“Stigma” is not the problem; bigotry against the “mentally ill” is!

 

“Stigma” is just the symptom, the effect of open societal and individual bigotry against those deemed “mentally ill.”  It’s just like the “stigma” of being black in the South during the period of Jim Crow segregation.  Being a black person “stigmatized” one by the color of one’s nonwhite skin, but the underlying cause of the “stigma” was the open societal bigotry against those deemed “colored,” even to “one drop of Negro blood”!  As with blacks then, we “mentally ill” are deemed “inferior” simply because of who we are; and if we seek professional treatment for our “mental illness,” the bigotry follows us, follows us with the false “Aha!”:  “See, I told you he [or she] was one of those people!”

 

I suffered this bigotry openly from my family, for whom I allegedly brought shame upon the whole family for undergoing psychiatric treatment.  I also suffered this bigotry openly here in Indianapolis, where I’ve lived since late 1979, because one person, of whom one of her friends said “She had a narrow conception of mental illness,” badmouthed me publicly for twenty-six years, and which badmouthing still haunts me to this day, despite this person now being dead for over a decade; because, as a Quaker “saint,” she was believed automatically and uncritically, but none of those who believed her ever questioned me about it!  No, instead, they just shunned me, which is what this person wanted.  To her, I was more crippled because of “mental illness” than if I had been confined to a wheelchair!  And yet—this person worked as the head nutritionist of a well-known local hospital.  And had a Master’s degree.  Yes, even the educated and supposedly intelligent can hold onto truly infantile bigotries.  One of her friends even told me, “I avoided making your acquaintance for three years because I had heard you had ‘mental problems.’”

 

So, the “stigma” of seeking psychiatric help comes from the bigotry so prevalent out there; we are literally damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.  And it’s institutionalized, and in high places.  Such as, after a horrific mass shooting a couple of years back, President Trump proclaimed publicly that guns don’t kill people, the mentally ill kill people!

 

So, my NAMI friends, focusing on “stigma” doesn’t get to the root of the problem: the open societal and individual bigotry against those deemed “mentally ill,” and our damnation whether we seek or forego seeking professional help.  It is that bigotry that must be firmly extirpated, not simply its accompanying “stigma.”

 

Indeed, the “stigma” of being labeled “mentally ill” is far greater than the “stigma” of having an STD.  After all, the “stigma” of coming down with an STD can give one bragging rights:  “Well, if you had such an active sex life as I have, where not only do I get all I can handle and then some, you’d realize that sooner or later it was inevitable that I’d catch an STD.  Just the cost of doing the business of getting all the sexual pleasure I can.  And boy can I!”

 

Then there are those mental health consumers themselves who try to fight the “stigma” of seeking truly professional help by indulging instead in all kinds of New Age nostrums and pseudo-sciences.  Such as one mental health consumer I knew who was telling all her fellow mental health consumers, “Go off your medication, and let God heal you.” (By the way, she and her husband went off their medications and did thousands of dollars’ worth of property damage; and had to be ordered by a court of law to stay on their medications!)  Though, to be honest, the ofttimes horrific side effects of psychotropic medications make going off them seem a very attractive option to those who are on them.  But these are but two more “adverse side effects” of what is a wrongheaded approach to the “stigma” of “mental illness” in the first place!

 

Then there is the problem of wrongheaded, inadequate, and often just plain malfeasant psychiatry and psychotherapy.  This, too, results in, and feeds, “stigma.”  But the answer to that “stigma” is better, more affordable, more accessible, psychiatry; which means more good alternatives, not simply consignment to often wrongheaded, inadequate and malfeasant CMHCs, especially for those who lack private incomes, rich families, or strong insurance.  Money, and its lack, also feeds “stigma.”  But again, I must emphasize, it is not “stigma” as such that is the problem; it is the underlying bigotry that fuels the “stigma.”