Stigma

I’ve been reading a lot about stigma on recovery websites. I know stigma is still very much alive, and very hard to change. I can remember back in 1994, when I was first looking to rent an apartment for the first time since my mental distress. I was with my sister looking at a nice apartment when I mentioned to the manager showing the apartment that I had a mental illness. She immediately stopped talking to me and started talking to my sister. I knew I would not get that apartment. Although because of disabilities Act, she had to make up another excuse why she could not rent to me. I know a lot of people with mental distress feel a lot like me. If you mention that you have mental distress, people suddenly change on you. I know that there are a lot more recovered people out there, besides the ones we read on the blogs and websites. They hold good jobs and have families, but know if they tell they have mental distress their whole world will change and not for the better. Besides this blog and friends that have known me for a while I do not announce I have a mental illness. A lot of the time they do not look at what a person has accomplished, once you say mental illness the way they look at you has changed. I know it is because of the misinformation in the news, and in the movies about mental distress. People will always have something they will be afraid or hate something. Maybe years from now and slowly things will change.