Coming Out

If your first thought is that this post is going to be about either my sexuality, or someone elses, you’d be forgiven. Coming out used to be about being presented to society, and more recently it’s been about coming out of the closet. Usually the gay closet. I’m not about to do either of these but coming out is something that I’ve been thinking about in terms of mental illness.

Lately I’ve been reading a number of blogs and articles about the stigma of mental illness, and more specifically the stigma of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). And each time I’ve finished feeling a little frustrated, like we haven’t quite hit the nail on the head yet in addressing this problem.

That’s why I started thinking about the way in which sexuality, and more specifically, different kinds of sexuality have been moving toward a more acceptable space in society. I know that there is a long way to go yet for the LGBT movement, to enable all people to feel able to be who they are without being stigmatized. I look forward to the day when we all accept people for who they are.

Image credit: Hugh Young

It’s got me thinking. Head back nearly 30 years ago, in New Zealand there was massive reform going on to see homosexuality legalised in 1986. It was a huge reform which saw many protests and arguments. Actually it was much along the lines of the Marriage Equality legislation that is currently being debated in many countries (including New Zealand).

As a young, (I was 21) heterosexual I could have chosen to ignore the 1980′s reform. At the time I was very involved in a Christian church (as I had been all my life) where homosexuality was frowned upon.  Actually ‘frowned’ is not that word.  It was regarded as wrong, and as a sin.

For me though, at the time I was working in an office where my boss was an openly gay man, and a co-worker was openly transsexual. It gave me a completely different view-point than the middle-class, Christian upbringing I had.  At that time, to be open about your sexuality was a big thing.  Not only were my workmates going against the norm, they were also going against the law.

I have to admit that it wasn’t until I knew those people who I realised that actually we are all the same and that no one deserves to be judged by another.  At 21, I came to the conclusion that if they weren’t hurting anyone then why should they not be able to live freely the life they chose?  I accordingly voted for homosexual law reform.

What has this got to do with mental illness?  It strikes me that those of us who have mental illness need to ‘come out’ too.  I know only too well that when we’re dealing with mental illness, we’ve got more than enough to think about let alone taking on activism.  But it seems to me that it is exactly what had to happen (and still happens) for those of a sexuality other than heterosexuality.  They had to come out in order to see change happen in our society.  Maybe it’s not fair, but no one can deny that coming out has helped open society to different realities.

Image credit: GO LIME Awareness for Mental Health (GLAMH)

Maybe it shouldn’t have been the responsibility of the LGBT movement to change the thinking of society.  In an ideal world, I’d go so far as to suggest as this should have been a responsibility of all human beings.  The thing is though, that the LGBT movement were the one’s who had a vested interest in getting laws and attitudes changed.

In the same way it is those of us with mental illnesses who have the vested interest in seeing the end of the stigma of mental illness.  It seems to me that I will directly benefit if there is more openness and acceptance of mental illness in society.  For my neighbours who don’t have a mental illness the benefit is indirect.

I’d like to think that everyone in society would want this, but the reality is that there isn’t the same obvious benefit for them, as there is for me.  They’re not the one’s who have to think carefully who they admit their mental illness to.  I do though, and in that respect I am little different from my transsexual work-mate of 30 years ago.

I believe we have a choice.  We can sit and wait, hoping that one day society will magically change its attitude to mental illness.  Or we can think about speaking up.  Coming out about our mental illness.  Because the more people who realise that they have a friend, neighbour, family member or work-mate with a mental illness, the more acceptable it will become.

It doesn’t need to be a big deal.  I don’t think we need to list off all our diagnoses.  Actually I believe that would be as off putting as if we listed off everything that was physically wrong.  We just need to let people know that mental illness is exists, and is not the scary thing society has thought it to be. If we can admit to our friends that we have, say diabetes, then why not mental illness?  This is exactly what the LGBT movement has done… shown that different sexualities are actually normal.

I don’t for one moment think that this is an easy ask.  There is a lot at stake.  I’ve simply come to the conclusion that I can’t just sit and wait, hoping that one day things will change.  It’s not going to magically happen.  But if each person takes a small step, as the LGBT people have done over years, and as other minority groups have also done in the past, then we start to make a difference.

♦

“We learned three crucial lessons from LGBT activists: We had to build a movement. We couldn’t be afraid to challenge our friends in power. And we had to give our cause a human face.”

 - Frank Sharry,  America’s Voice

♦

“We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy … It’s only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong.” 

―    Robert James Brown

Related articles

• Learning From LGBTs How To Change Minds (peteearley.com)
• How did we build an immigrant movement? We learned from gay rights advocates. (washingtonpost.com)
• Blog For Mental Health 2013 (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Still Standing Up To Stigma (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Demolishing Stigma (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Illustrating Stigma (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• It’s All In Your Head! (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

It’s All In Your Head!

What are we so afraid of?  Why does being told ‘it’s all in your head’ fill us with terror and completely write off any sense of being validated as a patient in need of help?

My view is that it’s all about the stigma of mental illness.  Somehow we’ve interpreted the message ‘it’s all in your head’ to mean ‘it’s not real’.  And we’ve done that for very good reasons.

I recently read an article about some work being done in understanding Gulf War Syndrome, which has many symptoms similar to fibromyalgia.  They have found that there is clear evidence of brain damage in sufferers, and one of the hopes is that in developing a test (a fMRI) to diagnosis the illness, it will lead onto the more accurate diagnosis of Fibro and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Here’s a quote from that article:

“Many veterans have had difficulties getting benefits and treatment for a service-connected condition because doctors assumed they were either faking it or suffering from post-traumatic stress. “That’s a problem with all physicians — VA, military or civilian,” Baraniuk said. “If it doesn’t fall within their small world of known diseases, then the patient is nuts.”

It’s actually the same with Fibro (and I assume, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), that patients are sometimes thought to be faking their symptoms, or somehow worse still, thought to be psychologically based… and therefore assumed to be somehow not real.

