Does Mental Illness Stigma Really Exist?

So far we've been able to establish the fact that mental illness affects a great deal of people within our society. Mental illness is real and it’s serious. However, what about mental illness stigma? Does it really exist? Or are we just blowing things out of proportion? To find out more about the general population’s views on this issue, we decided to interview a range of people from a variety of backgrounds. Here is what they had to say:

“Of course I think there is stigma. I even have prejudices myself. It’s due to a lack of education on the subject and ignorance by the general public. People are afraid of people with mental illnesses because they are irrational and dangerous at times. Most criminal activities that are reported on the news involve some sort of mental illness associated with alcohol and drugs. My father had a mental breakdown when I was around 10 years old and spent some time in a mental home. I don’t know what triggered it, I was too young at the time. My sister-in-law tried to hang herself in our garage once. She had been diagnosed with severe depression and was on prescribed medication at the time. I think my mother was mentally ill but was undiagnosed and didn’t seek any help.”

- 52 Year Old Male Teacher

“Most times when someone is hurt or injured they are treated immediately. Suddenly when someone experiences a mental illness, it’s like they have something wrong with them and people tend to back away. When someone has or claims to have a mental illness such as depression, most people don’t believe them and just think they’re trying to seek attention. They don’t see it as a serious issue that needs to be resolved.”

- Year 11 Female Student

“I think it’s a taboo topic. People often avoid it and don’t know how to relate or deal with it. Do you bring it up in conversation or just ignore it? Stigma exists because we don’t know how to deal with it. My dad still says that depression is just people being sad. It’s a really complicated area. Every man and his dog seems to have depression these days so you don’t know if it’s legit or not. I’ve heard of doctors who just hand out prescriptions so easily - it’s like this person is on meds and that person is on meds. It seems to be way too prevalent in our society, is it because we’re just not satisfied?"

- 21 Year Old Female University Student

“I think there is a bit of an impression that it’s (depression) something you can fix yourself."

- 21 Year Old Male University Student

“When I was younger nobody would speak about mental health problems, it wasn't something you wanted other people to know about. If a family member had issues, you would keep it quiet. People with mental health problems were considered “looney"."

- 60 Year Old Male

It seems then that the general population agrees mental illness stigma exists. A number of points were raised as to why this may be the case, notably a lack of knowledge and culturally engrained perceptions of mentally ill people. A more in depth discussion of these factors certainly warrants a blog post in its own right!