When is the point that we have to take action like many others have done to undo the stigma of our label Schizophrenia?
Many others have succeeded in pushing back. Why has this not happened for us and what would you like to be done about it?
We need as many people out there being successful as we can manage. And then we need the successful ones being open about it.
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The stigma we face is strong but not insurmountable. When I told my manager that I have schizophrenia, he breathed heavily and the first question he asked me was whether I was on medication. Months later, my manager did not tell me but he actually wrote a blog post on my company’s intranet saying how great an employee I am. I wrote an article on the intranet telling people of schizophrenia to lower the stigma and it was sent to many departments within my bank. I was invited to speak on two separate conferences for two entire departments. I feel that my words and actions have touched many in my bank and afffected the perception of even senior executives. However, i cannot do this alone, more people will need to speak up.
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I don’t like to say that any victimized group’s stigma is their fault. I do think there are things we can do as a community that could help. One of the biggest issues I’ve seen in the community is people pushing bad stigma, such as its impossible to be successful, or using their illness to justify harmful behavior that they are of sound enough mind to know is wrong. How do we fight stigma if we can’t stop believing it ourselves?
The worst part is stigma within the mental health community. People complain about people with different mental illnesses such as bipolar, or depression, different personality disorders, or how annoying people with OCD are. Its like every other group has to compare who has it worse, when we all share the same struggles of finding success and dealing with life.
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I’m lucky in that since leaving home I’ve not experienced much stigmatising behaviour from the general public Much of that is probably down to not putting myself out there much.
The worst negative response I got to being mentally ill was on a UK based disability newsgroup consisting of a high ratio of physically disabled people. They not only thought they were better than people with mental illnesses, but also thought they were more deserving of support . I lost count of the times my mental illness was used a jibe because I said something someone didn’t agree with.
That was 1.5 to 2 decades ago,so maybe things have changed since then .
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