Maybe I have an advantage because I have both mental illnesses and physical illnesses.  I haven’t seen it as an advantage until now but it must be because I know that mental illnesses are real.  That means that I also know that if a doctor sees fit to tell me my physical illness is psychologically based, then I know that their opinion doesn’t remove my symptoms, and therefore my suffering, being real.

My Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is real.  The Anorexia I struggled with for years was real.  The Depression was real.  The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was even real.

They were also ‘all in my head’.  They were all psychologically based, although some of them also affected me physically too.  No one could realistically deny that I was suffering, or that I needed real help to either fight, or manage these conditions.

To add to that, there were very real physical consequences to some of those illnesses.  For example, it is difficult not to accept that Anorexia, as well as being a mental illness, has profound effects on the body which need to be medically treated.  The fact that it is a mental illness does not take away the doctor’s need to treat the patient medically.

If those conditions that I have had or currently still live with, can be identified as psychological but still be treated, then does it really matter whether my fibro is seen as a psychological or a physical illness?  Personally, I don’t think so.  The symptoms are still there, as is my suffering.  Is it ‘all in my head’, or in some other part of my body?  In terms of how it is treated there maybe a considerable difference, but there isn’t a difference in terms of my very real need for help.

My opinion is that the problem with issues addressed by the quote above does not lie with the veterans who are suffering.  The problem is with the medical professional who deem it fit to view that something isn’t real if it is psychological.  Either way the patients with symptoms need help, but it seems too easy for doctors to cast someone aside because their symptoms are from a particular basis.

Even if the doctor wishes to put symptoms down to ‘attention seeking’, my view is that there is still a need for that person to be treated.  Maybe treated differently, but the person still needs help.  Right now it seems that a seeming psychological cause, let alone fake, is simply dismissed often.  That is so wrong.

I actually had a similar issue to this problem a few weeks back with the medical specialist who monitors the auto-immune condition I have called Graves’ Disease.  Graves’ Disease affects a number of parts of the body but primarily the thyroid gland, leading to hyperthyroidism and eventually something called thyrotoxicosis (when levels get toxic and life threatening).

My endocrinologist examined my blood results which indicated that my thyroid levels are currently in a safe range.  The problem for me (and I’d like to think it had been for her too) is that sitting in front of her, I had many of the symptoms of thyrotoxicosis. I can tell you that those symptoms were not pleasant and I was hoping that she would help me to address some of them.  I could accept that the blood tests suggested I wasn’t dying, but I was definitely suffering.

Interestingly she was seemingly interested in helping me to alleviate the symptoms until she went to check my case with her supervisor.  Then she came back and told me that because the blood results were fine, there was nothing that needed to be done.  I was shown the door, and actually later I found she had then formally discharged from the Thyroid specialist service I had been under for several years.

My point is that I was still suffering, but she wasn’t interested.  There’s something wrong when doctors dismiss patients when there is clear evidence of suffering.  Just like the Gulf War veterans.  There is suffering, and whether it is faked, ‘all in the head’, Post-Traumatic stress, or clear sign of physical brain damage (as the fMRI will detect)…  there is a patient who is suffering, who has lost quality of life…  and needs help.

I think it’s sad that the general view is that if something is ‘all in your head’ that somehow the pain and suffering is not real and does not need treatment.  Somehow we need to move away from that view because while it remains, it increases the stigma of mental illness because that too, is seen as not real.  It also increases the likelihood that people won’t seek help when they need it.

But as well as the general population view on this, I am convinced that it is medical professionals that need to lead the way in change.  What they have in front of them is a patient who needs help.  That’s actually what matters.

PS.   There is evidence that the situation with my Graves’ Disease is actually quite common, where the blood results indicate everything is ‘normal’ but the patient reports a very different reality in terms of symptoms.  I’m not aware of a substantiated reason for this though.  Unfortunately many health professionals choose to deny the existence of such an anomaly and so patients end up going without the help they may need.

♦

“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.” 

―    Norman Cousins,    Anatomy Of An Illness

♦

“A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist. This means that in order to be a good doctor a man must also have a good character, that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have, he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his own.”

Auden, W. H.

Related articles

• Researchers tie Gulf War illness to brain damage (usatoday.com)
• The Black Mark Against Mental Illness  (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• What My Doctor Won’t Tell Me (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Brain Changes Could Contribute to Gulf War Illness: Study (news.health.com)
• Researchers tie Gulf War illness to brain damage (usatoday.com)
• Researchers find Gulf War Syndrome is a real illness (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)

Still Standing Up To Stigma

In doing my research, then writing and keeping up with feedback later, for my post The Black Mark Against Mental Illness I was reminded of just how strong the stigma against mental illness is.  People feel very strongly about being labelled as having a mental illness, and I don’t think that’s so much about the label (or the treatment that might be needed), as the attitude they expect from the general public, as well as the attitude they apply to themselves about having a mental illness.

That post made me realise anew just how hard it is to accept a diagnosis of mental illness, and had me thinking that we have to do something about this because it’s stopping people from getting the help and treatment they need.

So it was timely when I discovered Healthy Place’s Stand Up For Mental Health Campaign, which starts today.  This campaign in about standing up to, and eliminating the stigma against mental illness.  By taking part in this, I am saying:

There is nothing “wrong” with having a mental illness.

♦

People with a mental illness are not alone in what they are dealing with.

♦

People with a mental illness shouldn’t feel ashamed or forced to hide their mental illness symptoms and desire for effective treatment.

♦

Mental health stigma will no longer be tolerated.

One thing I have been reminded of recently is being told their illness or symptoms are ‘all in their head’ is scary for people.  I’ve particularly noticed this amongst fibromyalgia sufferers who, like me, often have a hard job getting doctors  to take their suffering seriously.  When any suffering impedes our daily life, it is serious and I think it is so sad that this is a common attitude struck by people with chronic pain conditions.

As quite rightly pointed out to me the other day it IS ’all in their head’.  After all, whether it is fibromyalgia, which has it’s grounding in neurological functioning, or a specific mental illness, it does come from the brain… which is found in the head.  Why should something based in the head be something to be feared or ignored?  It shouldn’t be.  It is just as important as if I have a twisted ankle which affects my walking.

