When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like.

~ Jenny Lawson

Jenny Lawson Depressed Depression Fear Mental Health Mental Health Stigma Mental Illness Recovery Recovery Quotes Shame Stigma Stigmatized Survivors

Sometimes, this disapproval of how you are managing your pain crosses over to disbelief that you are in as much pain as you say you are. They don’t believe that your pain is a legitimate enough reason to rest or nap or cry or take narcotic medications or not go to work or to go to the doctor. They might think that you are making too big of a deal out of it. They doubt the legitimacy of the pain itself.This kind of stigma is the source of the dreaded accusation that chronic pain is “all in your head.” It’s as if to say that you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

~ Murray J. Mcalister

Murray J. Mcalister Accusation All In Your Head Analogy Chronic Pain Chronic Pain Stigma Debelief Disbelief Invalidation It S All In Your Head Judgemental People Lack Of Compassion Marginalized Narcotics Opioid Use Opioids Pain Pain Killer Pills Pain Quotes Pain Relief Painkillers Physical Pain Questioning Your Reality Stigma Stigmatization Stigmatized

Disclosures of childhood sexual abuse have frequently been discredited through the diagnosis of hysteria. In this view, women/female children were seen either as culpable seducers who were not really damaged by the sex abuse or as dramatic fantasizers projecting their own incestuous wishes onto the father. I will argue that this view pervades the false-memory movement and can be found, for example, in Gardner's work (1992).

~ Judith L. Alpert

Judith L. Alpert Biased Child Sexual Abuse Childhood Sexual Abuse Discredit False Memories False Memory Syndrome False Memory Syndrome Myth Fantasizing Fantasy Hysteria Hysterical Incest Melodramatic Mental Health Bias Mental Health Stigma Mental Illness Stigma Perjorative Sexism Sexual Abuse Stigmatized

It’s hard to imagine a more squarely on-the-nose example of demonizing mental illness than portraying a mentally ill man as a literal demon.

~ Charles Bramesco

Charles Bramesco Demonization Demonized Dissociative Identity Disorder Mental Health Stigma Mental Illness Mental Illness Stigma Multiple Personalities Multiple Personality Disorder Split Split Personalities Stigmatization Stigmatized

Here I want to stress that perception of losing one’s mind is based on culturally derived and socially ingrained stereotypes as to the significance of symptoms such as hearing voices, losing temporal and spatial orientation, and sensing that one is being followed, and that many of the most spectacular and convincing of these symptoms in some instances psychiatrically signify merely a temporary emotional upset in a stressful situation, however terrifying to the person at the time. Similarly, the anxiety consequent upon this perception of oneself, and the strategies devised to reduce this anxiety, are not a product of abnormal psychology, but would be exhibited by any person socialized into our culture who came to conceive of himself as someone losing his mind.

~ Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman Asylum Madness Mental Health Stigma Mental Hospital Stereotypes Stigma Stigmatization Stigmatized

I will be living with chronic pain for the rest of my life. I don’t have the mobility, energy or life options I used to have. I work hard to manage the pain, and I want the medical system to be a respectful and effective partner, not a jailer. The opioid crisis is not my doing.

~ Sonya Huber

Sonya Huber Addiction Chronic Illness Chronic Pain Chronic Pain Stigma Judgemental People Opioid Use Opioids Pain Killer Pills Pain Management Painkillers Stigmatization Stigmatized

There’s a saying that goes something like: ‘We are all one drink or pill away from addiction,’ and I know this is meant to destigmatize what addicts go through, but I feel like I’ve been seeing variations on this ‘common knowledge’ more and more lately being used (on social media) as a cudgel to remind patients to not overdo it,” Anna says, speaking to the dual-edged sword of awareness. A motto designed to humanize the experience of addiction has been turned into a weapon that targets people who rely on opioids for pain management, and that translates to real-world stigma.

~ S. E. Smith

S. E. Smith Addiction Anti Stigma Chronic Pain Chronic Pain Stigma Opiates Opioid Use Opioids Pain Killer Pills Pain Management Painkiller Stigmatization Stigmatized

Every time you feel like mocking a person you disagree with politically by implying that they are mentally ill, I want you to instead imagine you are talking to every single person who actually is mentally ill and telling them they are worthless. That's how it makes mentally ill people feel. Doesn't seem very progressive now does it?

~ Ariel Howland

Ariel Howland Crazy Labelling Mental Disorder Mental Disorder Bias Mental Health Stigma Mental Illness Discrimination Mentally Disturbed Mocking Politics Prejudice Progressive Stigma Stigmatization Stigmatized Worthlessness

The history of hysteria is a history of the relation between the colonizing father and the colonized devalued other.

~ Judith L. Alpert

Judith L. Alpert Biased Colonized Dehumanize Devalue Devalued Discredit Hysteria Hysterical Melodramatic Mental Health Bias Mental Health Stigma Mental Illness Stigma Perjorative Sexism Sexual Abuse Stigmatized

Although stigmatizing attitudes are not limited to mental illness, the public seems to disapprove persons with psychiatric disabilities significantly more than persons with related conditions such as physical illness (34-36). Severe mental illness has been likened to drug addiction, prostitution, and criminality (37,38). Unlike physical disabilities, persons with mental illness are perceived by the public to be in control of their disabilities and responsible for causing them (34,36). Furthermore, research respondents are less likely to pity persons with mental illness, instead reacting to psychiatric disability with anger and believing that help is not deserved (35,36,39).World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16–20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illnessPATRICK W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON

~ Patrick W. Corrigan

Patrick W. Corrigan Bias Blame Blamed Disabilities Disability Quotes Disabled Disabled Veterans Discrimination Fear Mental Health Stigma Stereotyped Prejudices Stigma Stigmatization Stigmatized