Jan
10
2012
Feeling Shame Is The Worst Thing About Mental Illness
Author: siggyFeeling shame is the worst thing about experiencing mental illness. It isolates you. It keeps you in a prison of your own making. The truth is everyone has problems. Unfortunately those diagnosed being mentally ill are singled out. And others around them by a wall of silence tacitly agree something is wrong with that person. And the stigma becomes internalized. While all it really is, is another set of problems.
And the truth is the only people who don’t have problems are those “under the ground.” Society perpetuates the stigma in all kinds of ways: the media is one big way. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies want to sell their drugs. Each version of the DSM has more diagnoses and is driven by the drug companies. They want to push their drugs. I find it interesting we are the only country to use the DSM. And they don’t care about the side effects. It just means they can then prescribe more drugs to treat them.
I have become very cynical about the drug companies. Most people want nothing to do with these drugs. For many people they don’t work and even make things worse when you are prescribed them and you go off of them. Medication is overused to treat mental illness. Medication can only help you so much assuming they are even helping you, which is a very big assumption. In fact nowadays most family doctors prescribe them. Most people do not want others to know they are seeing a psychiatrist. There is just too much shame about it.
Tags: diagnoses, drug companies, DSM, everyone has problems, family doctor, medication, medication overused to treat mental illness, mental illness, pharmaceutical, psychiatrist, shame, side effects, stigma
February 11th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Oh, Siggy. Shame is so darned debilitating. We would not have to feel shame about mental illness if our culture was one that nurtured those who were different, ill, old, misshapen…….as a culture, I think we miss the mark, and we allow ourselves to be led by magazines and TV, telling us what’s perfect for us, perfect for our lives……there is no shame in having an illness that YOU DID NOT ASK FOR, DID NOT GIVE YOURSELF, COULD NOT AVOID. We need to educate ourselves about what it means to be imperfect because each and every one of us is imperfect in many ways!!
February 17th, 2012 at 11:16 am
Sara,
That is certainly true that we are all imperfect. And people who are diagnosed mentally ill get singled out.