When people are suffering, they shouldn’t need to fear the reactions of either medical staff, media, or their friends and family.  Whatever the basis of suffering is, it is real and should be treated as such.

Yet again, I go on about stigma and now I have joined this Campaign.  I think that’s what it’s going to take.  For us to continually chip away against the attitudes that exist.  Every time we contribute to the conversation against stigma, then we are creating an ocean full of acceptance and understanding for everyone who suffers.  Even if we can’t change the attitudes we personally experience, it would be great if we made it easier for those ahead to seek and get the help they need.

♦

“How would your life be different if…you stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…you look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.”

~Steve Maraboli, Life, The Truth and Being Free

Related articles

• The Black Mark Against Mental Illness (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Stand Up For Mental Health Campaign (healthyplace.com)
• HealthyPlace.com Launches National Stand Up For Mental Health Campaign (prweb.com)

The Black Mark Against Mental Illness

‘DSM-IV’ Image credit: Wikipedia.com

There’s been quite a bit of conversation going on in different places about the upcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 (DSM-5), which will finally make itself useful in May 2013.  There’s a lot of controversy over various elements of it and I could take up many posts just discussing those. I must remember to get back to the intended change of name for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

For today though I want to talk about the issue of the stigma against mental illness and how it is making itself seen, and heard in the fibromyalgia world.  At the outset it’s important to point out that fibro is NOT a mental illness, nor is it categorised as one.  But there is a new disorder mentioned in the DSM-5 that has a lot of people with fibro worried.

Under the DSM-5 there is a new diagnostic category called Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD) which will apparently mislabel some people with medical disorders as have a mental disorder.

A person will meet the criteria for SSD by reporting just one bodily symptom that is distressing and/or disruptive to daily life and having just one of the following three reactions to it that persist for at least six months:

1) ‘disproportionate’ thoughts about the seriousness of their symptom(s); or

2) a high level of anxiety about their health; or,

3) devoting excessive time and energy to symptoms or health concerns   (1.)

The concern of fibro patients I have been reading of in recent days is that their fibro will be re-labelled as SSD if they have this high level of anxiety and thought to their fibro symptoms.  As a fellow sufferer of fibro I know all too well that it is very hard not to be anxious about symptoms.  They are literally new every morning, and there is a constant worry over how to treat, and manage the symptoms as well as getting through daily life.  So I get their concern that they might be labeled with SSD.

Do I want yet another label?  Not particularly, but I fail to see the whole issue with quite the level of dismay I have read recently.  I will still be a fibro sufferer, and therefore a medical patient.  SSD does not take away my fibro.  Regrettably what it does is give me, and no doubt millions of others, an extra label.

I know for many fibro patients, they fight hard against suggestions that fibro is ‘all in their head’ and has a psychological component.  For me though, I am quite happy to accept that there is a psychological element in my fibro, and actually one of the most helpful treatments I have is access to my psychotherapist.

That doesn’t mean my pain and fatigue isn’t real.  I can assure you it is.  But I recognise that my emotional well-being plays a part in how much pain I am in.  Most people though, don’t want to think this way and I suspect that stigma and the general public’s view of mental illness is the reason for this.

What  concerns me is the fear that I have seen fibro patients display as they write about being labelled as having a mental illness.

“WTH! I’m not mental!”

“This is such BS!! I know my pain is real and not in my head and has it made me crazy? Yes!! But I wasn’t before fibro moved in!!”

“this made me want to cry… people already do not believe me so I push myself everyday to prove some one hurting so much everyday can be strong…. so they call us crazy when we just want to know whats wrong with us, be normal, and happy…”

“My doctor told me all fibro patients just need a good psychiatrist !”

“the pain is more than real…its not in our heads!!!”

“I have nightmares about people close to me not believing what I go through with FM and belittling the severity of it. I wake up crying and feel awful for hours afterwards.”

“Please don’t make it harder for all of us than it already is. We are in enough pain as it is.”

“This is not a made up illness. It is real. People are suffering immensely.”

“The pain is REAL.  I have it right this minute in my whole body and it is excrutiating (sic), is that all in my head.”

If you are led to believe that your medical illness will disappear, and be replaced by a mental illness that takes no account of the level of pain and suffering you experience on a daily basis, then I can understand people being concerned.  But I don’t think that is exactly what is happening.

What does concern me is that when I read the comments above, I see how fearful people are of being labelled with a mental illness.  From this range of comments is suggests that people see mental illnesses as made up, not real, all in our head and of no significance.

And while I know first-hand that the pain of fibro is very real I know that the pain of mental illness is just as real, if taking a slightly different form.

All I can take from this is that while fibro sufferers have a shared fear of not being taken seriously, more worrying to me is the sheer size of stigma which makes people fearful of having a mental illness.  If everyone shares this fear, then they are likely to not seek treatment if they think they have any sort of mental illness.

Actually mental illness is real, but it is also survivable.  If the SDD diagnosis can be used carefully and appropriately then maybe people with overwhelming and disabling worries about their illness, whatever it is, can be helped.  That doesn’t need to stop people with fibro getting the treatment we need.

I am inclined to think there is a little scare mongering going on.  A little information is blown out of proportion.  And then the masses get scared.  Maybe I’ll be proven wrong.  But then I’m so used to mental illness, another label really won’t worry me.  I’ve got plenty already.  It does seem though, that stigma is alive and kicking and it’s not at all helped by scare tactics.

Related articles

• What My Doctor Won’t Tell Me (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Your Physical Illness May Now Be Labeled a Mental Disorder (psychologytoday.com)
• Mislabeling Medical Illness As Mental Disorder (psychologytoday.com)

A Bit Mental (Lilo The Waikato)

Image credit: Lilo The Waikato (used with permission)

Yesterday I watched a great piece of television, and what’s more it was on mainstream television channel TV3.  The scheduling wasn’t great but at least it got there.  The programme was all about raising awareness of depression, and that has to be a great thing.  If you want to watch it, here’s the link.  It will be there for a couple of weeks.

Inside New Zealand – A Bit Mental – Special – On Demand – TV3.

