You’ve heard all the hurtful words before — words like “psycho,” “wacko,” and “schizo.”
Then there are the offhand descriptions of someone’s behavior as “OCD” or “having a panic attack.”
Advertisements regularly use mental illness symptoms to show how miserable life is without their products. And you’ve seen the jokes about mental health on television referring to “loony bins” and characters in straitjackets.
Mental health conditions are the butt of jokes in popular culture. While there are taboos against making discriminatory remarks about many groups of people, it seems that it’s open season on those with mental illnesses.
Negative portrayals of people with mental illnesses fuel fear and mistrust and reinforce distorted perceptions. They marginalize the mentally ill, making them feel that they are not useful members of society.
But if you or a loved one has a mental illness or has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, you know that these words and gimmicks and attitudes aren’t just harmless fun. They perpetuate the stigma attached to mental health conditions. Stigma and scapegoating makes you angry and upset, and it causes the public to misunderstand mental illnesses.
Though the stigma and scapegoating of a mental health disorder can be painful and shaming, you can find ways to cope with it and even combat it.
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