it may make people feel ashamed for being ashamed…as if we need another reason to be down on ourselves. Feelings are neither right or wrong. They just are. I’m guess what I’m trying to say is that people shouldn’t forget this in their effort to be enlightened.
Good point.
Perhaps a troubling PSA or blood sugar reading would be a better analogy. Sometimes it’s OK to take a “wait and see” approach. That is, for a high PSA, the doctor may advise doing nothing now and checking the PSA again in a few months; if levels are still high, do more tests or try medication. Likewise, a patient with high blood sugar might be advised to get more exercise and modify their diet; if this fails to get the blood sugar levels down to a healthy level, then consider medication or insulin for control.
By analogy, if a patient complains of depression following, say, a death in the family, it may be reasonable to suggest waiting or making some simply lifestyle changes (socialize more, spend more time on a fun hobby). If the depression continues to be troubling, then look into trying medication. None of these conditions is cause for embarassment, and sometimes it’s OK to just live with it or make some other changes to manage it. However, we should accept that sometimes it IS necessary to treat the condition directly.
God, your contribution to this thread was just so helpful. Schmuck.
I’m there. If you ever want to talk, please email/PM me. My thoughts are with you.
Please don’t call other posters names in this forum. Use the Pit next time.
I understand where you’re coming from - with people like Anders Behring Breivik out there, there’s always going to be a stigma against mental illness.
But I think about things like how many homeless people have mental illnesses which contribute to their situations, and by saying ‘there’s no shame in having schizophrenia’ then maybe people will understand that homeless dude is not a lazy bum, but he’s incapable of holding down a job. Homeless dude may still feel ashamed of being schizophrenic, but because I said it’s okay to be ill someone might just get the courage to buy him breakfast and make his life a bit easier. Telling him not to be ashamed might not help him, but opening up people’s minds and having them treat him better still gets us to a positive point for him.
When I was in college I did attempt to fight stigma against the mentally ill by joining various groups and raising attention, but I somewhat regret doing so now. I think I am just exhausted at being judged and ridiculed. My goal in life now is to be anonymous. If nobody is around, nobody will ridicule, harass or take offense to me if I do something inappropriate (either due to my history of mental illness or by naturally poor social skills). I have become more sensitive to criticism as the years have passed. It sucks. I have spent years and years trying to recover from my own mental illness and terrible social skills and one of the ‘rewards’ is being socially aware enough to know that I am being rejected and judged far more acutely than I was aware in the past. I find ‘recovery’ somewhat shitty in the sense that I don’t like being this bland, oversensitive person. I miss the days of offending people and being too oblivious to notice.
I admire people with the courage to fight stigma. But it isn’t for me at the moment. I just want to be left alone anymore so I don’t have to worry about being judged or criticized.
I wonder how many other mentally ill people feel the same way. On one hand you want to fight stigma, on the other you just want to be in a safe, private environment where you can get away from the ridicule, exhibitionism, gossip and judgement you have to face anyway dealing with a mental illness.
I tend to think a big part of the social rejection of mental illness is how we still believe in the mind-body dichotomy in the west. Accepting mental illness as a shameless biological illness (rather than a sign of psychological weakness) is a way of accepting that the soul is a side effect of neural patterns in your brain that are as real and tangible as the chemicals that are in your car or in your dinner. I don’t know if people are ready to accept en masse the idea that their personality is a physical phenomena which can be drastically affected by biology and chemistry. I tend to think this is in part why the drug war exists, drugs show that our minds and personalities are a lot more tangible than people who subscribe to the ghost in the machine hypothesis would like to accept. If there is an ethereal soul that is not attached to the body but independent of it, why do schizophrenia and LSD have the effects that they do?
Need I say anything about my opinion? It definitely warms my heart to see so many others who agree. I think the biggest jump will be separating those who are a danger to themselves and society from the rest of us. Those who fit that category kinda need some sort of stigma, because they need someone feeling pity for them so that they can get help.
The good thing is that I think we are moving that way. I meet more and more people who realize that it’s an actual disorder and not a moral failing.
Feeling shame for their disorder? No. Feeling shame for their actions–that’s something everyone needs to know how to do. Anyone with personality disorder that prevents that needs to feel ashamed to become normal.
It’s not being an asshole to want there to be consequences for these people’s actions. And I say that as one of the people on this board who has made the topic of this thread one of his pet causes.