Location map of Waikato River, North Island, New Zealand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Bit Mental is a documentary about Jimi Hunt, a New Zealand man who has struggled with depression for two years.  As part of his recovery he created a challenge for himself of travelling down New Zealand’s Waikato River… on a $8 lilo air mattress (in other words cheap!)… and in doing so raising awareness for depression.  If you’re not sure what a lilo is, that’s the yellow thing Jimi is floating on in the picture above.  Just plastic and air.  He went through 11 in the whole trip as he succumbed to punctures.

He described it as:

“a ridiculous journey to raise awareness for a super serious problem.”

For those in other parts of the world, the Waikato River is our longest river at 425 kilometres.  There is some gorgeous scenery but some very serious white water known as the Huka Falls, as well as a few hydro power stations to get through.  In other words it’s a crazy journey that no one had done before on a flimsy plastic lilo, but Jimi did it.  The link above will give you the full story.

Jimi was told by his doctor that his depression had a chemical basis, rather than psychological and so his recovery was about correcting that chemical balance.  I admit I was slightly concerned when he commented that he wasn’t bad enough to need medication.  It was one of those things that just didn’t sit right with me.  Maybe because I was ‘bad enough’ to need medication.  Was he saying that because I needed depression I was much worse?  To me, I was just different.  I decided to drop the issue in my head, maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there (it happens often!).

Back to Jimi’s recovery, he was challenged by his doctor to get some exercise, get fit and set some goals.  And so Lilo The Waikato was born with his aim to raise awareness for depression and funds for Lifeline (a 24 hour telephone counselling line).

The Huka Falls, Waikato, New Zealand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The thing I really liked was that along the journey Jimi set himself up so that he had to ask for help, something which he recognised as key to his recovery, and something that he took a while to learn.  He had to ask for accommodation (the journey took about two weeks) and meals.  He had to ask for the occasional tow.

It was a practical reminder of how asking for help is so important when struggling with depression, and mental illness.  I guess it rang home to me because it is something that I recognise I have struggled with at different parts of my mental illness journey.  Some parts would have been so much easier, and less painful had I asked for help at the time.  Jimi recognised it as something that would have made a big difference to his recovery too.

What Jimi did was pretty amazing.  You wouldn’t get too many people who would take on such a challenge, let alone while raising awareness for mental illness.  And what’s more, there were many people (including more than 20,000 Facebook followers who encouraged, supported and followed his journey).

All this got me wondering, as I watched the programme, what awareness and support could be raised for other mental illnesses?  There is no official hierarchy of mental illnesses, but I’m inclined to think that depression is a little more ‘acceptable’ to the general public than other mental illnesses.  So what if there was a person with say, Schizophrenia or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) who could raise this kind of acceptance?  Would it work?  Would the general public just say “s/he’s crazy”?

No doubt plenty of people said that Jimi was crazy.  It’s certainly not something that I would choose to do.  But people got behind him and supported his cause.  It would be great to see more people backing a greater awareness of all mental illness.

Currently there is a woman, Annie Chapman, who is walking the length of the North Island – using the Te Araroa Trail (1600 kilometres), here in New Zealand to raise awareness of the need for better treatment options for those with mental illnesses.  It’s a completely different undertaking being a protest walk (known here as a hikoi) with community meetings along the way.  What interests me is that her Facebook followers amount to under 200.

Why is there such a difference in support?  I guess there are a lot of reasons, but I wonder whether the need to ask for help when you’re battling depression is more acceptable somehow to the public than the nitty-gritty of treatment options for all mental illness.  I don’t know, and perhaps I’m not being fair, but it does raise the question of what is acceptable to the public and what is too much?

What I do know is that what these two people, and probably others I haven’t heard about, are doing is fantastic.  Whatever is done to make mental illness easier to talk about, and more widely acceptable has to be great.

♦

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” 

―    Friedrich Nietzsche

Related sites

• Lilo the Waikato (facebook.com)
• http://www.depression.org.nz/
• http://www.beatingtheblues.co.nz/
• http://www.thelowdown.co.nz/
• http://www.lifeline.org.nz/
• Hikoi for healthy choices in Mental Health (facebook.com)

Just Like Me

It’s been a busy week for the news media.  Wow, I guess they’ve all earned their negotiated salaries, although I do wish they would be paid somehow on the basis of what truth they spread.  Social media has also been busy.  Often partly a response to the news media, sometimes spread what they’ve called their own ‘truth’ and sometimes simply spreading lies (like the news), or popular opinion.

It’s made me pretty sad.  Sometimes it’s made me cry, that they can get away with saying the things the do, let alone convincing a somewhat gullible public that they are right.  Other times I took my own advice (Step Away From Your Screen) and literally stepped away from my computer, my television and my phone.  I had to do that to save my mental health because the whirlwind of information (true or otherwise) has wanted to wrap me up in it.  At times I wanted to fight some battles (because that’s who I am) but mostly I took my advice, backed off and watched with sadness.

Image credit: Chenspec/Wikipedia.com

During this week a lot of people have died in this world as a direct result of violence. There are the many who have made the news media, but there are also many more that we never hear about, yet their death’s are just as tragic.

The obvious victims are the 27 children and adults who were shot in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.  A tragic loss of so many lives that were mostly just beginning.

For a moment I want to consider two other deaths I have been aware of this week.  One is the 28th person to die at Sandy Hook, the shooter himself who turned the gun on himself.  Another tragic death I heard about this week was a man in England who was murdered in his own home. The details aren’t really important to what I am thinking, apart from to say that it appears his death was some type of vigilante pay back for a crime this man had recently been accused of having carried out.

In the case of both these men, the news media and the social media have played a part in spreading accusations and generalisations.  One man we have heard a lot about, the other you probably haven’t heard about.  What hasn’t been given is the truth.  We don’t know what is real and what is simply hearsay.

What I do know is that both of these men were just like me, in some ways.  They weren’t so different.  They had blood flowing through their veins. Like me they needed love, affection and acceptance.  At some point they had both probably been hurt badly, just like me.  These men were human beings, just like me, who it appeared that for some reason, everything went askew.

