Public view on mental health

I posted something similar to this a while ago. I couldn't figure out how to word the title, but what I am talking about goes like this:

People will be talking about something and then someone brings up a fact about themselves or a person in the conservation like "she's such a perfectionist" or "all the chairs need to be stacked this way" (mainly OCD symptom things) and then the friend or the person then would say "I must have OCD" or "I probably have OCD". The public makes mental health seem so out of proportion. I hate it when people say "oh that block is in the wrong place, I must have OCD". First of all, most people wouldn't state out loud that they have some mental disorder due to stigma, and second of all, that's too small of an instant.

I want to complain to my school about this because I find this really offending since I do have some mental disorders. I am looking into getting a diagnosis of OCD because it has been getting really bad. I want to run over to the sink every 15 mins to wash my hands because I feel contaminated. I sometimes check things over for 2-3 hours to make sure it's perfect. It's not just "I do this particular action so I have OCD" type of thing.

Anyways, these instances seem to mainly happens with OCD, but I know it happens with other mental disorders too. I heard these kids be like "I have to sit beside my friends all the time, so I probably have separation anxiety". No, you don't; you are just being a teenager who wants to socialize. This angers me. Why do people have to do that? It's so frustrating! Does anyone else hear these type of conversations happening? I see a lot of this in the YouTube comment section.

Yeah, all the time. People making fun of bipolar disorder when someone has a minor moodswing, depression when they feel temporarily down, et cetera. It pisses me off as well.

I wish people would stop. It's not even like that. People will only continue to do that until they actually know how it feels.

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I think people who stigmatize mental health disorders are experiencing, but at the same time denying, that they too have a mental health disorder. There is more than one side to the mental health equation. There are those who recognize they have a mental health malfunction and are doing something to help themselves and create themselves into being more productive socially and functionally (which is a good thing and shouldn't be stigmatized), and there are those who poke fun at brave people who are facing their life dilemmas with courage and strength to improve themselves and the condition of our shared existence.

People who make fun of people who are trying to improve themselves are caught in their own trap of dysfunction and handicap themselves to the same degree they are attempting to handicap others, but they are too unaware to be aware of it.

This probably won't go over well, but let's try.

I'm skeptical of how much mental illness stigma actually exists anymore. Ignorance is certainly a problem, but not stigma. The way mental disorders are so cavalierly thrown around in common parlance implies to me that it isn't some terrible, frightening taboo as it once was (which is what "stigma"implies to me), but a lack of deeper understanding still abounds.

That's where I think the concern should be: ignorance. That's what causes the disapproval, the dumb comments, the demands to get over it. I might go so far as tomsay there is no mental illness stigma anymore. Which is kind of weird, since you would think that we would have to conquer the ignorance around the subject to accomplish that.

I think there's sometimes an element of what I'd call a lazy and/or corrupted form of empathy involved in the way people incorporate psych. terminology into their repertoire, even though it seems converse to suggest. For instance, while it would of course be better if people more properly educated themselves on issues that might even be affecting people they are already close to, without having done so a lazier option available in the moment is incorporating the terminology into their speech as buzzwords and then getting to feel some degree of satisfaction in showing (erroneously) that they know what's up.

There's also the well documented "attribution bias", which causes people to interpret behaviors as being relative to causative factors rather than than simply looking at more reliable available information such as situation and circumstance. So, I felt precise in the moment becomes I must be OCD.

I'm not at all suggesting that it's good or even acceptable behavior, but that at least some of the time it simply represents an understandable error in judgment (excluding, of course, the kind of trolling behavior that goes on in the YouTube comments section). We all have blind spots, where critical thinking is concerned.

I think talking to your school administration is a great idea though.. a few well executed workshops on various ways in which to genuinely respect all one's peers would go a long way in elevating everyone's quality of experience... students and staff alike.

I understand what you're pointing out, but when push comes to shove believe me, most people will either think or say, 'Eh, she's nuts, anyway' if a mentally ill person does something unusual, or even simply disagrees with the person. Mental illness is like racism in that way. The stigmatizing is sneaky.

The subject of this post is exactly why I don't like the idea of people dressing up as 'crazy' for Halloween.

Is mental illness taken as seriously as cancer is? Nope.

Example: http://forums.psychcentral.com/bipol...ur-meds-2.html

I am sensitive enough to understand why you feared this may not go over well. IGNORANCE is one of those stigmatizing words which people often associate with stupidity, arrogance, and mean spiritedness, so, often, at least for me, I am reluctant to use it. BUT, ignorance simply means a lack of awareness and who was born in life with complete awareness? Ignorance is the right word in this case imo.

Maybe. I feel like they don't realize that they are helping themselves, and with people making fun of others that are trying to help will make others not try to find out. It's basically bullying.

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I really hate when people do that.

Anyway, I think ignorance can play a huge role. Most people don't bother to learn about mental illnesses, and usually rely on media to get their information. However, the media usually portrays the mentally ill in a bad light, especially when it comes to more stigmatized disorders like schizophrenia. Hell, when a school shooting happens, it's usually blamed on a mental illness, and I had a family member use that to prove that psychotic people are violent.

Thankfully my university does have a mental illness awareness but I'm not sure how affective it is.

' It's basically bullying.'

I see what you mean. Bullying pisses me off too. As if, someone is so much better than someone, that they could push around and demean other people. Imho, bullies show their weakness, just by being bullies, and, those who join them, show their weakness, by joining. It's law of the jungle mentality. Just remember this, when you are finished working out your problems, and you've learned to accept and love yourself with fresh energy, and you can smile again, even though you've hurt, you will be back in the stream of life, living, breathing, and enjoying. They will still be bullies.