A little pissed of about stigma for the first time

Met up with a friend today who was hanging out with another friend I didn’t know as well. He just started to talk ■■■■ about my situation, proposing I’m some type of outcast. Everything inside me had to resist from knocking him out. If I where to have cancer people would have compassion/empathy, when in reality I’ve been through so much hell from this, me getting cancer I would look at it as a blessing just to get the ■■■■ out of this distorted perception of reality that is parallel to hell.

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What did he mean exactly? Was he actually trying to tell you to go away or was it a very clumsy, hurtful way to acknowledge the stigma imposed on people with mental health problems? Sometimes people don’t express themselves well. It’s their lack of social skills!

Maybe he doesn’t believe in mental illness. I acknowledge mental illness exists, I just have a different view on treatment and prevention than some.

■■■■ people and their diluted ■■■■ face ways. Being a bully is not cool.

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Another thought: It’s not necessarily true that cancer brings sympathy. A lot of people suffer from the delusion called “the just world theory”. That means they believe, or want to believe, that life is fair. So if you are ill its because you did something wrong: you got cancer bcs you didn’t eat right/you smoke, you got sz bcs you smoked dope, etc. No matter how many counter examples you produce they cling to the theory. Why? Bcs it makes them feel they WON’T get anything bcs they’re “more careful” than you. How do they know that they’re more careful? Well, bcs they haven’t got it! Classic delusion. Most of the population of the Western world suffers from that one. So your unfriend has a major delusion.

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Deserves a bit more than a punch for that one.

Wouldn’t you say?

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yes, I totally understand. I asked a friend to assist if I ever should go into a hospital again, and she said some nasty things in a backhanded kind of way, one thing was “normal people wanted to help me”, and “had a friend with that, jumped off a bridge and killed himself”, and “wholly ■■■■, only if you’re on your meds!”

haven’t spoken to her since…

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“The just world theory” is a primitive one for peasants. It is a very Dark Ages way of thinking which links disease with sin.

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My first exposure to stigma was when a children’s summer camp arrived on a city bus.

An old lady said “What’s up with these Midwich Cuckoo looking children. They all look so spaced out”.

Bus driver “Mam, I am removing you from my bus. You can walk home. Those children are all autistic”.

That old lady+ your friend would make a perfect match.

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That`s the way to do it! I think I just would have walked away…

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Some people need an education on mental illness. They are so unaware.

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Some people just suck at being human.

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good on you for not hitting him, you showed yourself up to be the better person.
take care

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