Maybe it was mental illness, maybe it was a developmental disorder.  Maybe too, they had some degree of evil (whatever that means) in them to drive them to the things they are said to have done.  Those things haven’t been clarified, yet the world has been quick to condemn.  Of the Connecticut young man I have seen a number of people describe him as ‘not human’.

That’s what leaves me sad.  I’m not condoning the actions of either of these men.  It was all wrong, and terribly devastating, particularly for those who lost family members and friends.

But these men were human, just like me.  And somewhere in spite of the horror of what has been happening, someone is no doubt grieving for them too.

I believe that these men were victims too.  I know that might be an unpopular stance to take, and I have no problem with people disagreeing with what I write (as long as I don’t get abused for an opinion).

Once, a number of years ago, both men were little boys and sometimes I find it helpful to think about them as when they were innocent children.  Again, because of the tragic death of 20 children last week it’s even hard to look at one of these men that way.  It just helps me to realise that while something has gone terrible wrong, these men were once just like you and me.

Yesterday I was at a barbeque (it’s summer here) which was a Christmas party for a group of people I know.  At one point I was sitting at a table with a lovely young man who I don’t know very well.  I’ve only met him a couple of times but what I do know is that he has Asperger’s Syndrome (a condition that has been subject to much media scrutiny this week).

It occurred to me while I was sitting eating my lunch with him, that it must be pretty difficult for him this week.  I know what it’s like to be looked down upon because I have a mental illness.  This young man doesn’t even have a mental illness (that I know of) yet the media have been putting him and other sufferers of Asperger’s in a group and saying we have to be careful of these people.  Apparently they might do ‘what Adam Lanza did’.

This man I was sitting with was, again, just like me.  He doesn’t deserve to be judged just because he has a disorder that makes him a little different from me.  Like me, he was enjoying having a drink, eating fresh berries and getting silly ‘Secret Santa’ gifts.  He had less to say for himself than most people on the group but that was the only noticeable difference.  He was, like me, having a good time.

Let me be very clear.  I’m not saying that horrific crimes committed against innocent people are acceptable.  They’re not.  It’s a terrible tragedy what has happened this week.  But we can’t afford to be looking at these people and thinking they are somehow different to us.  I’m not qualified to say why they might have done what they did.  I do have views on things that need to be done in society to prevent this from happening again, but those aren’t important right now.

What is important to me is that all the people who died this week (somewhere in the world) as a result of violence are human like me.  Someone loved them.  And to me, that puts a slightly different spin on things.

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy,  we can all sense a mysterious connection
to each other.”

~  Meryl Streep

♦

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have
been all of these.” 

―    Siddhārtha Gautama

Related articles

• Beauty for Mourning (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Step Away From Your Screen  (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

Self-Stigma… Am I My Own Worst Enemy?

A discussion with someone recently about the stigma of mental illness as I have personally experienced it, has led me to do some soul searching.   I think both of us eventually came to the same conclusion… that perhaps self-stigma has been the biggest issue for me.  That’s not to say that I haven’t suffered at the hands of the cultural distaste of anything  related to mental illness, or that institutional stigma hasn’t affected me.  There have been times when social stigma has hurt, and often the result has been damaged, if not ended relationships.  But I realise that I have consistently applied self-stigma to myself for as long as I have had a mental illness, actually probably longer and that may have prevented me from getting the help I needed earlier.

The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, in their document Fighting Shadows suggest that self, or internalized stigma is:

“…internalised feelings of guilt, shame, inferiority, and the wish for secrecy experienced by those who live with a mental illness…  Self-stigma is a belief in negative stereotypes about a group to which one belongs and the application of those beliefs to oneself, thereby undermining one’s self-efficacy.” 

(Watson and Corrigan, 2001)

My guess is that what this means is that I internally hold negative ideas about mental illness, which I apply to myself (and that if I was applying those ideas to others then it would be social stigma).  That’s the understanding I’m going to use for now, and I have to say I feel less than comfortable with this thought.  Regular readers know that I have discussed the issue of stigma regularly.  It is something that I feel very strongly about, and wanting to fight it, is the reason behind a lot of the things I do. 

What I need to understand is why I have those stereotypes and why I apply them to myself.  I don’t pretend to think I’m going to satisfactorily answer that for myself here, but it’s a good place to start. 

My mother always used to tell me that I was my own worst enemy.  I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that, as Mum and I have never been known to have the sort of conversations that might see that answered.  Reality was more that the statement was made and that was the end of the conversation.  No doubt both of us were contributors to that.

I can remember when I was first diagnosed with depression, one of my most common thoughts was:

“I can accept anyone else having depression

but I can’t accept it in myself.”

Somehow I thought I was immune.  It would never happen to me.  I was 28 at the time and right through my life I had been surrounded by people with mental illnesses.  A lot of that exposure came through my father’s job which extended to having church people in and out of our home.  At high school, I was friends with a girl who had Anorexia.  We were never close, but she was the only person I was aware of in a school of one thousand girls who had a mental illness.  No doubt there were others, but it wasn’t something ever discussed.

When I left school I went straight into a job where I was working closely with a lot of people with mental illness and addiction issues.  Actually I gained a reputation in the office for being one of the few staff who could handle the particularly difficult clients, and so I was often assigned clients that no one else wanted to handle.  I enjoyed working with these people, and other staff couldn’t quite understand that.

Then I got to 28 and discovered I was sitting in a psychiatrist’s office talking about my failing mental health.  Straightaway I could accept it for anyone else, but not for me.  Things like that didn’t happen to me.

I think that all these people with mental illnesses, who surrounded me from a young age, were also a step removed from me.  They weren’t my family, and they weren’t my personal friends.  Mostly they were clients of my father’s or later, my own clients.  It’s almost like it wasn’t personal so it couldn’t affect me personally.  By that time I had a number of friends who had mental illnesses, and again that was perfectly okay.  I could accept their illness and often did a lot to support them.  But that was them, not me.

Why was it okay for them,

but not for me?

At this point I admit that I am guessing.  I don’t understand why I set one rule for others but another for myself.  Why could I have compassion for others, but be angry at myself for what I see as weakness?

