Mental illness is often seen as some sort of a skeleton that needs to stay hidden in our closets, or a plague we need to stay away from. This mindset is fueled by the way mental illness and the mentally ill are represented in our society. We have all heard a classmate, a friend, or a coworker say "That's crazy!" or "I'm so OCD". These are likely the two most common examples of degrading language in our society towards the mentally ill, and we don't even think twice about saying them. In many TV shows and movies, we see mental illness being shunned or looked down on. Even children's TV shows and movies are cluttered with examples of how we reinforce our children with the idea that mental illness is shameful or dangerous.
The way that mental illness and the mentally ill are being represented in this society is making people who suffer from mental illness feel more isolated. As Michael Friedman mentioned in his article The Stigma of Mental Illness is Making Us Sicker, this bias isn't only being seen from neighbors, friends, classmates, and coworkers of people with mental illness; we see this very same bias in health care professionals and even in some mental health professionals. When someone suffers from mental illness, it's likely that they already are feeling isolated and alone. Experiencing this unfair stigma against them from every angle will likely make them feel worse and worse.
This stigma can affect people and make them develop a sense of "self-stigma" in themselves. This involves people with mental illness looking down on themselves and giving up, largely because of how society sees them. The idea of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is entirely false; whether it's bullying or thinking lowly of someone for their mental health status, people get hurt.
The stigma so many people hold against mentally ill is, as stated in my title, wrong. By contributing to this stigma, we are making someone else's struggle worse. There is a chance that someone in that classroom that heard you say "that's crazy" could have taken offense to that, but didn't want to speak up over the laughter the rest of the class was expressing. Even some of our educators are guilty of aiding in this discrimination; in fact, I am confident that if you really listen to what people say over the next week, you'll hear many examples of this unjust stigma.
Over the next week, really think about what people around you are saying, and how other people might perceive it. I really believe that you will hear examples of both the indirect stigma (when people don't necessarily know what they are saying could be offensive) and direct stigma (these are the obvious ones when people say things, jokingly or not, which seem very offensive or negative towards the mentally ill) in your everyday lives, whether it's from the news, an old show on reruns, someone on social media, or someone physically in your life.
Our society is on the verge of reaching major changes to the ideas of what is and is not seen as being "correct", but the elimination of this harmful stigma doesn't seem to be on many people's agendas. Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, it is nothing to hide our children from, and most importantly, it is not a joke.
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw
