Self-Stigma

To know that people who label the mentally ill with stigma, can be hard enough on a person. Although when there is self-stigma it can even be worse. One reason might be that you will not seek treatment, because you do not want the stigma of being labeled mentally ill. How would you even begin the road to recovery if you cannot rise above the low self-esteem of being labeled mentally ill? I have mentioned this in a prior blog. I could not face what happened to me when I was in prison and became mentally ill. My friends were there to help me and stick by me. I could not accept what was happening to me or even understand what was happening to me. One reason is a long time before when I was in prison I had seen a person come back to the general population of prison after he had a mental illness. I remember him telling people he was sorry about having a mental illness. That is a memory I always keep and wonder about. Here is a very well written article on self-stigma it talks about when stigma comes from within. Self-stigma can hamper you from doing the things, you would like to do. Like beginning the road to recovery or looking for work. You have a low self-image of yourself. Some of the articles I have read about stigma, say that stigma might be increasing, with every time something happens in the news and movies portraying people with a mental illness as crazy killers or such. It makes it harder to remove stigma from people’s minds. There are articles talking about how people in recovery can start telling their story of how they became mentally ill, and how they recovered. I believe this way has a better chance of removing stigma. They can see from your story how you became mentally ill and the road a person took to recover. Personally I think it will be a long time before mental illness is accepted and belief that people can recover from a mental illness although I am hopeful.