What springs to mind is the first person whose mental illness had a direct effect on my wellbeing.  I was only 14 when I became the target of a stalker who had schizophrenia.  He was one of my father’s clients.  Dad would welcome him to our home because he wanted to help the guy.  The problem was that my father didn’t realise what danger he was putting me in.  When I left home at 18, the man followed me, as he did every time I shifted trying to keep one step ahead of him for the next 14 years.

I was literally afraid of this man.  He threatened me ,but never lay a hand on me.  But the damage he did to my mind in that time, along with other things happening in my life, was huge.  Actually it was only nine months after I finally felt I was free from him (by shifting cities) that I was being diagnosed with my own mental illness.  I’m sure that’s not simply a coincidence.

The man was regularly in and out of the local psychiatric hospital because of his illness, usually because he had taken himself off his medication.  The times he was in hospital were the best times for me.  Sometimes I got phone calls or letters, but mostly I was free while he was behind a locked door.

It make senses to me then why the last thing I would want would be to be diagnosed myself, as I might end up in hospital with him.  Even figuratively a diagnosis would put me in the same camp as him.  If I was the same as him, then somehow I was in more danger.

The second thing that comes to mine is that on several occasions I tried to talk to his mental health workers, to help get them to help me be safe from him.  Actually each time I tried I had the Privacy Act quoted at me, and they wouldn’t even listen to me.  I didn’t want information about him.  I wanted them to know what he was doing.  But the mental health system was not interested in the harm he was causing me.  Again it would make sense why I wouldn’t want to diagnosed myself, because clearly (to me anyway) the system was not interested in helping or protecting me.

What you’ve just read is me thinking out loud.  Obviously there is no audio link with this post but I’ll leave you to imagine that I have been tossing ideas with you.  This self stigma hindered me from getting help from medical services but even when I began to accept that actually it was okay for me to have a mental illness, I perhaps unconsciously  used the stigma to make it hard for myself to get other types of help.  There was a lot of help at university for people with disabilities, including mental illness, but I struggled to seek it out because I didn’t look sick.  It was me that put that barrier up, no one else.

Considering self stigma is not an easy one.  I am a little embarrassed, but I wonder how many others might struggle, unknowingly even, with our own attitudes that prevent us getting the help and support we need.  It doesn’t take away the problem of the stigma we get from other sources, but I’m realising that I have to start with myself.  How can I expect others not to stigmatize me when I do it to myself?

“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.” 

―    Elizabeth Gilbert

Related articles

• Fighting Shadows: Self-Stigma and Mental Illness (mentalhealth.org.nz)
• Demolishing Stigma (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Stigma (Passions Profile Challenge #6) (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Mad, Bad or Just Different (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Remove the stigma (thehindu.com)
• Dear “Experts” (prideinmadness.wordpress.com)

What Are The Scars All About?

CAUTION: This post contains details of self harm (although no images) which may be disturbing to some readers.  Please take care of yourself in reading.

The sad truth for many.

“Everywhere Peter turned, he felt bombarded by misconception about self-harm. Why couldn’t anyone understand what he was going through? It was as if he had awakened to find himself on a different planet, where everyone spoke another language.  It’s not that he didn’t understand that self-harm can be scary and confusing to people who don’t harm themselves.  He did.  But the thing he couldn’t understand was why they couldn’t get beyond their misconceptions and hear what he was saying.  Just last week, he had got into an argument with an ER nurse about why he’d cut himself.  No matter how much he insisted that he had no intention of killing himself, she kept telling the other staff that he’d attempted suicide, and paged the psychiatrist on call to get him hospitalized.  Then, to make matters worse, the next day his father accused him of cutting himself to get attention, even though he’d tried to hide it from everyone.  Why couldn’t anyone understand that he was just trying to relieve some of his pain and cope with his depression?”

 - Kim Gratz & Alexander Chapman, Freedom from Self-Harm (p. 23)

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week I want to talk about self harm, because I believe that it is one of the hardest things for people to understand and get their head around.  It’s not often talked about, especially in polite company, but it’s out there happening, and literally tearing lives apart.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues in terms of it getting understood in the wider community is the shame that people who self harm carry with them.  It’s incredibly hard to talk about openly, especially if you don’t fully understand the reasons why you do it.  It’s fairly hard to avoid judgement, and even if you can, you are so fearful of what reaction you might get, that it’s simply easier to pull down your sleeves and pretend it’s not there.

This is how my self harm began, recorded in my book, Infinite Sadness:

“That night I started scratching my arms raw with my fingernails.  I would scratch and scratch with no feeling of pain.  Eventually I would look down and see the red, raw and bleeding skin.  I would realise what I had done and be horrified.  It wasn’t until I looked down at it that I would finally feel the pain.  The pain was bad, like a friction burn.

 I was disgusted that I could do such a thing to myself.  I had never had an urge to do anything like it, but had now just found myself mutilating my arms.  How?  Why?  Questions flooded my mind.  What was happening to me?  But then how could I answer those questions, for that would entail admitting to another human being the horror of what I had done.

 By the next day, I knew I needed help.  I wondered about the 24 hour Surgery but couldn’t bear the thought of a strange doctor questioning me.  Eventually I decided I would tell my friend Amy.  I knew I had to tell someone, and I thought that through her friendship and her nursing training, she must surely know what I should do. 

 I went to Amy’s house.  We drank coffee.  We talked for an hour and a half, but I couldn’t find the words to pull up my sleeves and show her the damage of the night before.  I left having not told her.  I think that I was so disgusted by what I had done that I just could not bear to admit it.” (p. 106,7)

I was 30 years old, so note that self harm is not just a teenage fad.  It’s serious, and it affects people of all ages.  Scratching my arms was never going to be a suicide attempt.  I simply made one heck of a very painful mess.  As for attention?  That was the last thing on my mind, simply because I was so disgusted by what I had done.

I didn’t even know what self harm was.  I had never seen evidence of it on anyone else, nor had a read anything about it.  It was completely new to me.  And in case you’re wondering, by that time I had spent a lengthy time in a psychiatric hospital, and while I accept that I was very sick at the time so might not have been very observant, I didn’t notice any sign of self harm amongst other patients.  The reason I say that is because a myth that exists is that people ‘learn’ self harm behaviours from watching others.  I didn’t.

