COLUMN: Let’s Talk Mental Health – Stigma a very real challenge

Let’s talk about the stigma that still surrounds mental health issues and makes living with a mental illness more difficult than necessary for many people. We know mental illness is a health problem significantly affecting how a person thinks, behaves, and interacts with others. Stigma prevents ill people from seeking help. Many people living with mental illness report the stigma they face is often worse than having the illness.

Three out of four people living with mental illness report they experiencing stigma. Stigma is a mark of disgrace that sets a person apart from others. When people are labelled by their illness, they become part of a stereotyped group. The negative attitudes that abound about mental illness create prejudice leading to negative actions and discriminatory practices.

Stigma has two parts: negative and unfavorable attitudes, and negative behaviours resulting from them. Ill people may experience stigma through various ways: loss of relationship with friends and family (the core of their social and support networks); inequality in housing, employment, and educational or other opportunities which healthy people take for granted; and the self-stigma that’s created when people with mental illness believe the negative messages felt from society around them.

Stigma causes ill people to experience shame, blame for their health issue, hopelessness, emotional distress, and misrepresentation in the media. Stigma makes them reluctant to seek the help they need, as this means admitting to their illness. Their families also feel effects of stigma, leading to lack of support. For mental health professionals willing to help, stigma describes them as abnormal, corrupt, or evil, while helpful psychiatric treatments are viewed with ignorance and suspicion.

A study about stigma found nearly 25 percent of people felt depression was a sign of personal weakness, depression was an unpredictable illness, and they would not employ people with depression. Only 42 percent of people in the study believed depression was untreatable. Nearly 66 percent reported people with schizophrenia were unpredictable, while 25 percent believed they were dangerous.

We know one in five Canadians will experience mental illness in their lifetime. Forty-nine percent of Canadians suspecting they’ve been depressed have never mentioned it to a doctor, even though anxiety and depression are among the top five reasons for visits to the doctor. Half of Canadians interviewed said they wouldn’t tell friends or coworkers if they had a family member with mental illness, although they wouldn’t hesitate to share that a family member had cancer.

Why are people so embarrassed admitting to mental health issues? One reason could be the false belief that we just have to get past it; while we can’t cure ourselves of diabetes or chancer, we should be able to be tough and get though a blue spell. In other words, succumbing to mental illness means weakness. This is just not true; research has identified many factors contributing to mental illness, including genetics and biology. We can’t argue that those genetic factors are the problem, that a mentally ill family member might reflect poorly on our genetic heritage, because we’re more open about family members with diabetes, arthritis, or cancer which can also have genetic causes.

People often ask

Q. How can we challenge stigma?

A. We all can do our part to create a mentally healthy nation that promotes recovery, social inclusion, and the reduction of discrimination. Simple ways include learning and and sharing facts about mental health and illness; getting to know people with personal experiences of mental illness; offering the same social support to people when they are mentally ill as when they are well; treating mentally ill people with the same respect and dignity we would any one else; not labeling or judging people living with mental illness; speaking up in protest or polite correction when colleagues, friends, family, or the media display negative stereotypes or false beliefs; and not discriminating with regard to participation, housing, and employment.

Perhaps the most important thing is talking openly of our own experiences of mental illness. Remember that the more hidden or secretive mental illness remains, the more people will continue to believe that it’s shameful and needs to be concealed.

Promoting mental health and eliminating stigma doesn’t depend only on individuals. Public policy to improve living conditions, addressing issues such as income, housing and living environments (schools, workplaces, family-work balance) has potential for major positive influence on our entire population’s mental health and attitudes to mental illness.