Walk for mental illness

7th May 2008

posted in Eating Disorders, Mental Health |

I’m participating in a walk this Saturday to benefit the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). The organization is holding more than 200 walks across 69 cities this year to help benefit people with mental illness. To check for walks in your area, see here.

I was diagnosed with both depression and an eating disorder within the past decade and despite the advances in mental illness awareness, I acutely felt a stigmatization with both. Raising funds to benefit mental illness research is much needed, but NAMI Walks also help to raise awareness about a problem still largely shrouded by shame. As the organization’s website states:

We may not be able to measure it, but we can sense that the tide of public opinion is shifting. Awareness brings compassion; compassion brings an openness to understanding and knowledge. Understanding and knowledge leads to empathy and a sense of community with one another. We are walking down that road, one WALK in one community, one step at a time.

I registered for an account on the website to sign up for the walk and was surprised to find a lot of resources at my disposal. You can customize your own homepage with news and updates on issues in mental health relevant to your interests or by disorder/condition, medication, by state and area, and type of news, like new research or legislative action. It’s a great resource for both researchers and those most intimately touched by mental illness.

How about you? Do you think mental illness continues to be stigmatized? Why or why not? If so, what can we do to help eliminate the shame and bias surrounding it?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Eating Disorders, Mental Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On May 7th, 2008, bookwyrm

said:

I think all illnessis stigmatized, and mental illness is only slightly more stigmatized than physical.

If you get heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer someone is going to want to know what you weigh, what you eat, what you do, did you smoke, did you tan, all that personal information and all the people who didn’t ask will talk about not blaming people for their illnesses while they whip out their notebooks to write down what they shouldn’t do. It just isn’t publicly acceptable to tell you that you deserve it. Too many people are certain they know exactly what causes all of these things, even though the medical esatblishment doesn’t really have even that many clues.

With mental illness, the assumption is, at best, that something happened to you that made you this way. Most things that happen to you are dismissed as irrelevant because either they aren’t happening now, or they “really weren’t that bad.” So you wind up with, again, that it is in some way your own fault you ended up like this, because anyone else would have been able to handle it. Then there’s the ease of faking it. Anyone can tell someone they feel bad and get happy drugs and feel better, just like anyone can tell someone they’re in pain and get happy drugs to feel better. I’m sure you’ll notice that chronic pain sufferers are just as likely to get the “it’s not really that bad, you’re just a whiner” line. Despite the fact that we know even less about mental illness than physical illness.

It’s sad, really. MOst people still cringe when they encounter someone visibly ill. Most people start pulling away when someone gets diagnosed with something difficult to deal with. Mental illness stigma is part of the overall whole, its just worse because it is, quite literally “all in your head.” Because that’s where your brain is, and the problems are in your brain.

posted on May 7th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

2 On May 7th, 2008, Krista

Rachel- First, thank you. Thank you for speaking up, and for supporting organizations who seek to promote awareness. I have graduation tomorrow and a zillion things to do, so I can’t give your questions the attention they deserve. Meanwhile, the short answer is yes, there is a lot of stigma around mental illness. As a parent, I have experienced the blaming that comes not only from the public, but from the medical establishment because my son has these issues. My ex-husband has trouble finding jobs and keeping them, especially when he ends up in the hospital. There is more stigma around mental illness than other, more well known types, although bookwyrm is right that all illness is somewhat stigmatized.
Meanwhile, the establishment is slowly changing. Recovery and resiliency, patient and family centered care, peer and family support workforce initiatives all contribute to this change. And as the people who reach out to help change, that influence spread. Even in 6 years, I have heard the way people are spoken about by staff in my agencies change. They are becoming people and respected in the eyes of those who help. It gives me hope.

posted on May 7th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

3 On May 8th, 2008, BamaGal

Rachel, I’m a member of NAMI myself. Unfortunately Alabama is one of the very few states with no walk. Our local chapter sucks big time. We do have the Out of the Darkness Suicide Awareness walk.

As for the stigma, stigma is very much alive. All you have to do is read the NAMI’s StigmaBusters page to see how widespread it is. There is a shift in our nation to having more consumers working within the mental health system as a whole—the Peer Support Specialists. I happen to have worked in that capacity. Yet was ostracized by my fellow co-workers.

I was working in a group home setting at the time and one of my fellow workers–someone who was supposed to understand mental illness—actually asked why they gave the keys to the crazy house to a crazy person. I had just been made the weekend supervisor at the time.

When consumers are treated like this within the mental health facility—-can your imagine how the general public must feel…..

Good luck to you on your walk.

You should share your support page link so people can have the opportunity to donate.

posted on May 8th, 2008 at 9:28 am

4 On May 8th, 2008, Jeanine

I’ve been dealing with depression my entire life. After the birth of my son nearly two years ago, it got really bad. I tried different anti-depressants, without much luck. The I finally started seeing a psychiatrist, and she tried something else.. and while we were waiting for that to kick in I got hit HARD with the depression.

She took me out of work for a few weeks. This made it hard to keep hiding it from my family. Most of them were compassionate.. but then there were comments from some like “why can’t she just get over it” and “you should get back to work.” And at my last job I kept missing work because of the depression, and I told them why, and then came quite obvious stigma to the point of almost receiving a negative work review.

People may be becoming more aware of mental illness, but there is still a LOT of room for improvement.

posted on May 8th, 2008 at 10:14 am