Back to the story though.  Several days later I finally plucked up the courage to confess what I had done to both my doctor (a very wise, and trusted General Practitioner) and my psychotherapist.  By that time I had also self harmed again, but still had little idea of why I was doing it, or what I was achieving.

Both these health professionals immediately (and quite separately) told me that my self harm was a good thing.  They were both pleased that I had done it because I was apparently expressing my feelings.  I admit that I had great difficulty up until this point in expressing my feelings.  I simply didn’t have the words, and expressing feelings was not something I  had ever been encouraged to do.  Tearing my arms to shreds was apparently a good thing.  Of course no one, including myself, knew what those feelings were that I had been expressing but that didn’t seem to matter.

Image credit: FB-A Mental Illness Is Hidden

Fast forward 15 years.  In that time I graduated onto more serious, and dangerous methods of self harm.  At times I was self harming while dissociated, and this was the case in the worst damage I ever did to myself.  Now though, I have fought back and found other, healthy ways to express myself (if that was what I was doing), and to reclaim control over my life.

Beyond what was suggested initially I worked out that I self harmed because I felt totally out of control, and if I cut myself then I would somehow bring everything back into control   I also self harmed sometimes because I needed to see physical blood, and experience physical pain to comprehend the emotional pain I was in.  I self harmed sometimes to punish myself.  In this respect, it was more a case of thinking that I didn’t deserve to not harm myself.

While I don’t believe this is the case for all people who self harm, the self harm became a kind of addiction for me.  It was something I needed to do, and I had to break that pattern so that I could recover.

I don’t accept that self harm is ever a good thing, and while I still have a lot of respect for those people who told me it was, I completely disagree with the stance they took.  Recently I read something (which of course I can’t find now) that suggested that self harm shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.  The article I read suggested that by judging the behaviour of self harm as bad, then we are judging the person as bad.  I don’t agree with this either.  Anything that we do that harms us has to be a bad thing, but that is not a judgement on the person.

I also don’t accept that one form of self harm is better or worse than another.  Yes, some forms are more dangerous, and can have more lasting consequences, but any harm that we do to ourselves has to be bad.

There are a lot of myths relation to self harm, some of which include

• it is the same as a suicide attempt
• superficial self harm is fine, and is not dangerous
• people use self harm behaviours to manipulate others. and to get attention
• self harm is a female problem
• if you self harm, you must have a mental illness (no doubt, Borderline Personality Disorder)
• only teenagers self harm
• self harm is a copy-cat behaviour
• if you self harm you are a danger to others
• self harm is a response to childhood abuse

Self harm is difficult to understand, if you’ve never felt the urge to do this.  If you haven’t, be very thankful because the fight that goes on internally is terrible.  It’s made more difficult because of the stigma related to self harm.  The inclination is to think that a person who engages in self harm is ‘completely screwed up’ and maybe even ‘beyond help’.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is hope.  Recovery is possible, but it takes a lot of work and unfortunately many of the people struggling with this don’t get the long term therapeutic help they need.  Because of some of the things I am involved in when I’m not blogging, I know many people (men and women) who are fighting this battle every day, and also many people who have won the battle.  It is possible.  It is a really hard battle to beat this, but it is possible.

Self harm is a dangerous activity but the people who use it in order to cope, are no different from anyone else who might use destructive behaviours.  They deserve compassion, acceptance and help… just like any other human being.

An interesting story to end with shows this isn’t always available.  It is my experience of seeking help after my worst self harm, about ten years ago.  I had cut myself badly while dissociated, so actually I felt nothing.  I went to the Accident and Emergency Department of my local hospital (it was after-hours) and the doctor who treated me refused to give me a local anaesthetic while he stitched the large wound.  He told me that I had done this to myself, so I could take a bit more pain.  And yes, it was very painful.  Whether he thought he was being smart, or teaching me a lesson, I don’t know; but there certainly wasn’t much compassion or acceptance of the struggle I was having that night.

“Do no harm & leave the world a better place than you found it.”

―    Patricia Cornwell

Related reading

Gratz,K.L. & Chapman, A. L., ( 2009). Freedom from Self harm: Overcoming Self-Injury With Skills From DBT And Other Treatments. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications.

Sutton, J. (2007). Healing the Hurt Within – Understanding Self-Injury And Self-Harm, And Heal The Emotional Wounds. Oxford: How to Books Limited.

• Self Harm & Me (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Bubbles Burst (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Borrowed Hope (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• The Body I Hate (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Learning to be Okay (wegohealth.com)
• Secrets and Scars (pixiecd.com)
• World Mental Health Day: Raising awareness is only half the battle (myjourneywithdepression.wordpress.com)

Loose Ends At The Start of Mental Health Awareness Week

For some weeks now I have had it firmly in my mind that 10 October is World Mental Health Day.  According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) website it is 10 October (Wednesday), but for some reason I had stuck in my head that it was Tuesday (today).  A bit of searching, and I’ve found that in some places World Mental Health Day is being marked on 9 October (today).  No wonder I’m confused.  You’d think that if we were going to have a World Day we’d make sure we all did it on the same day.  But then maybe that would be too logical.

I did more searching and confirmed that here in New Zealand the occasion is definitely Wednesday, and so what I was going to post today will wait for tomorrow.  In New Zealand, it is also Mental Health Awareness Week all week so I am going to try to acknowledge that in my posts this week.

The topic of World Mental Health Day was chosen by WHO as ‘Depression: A Global Crisis’.  I like this topic because Depression has become such a wide-spread problem around the world and I believe it needs talking about.

Some months ago (Mental Health versus Mental Illness… a Stigma Issue?) I wrote about some questions being raised by people about this chosen topic, on the basis that they felt Depression was too much of a negative topic.  I still think this is a shame.  Depression has a huge impact on people’s mental health and so needs to be addressed openly.

