Not so different

I remember in high school I used to see the kids in the "special classes" being teased, it was usually mocking of how they were walking or talking either directly to them or behind their backs. I think it was because they were different…they were separated…no one really knew what they did or what they could do. Link and Phelan would call this… internalized discrimination. Over time, through socialization we build stigmas against MI. I never thought negatively about these people or made fun of them but I remember being weary the first time I ever talked to someone with a mental illness. A few people were selected from gym class to go help with the Special Olympics team at the bowling alley and I was one of those people. This was in 10^th grade and I remember feeling nervous because I did not know what to expect! I remember questioning: What do I talk to them about?...Can they talk?...Are they violent?...Should I be scared? It turned out to be SO much fun and I really enjoyed it. I wondered afterward why was I so scared? Who put these questions in my head?
If there were more opportunities like this (especially starting at a young age) people wouldn’t have this fear of the unknown. MI shouldn’t be something that is so *hush*hush* and you are not supposed to bring it up or ask questions…how will people learn that they are not so different??They were way better than me at bowling!!!
 The below link is to an article that goes along with my above statements. It says there are 3 approaches to reducing stigma: protest, education, and contact.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489812/

Direct discrimination seems like it should be common sense NOT to do! We learn about the golden rule growing up…treat others how you want to be treated...this rule should be taught by parents, teachers, whoever has contact with young people. Bullying has become a huge issue and it can definitely bring on MI (depression, social anxiety, low self-esteem)  that can impact a person's life forever.

A way to reduce structural discrimination would be through advocacy. People with MI should have the same rights as we do and should be able to get good health care, live where they want to live and feel safe in their environment.

The bullets below are from an article written by Peter Byrne titled, Stigma of mental illness and ways of diminishing it…..
In the past three years, these are the learning experiences that have been encountered at advocates' meetings:

• an architect objecting to her work colleagues' constant references to a psychiatric unit they were designing as a “nut house” or “psycho depot”
• an insurance executive, with a remote history of mental illness, challenging the loading of his insurance policy – by his own firm
• a nurse, following an episode of depression, insisting on returning to the intensive care unit and not, as suggested, to a convalescence ward
• a medical student challenging the Dean to show the same flexibility with mental illness as he had previously shown with physical disability
• a teacher with bipolar disorder encouraging the schools' board to include information on this illness on the curriculum
• a footballer insisting his team play the local psychiatric unit
• a newsagent offering to keep newspaper cuttings to facilitate a local initiative on negative media coverage of mental health issues
• a parent's description of services as “supermarket psychiatry”
• a man who had recovered from an episode of depression, objecting to a public education campaign that would include schizophrenia and depression together: “Why drag depression down to the level of the gutter?”
• a consultant psychiatrist, on hearing an articulate account of schizophrenia from a woman living with the illness, “Then she couldn”t be schizophrenic”

http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/6/1/65.full

I thought these were interesting because they are real life scenarios to show that this is a problem. Through more education, exposure, contact and advocacy  we can fight STIGMAS!