Stigma and Self-Stigma

I have written about stigma in prior blogs. Although not self-stigma, I believe it will be a long time before people with a mental illness will be accepted. Then they will be able to recover without stigma. I know from my years in college and lately researching about mental illness and recovery. There are a lot of people whom have recovered and are lawyers and such. Some tell they have a mental illness, although most do not. When celebrities and famous people tell about their mental illness it helps a lot. Here is such an article of 15 Famous People who’ve helped Demystify Depression. It is good. I encourage you to click on the links of each and see how they are trying to help end stigma. Now I will discuss self-stigma and you can read a very good article about self-stigma. It also has a very good definition of what stigma is. It is hard enough to deal with stigma from others. When you start believing what they say and turn that inward it is very sad. I do not believe that you can fully recover if you are believing that you are incompetent or other things they might say about people with a mental illness. I do believe that someday people with a mental illness will be accepted. I still believe that day is long in coming. Until then do not turn that stigma into self-stigma.