Interestingly in New Zealand, there is a lot of work done to raise the issue of Depression, with Depression. org and The Lowdown (aimed at young people) leading the way.  I really like what I’ve seen of these programmes, and are helping to spread the awareness that Depression can affect everyone.  That said, the NZ Mental Health Foundation  here, is promoting the subject of mindfulness this week, rather than Depression.  Mindfulness is certainly something that everyone, whether or not the have a mental illness, could benefit from in terms of their mental health but there is a part of me that wishes they had addressed the issue of Depression as well.  Maybe that’s just my bias.

Only in this past week, I learnt more about the growing battle between the use of the terms ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’.  Some people don’t want to focus on mental illness, because it’s negative like I said earlier; but then there are others who find the use of the term ‘mental health’ an insult.  Apparently the term ‘mental health’ is stigmatizing, because it  ignores that mental illness exists.

I think I’m getting a headache!

Where do I stand on this?  I will fight against anything that adds to the stigma of mental illness, but personally I believe there is a place for both terms.  I have a mental illness which I am completely open about.  I am not going to run from the term ‘mental illness’ because it is factual and is my reality.  It is no different from the physical illnesses that are my reality.

That said, I think for me it is still possible for me to achieve mental health in spite of my mental illness.  It might sound a bit weird, but if I can manage my symptoms and function well while still having the mental illness, I call that mental health for me.  So I’m inclined to say that there is definitely room for both terms.

Dare I say it, but I think those on the side of wanting to refer to everything as ‘mental health’ are being unrealistic.  Mental illness does exist and we can’t, or shouldn’t hide from it.  But those who want to ignore the existence of ‘mental health’ are perhaps being a little precious.  Again, mental health exists and is something we can all work towards in our own ways.

Here’s an idea.  Let’s stop fussing over which term is used and get on with working on reducing and managing mental illness where possible, so that mental health can be experienced by as many people as possible.  If we argue of the terminology too much we run the risk of ignoring the real problems.

PS.  If I offended anyone with this post… I guess I’m getting used to that.  This is simply my opinion, neither right nor wrong.

It is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.” 

―    Sam Harris,   The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Related articles

• Mental Health versus Mental Illness… a Stigma Issue? (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

Mad, Bad or Just Different

“…it doesn’t automatically follow that he must be mad just because what he has done is inexplicable.”

 - Dr. Simon Wessely, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London   ( 1.)

For some time now I have been frustrated by ‘the mad versus bad’ debate that comes out pretty much every time there is a terrible crime committed.  I’m neither a psychiatrist or a criminologist, so I’m not going to discuss it from the perspective of how we handling offenders, but rather than how this ‘mad versus bad’ debate is something that simply adds to the stigma of mental illness.

Today I was reading some comments on a New Zealand news website.  The subject being discussed was the New Zealand Government’s recent announcement that it intends to shut down (or merge) a lot of schools in the Canterbury area, as a result of the earthquakes we experienced in 2010/11.  The announcement has angered many Christchurch residents and so the debate I was reading was getting quite heated.

The subject of discussion was absolutely nothing to do with mental illness, but there was quite a difference of opinion between one reader and the majority.  Here’s a snippet of some of the comments I read:

“You are one sick person.”

“Go check yourself into a mental facility because you are quite likely delusional.”

“Don’t take any notice of that retard.”

“Only someone with a mental illness would make these comments. “

It doesn’t really matter whether there was a right or a wrong in the argument that was taking place.  My opinion was that there was nothing abusive, or harmful being said by the person these comments were directed at.  He simply had a different opinion.  Personally, I didn’t agree with his opinion either, but not for one moment did I assume he must have a mental illness. But it came across loud and clear that the general consensus of other readers was that the dissenter had an opinion different to most and therefore he was assumed to have a mental illness.

The quotation at the beginning of this post related to that of Norwegian, Anders Behring Brevik, and this is by no means a comment on his sanity, or his actions.  I have used it because it is used exactly the same way simply because people don’t agree with what is said.  That’s a huge leap of assumption to make, let alone an attack on those who legitimately have diagnosed mental illnesses.

What strikes me is that having an unpopular opinion, let alone badness, or even evil, is not a symptom of mental illness.  There is no reason why mental illness should have been an issue in the debate I was reading, and I am inclined to think that it is a case of stigmatising people with mental illness.

I know these types of generalisations are made every day and the media is very good at expanding and encouraging them.  I chose not to get involved in the debate I read.  I’m realising that I have to pick my fights, and had I picked this one I would have potentially taken the discussion away from the real focus of the discussion on the site.

I just get frustrated because it simply adds to the stigma we deal with every day.  Personally I have regularly found that if my opinion is different from the majority then there is a tendency of those around me to put it down to my mental illness.  They might say, “don’t worry, Cate is just overly emotional”  or “Cate’s getting carried away by her emotions again”.

Actually I get really angry when my opinion gets disregarded solely on the basis of my mental health.  If there is some sound, factual reason why my opinion should be disregarded then fine, but not a generalisation that my mental illness is the cause of my difference.  I have a brain, and I have opinions, like anyone else.  Yes, my mental health contributes to the basis of those thoughts, as does anyone’s, but it is not the cause.

It’s actually okay to be different.  It’s okay to have opinions different from the majority.  But it’s not okay for them to be simply pushed aside because of a diagnosis of mental illness.

“I also learned that a person was not necessarily bad just because you did not agree with him, and that if you believed in something, you had better be prepared to defend it.” 

―    Hillary Rodham Clinton

*

“We judge others instantly by their clothes, their cars, their appearance, their race, their education, their social status. The list is endless. What gets me is that most people decide who another person is before they have even spoken to them. What’s even worse is that these same people decide who someone else is, and don’t even know who they are themselves.” 

―    Ashly Lorenzana

Related articles

• Anders Behring Breivik not Mentally Ill (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
• Anders Behring Breivik trial stirs sensationalist media coverage of mental illness (mentalhealthy.co.uk)
• Demolishing Stigma (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Can The Mentally Ill Get Treated Fairly? (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Stigma (Passions Profile Challenge #6) (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Mad, Bad or Sad (mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com)
• The stigma of mental illness (forcingmyselfhappy.com)