Imagine a world in which there was rampant discrimination against people who were left-handed. If you happened to be part of the 10% whose left hand was dominant, you would be judged by society as tainted. You would regularly be reprimanded by family members for choosing left-handedness, and they would tell you to snap out of it and use the other hand. Your clergy would suggest that left-handedness was a sign of sin, and if you simply prayed more you could use your correct hand. (After all, the Latin word for “left” is the same term from which we get the word “sinister.”) You would be encouraged to hide your left-handedness when you went in for a job interview lest they deem you unfit to work…the list goes on and on.
But while this close-mindedness seems outrageous in this context, it is routinely experienced by an even larger segment of the population: the one in six adults who suffer from some form of mental illness. These folks are regularly told that they are attention-seekers who should just snap out of it, an embarrassment and burden to their loved ones, or that they are crippled, incapable of living ordinary lives, making everyday decisions, or having typical jobs. Stigma is one of the toughest enemies that a person with illness will ever face.
As the executive director of North Carolina’s office of the largest grassroots movement in the nation addressing mental illness, I routinely talk with North Carolinians who bear the additional burden of stigma as they go through life with mental health challenges. On a personal level, I must guard against unwittingly reinforcing stigmas among staff, volunteers, and beloved family members with mental illnesses. Not surprisingly, then, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on what we must do as a society and as individuals to end the stigmatization of mental health.
1. Reject language that trivializes mental illness. Thankfully we are getting to the point in our culture where degrading someone with racially charged or sexually demeaning language is unacceptable. Not so with barbs about mental illness. Every time we tease that someone is “nuts,” whenever a politician talks about an opponent’s “psychotic rage,” whenever a used car dealer says his prices are so low that he must be “craaaaazy”—it mocks people who fight against mental illness every day of their lives.
2. Demand parity between how society treats physical and mental health. If there are not enough beds, insurance, research dollars, sick leave, and political capital to cover physical health, mental illness fares even worse. At best, it typically falls through the cracks in our society. At worst, one with severe and persistent mental illness is more likely to end up on the streets or in a jail than in a suitable treatment center.
3. Faith communities must teach that mental illness is not a choice, a sin, or a sign of lack of faith that can be prayed away. No one would say, “I know you have a broken leg, but if you trust in the Lord and keep praying, the broken leg will go away.” But well-meaning believers often suggest that the solution to mental illness is spiritual discipline instead of appropriate care.
4. Recognize that mental health stigmas are rooted in our own histories, and so each must be rooted out recognizing the context. One’s stigma may be based in privilege: “We are pillars of the community. We don’t have emotional problems, and if we do, we certainly don’t air them in public.” Another’s stigma may be based in oppression: “We have survived so much that we should be strong enough to deal with ‘having the blues.’”
5. We who deal with mental illness must tell our stories. Silence is based in shame, and there should be no shame in suffering a condition that was never asked for.
The stigmas of mental illness will never truly be overcome until we, as a society and as individuals, have the courage to speak up and say, “Enough. I will not stand by while you marginalize those who are vulnerable. It stops now.”
