Sanism / Mentalism - How has your mental illness been used against you?

Hi fellow survivors,

We have all experienced some level of Sanism and Mentalism in our recovery from mental health conditions.

Definition: "Mentalism or sanism is a form of discrimination and oppression against a mental trait or condition a person has, or is judged to have."

Some people support us through our mental health struggles, providing some much needed validation and compassion, while others have used it against us in order to abuse with impunity, destroy our credibility and seek out malicious agendas. These abusers could be our friends, family, healthcare professionals; any and all human beings.

How have you been discriminated against? Let your anger flow on this thread.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

I don't know if this is the same thing but I've been called a Robot a lot because of my autism spectrum disorder. I just chalk it up to people not understanding but every so often I take it personal and I think it is meant as a personal attack. Then again, I don't trust myself to know if that's true not just because of the autism spectrum disorder but also because I tend to get paranoia, thanks to the depression with psychotic features. My T says I actually am hyper sensitive to emotions just my outward expression of emotions are muted. On the outside people think I have no emotions.

Only time I had it happen was when I caught the home care person abusing my mom when she was dying of cancer. After she had OD 'ed my mom on her morphine & I had the ambulance transport her to the hospital, I talked to the hospital about making sure she was safe. Security suggested having her there under an alias.

Her BF (my mom was 80 at the time & unaware of what was really going on around her) & his daughter were associated with the home care person. The BF found her in the hospital & was in her room with her pastor when I came in the next morning. I had security escort them out as the pastor told me to back off or my past (depression) would come back to haunt me. I just told him where he could stick it & stood my ground. Never regretted standing up to him. Tough because the traumas I went through dealing with the home care person the previous 5 days actually created PTSD in the long run.....but standing up for & protecting my mom was actually a step toward recovery even if it didn't feel like it at ths time.

I have experienced discrimination and judgement in the medical sense. Whenever I have gone to the hospital about something physical, if its not obvious the doctors have sort of downplayed what I am going through because of the bipolar and medications I take. I had walked around for 6 months with a torn rotator cuff because one doctor said it was tendonitis and I would be in too much pain if it had actually torn. I had to self refer to my orthopedist and he is the one who sent me for the MRI and did my surgery.

I've had physical health concerns brushed off, since the doctor thought it was just more symptoms of my anxiety. My doctor's prior knowledge of my mental illness diagnoses biased her perception of my symptoms. So I'll probably have to go to a different one if I have more health worries.

I've had physical health concerns brushed off in the past but I'm very fortunate to have a physician now who absolutely doesn't do that.

I was not promoted because I didn't publish enough articles (I'm in academia) but they did promote someone who had the same number of publications as I did the following year. My dean knew about my mental illness and yes I think that played a role in the decision. But I'm at a university where I'm happy now, and I'm a full professor, so Bully to them.

I wouldn't be able to get a new job if I disclosed just the fact that I've psych diagnoses. My health insurance charges me a lot more for significantly less coverage because I've psych diagnoses.

I am still only a kid so I guess I haven't experienced the level of discrimination that mot of you have experienced in your lives. I however know that even though my peers and classmates are mostly nice to me they seem scared of me or distant kind of it seems like they are going to catch my mental illness or something like that. That is why I only really have two close friends and they have been my friends since I was really little way before my incident occurred.

This is heartbreaking to see. I am sorry that so many of you have experienced this sort of mistreatment!

My heart goes out to all of you.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

This is my entire life. People hate me because I don't fit into their narrow view of what's "normal" and then they proceed to psychiatrically injure me for fun. [i]Everyone[/] discriminates against me; discrimination is the only human interaction I've ever experienced.

How have you managed to cope with this? Any suggestions? I know there are many more of us who experience this in our everyday lives.

I believe mental illness is a fundamental part of human nature; primarily a result of trauma and abuse, no doubt.

The mental health profession pathologizes a reaction to trauma for monetary capitalism and so called, "advancements." Hogwash. How many people have been through the classic 10 or so years of psychiatric systems only to have been medicated, falsely diagnosed and come out the other side having realized that all of their issue stem from abuse.

Trauma: "A normal reaction to abnormal circumstances."

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

Like some other people have mentioned, I've been brushed off when seeking medical help for physical issues. Like they think I'm only looking for attention. It really seems like mental health is not well understood in the health care profession. Even some psychiatrists I've seen have discounted or even slyly made fun of my issues.

Simply put, I haven't - no one ever gave me the support or tools to do so. I'm dying in about six months precisely because no one has ever given me any support. By the time psychologists found out how had my injuries were, they were too extreme to treat.


I have been falsely diagnosed and falsely medicated in order to be more manipulable for my abusive parents.

Seems like you share a voice with so many others. Did they literally think you were attention seeking?

I've been labelled everything under the sun except trauma survivor lol. It's absolutely obvious they avoid acknowledging abuse in their own system.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

Maybe this is one reason that some people, once we get to know each other a little and I think we're getting to be friends, have just all of a sudden and for no reason that I could see, gotten really really angry at me and very critical and then dropped the friendship. It's happened often enough that I'd begun to see it as a pattern, not happening with every new acquaintance -- thank goodness! -- but enough that it ceased to surprise me even when I didn't understand it.

I know I have some psychological issues. I can't help it, and sometimes I feel exhausted trying to function despite them.

Basically now I'm too old to bother trying to make any new friends.

Or maybe, instead, I'm too wise to bother myself with trying.

I’ve been discriminated against in so many ways it’s hard to even remember them all now. Main one is because I can’t work anymore and I’m only in my mid 50s. I wish that I could but over the last 20 years not only mental illness problems but also chronic pain problems including many operations have made me unfit for work.

Does this make me no longer a person? I still have feelings, dreams, hopes & desires too. I have a family that loves me very much no matter what. Problem is over the years I’ve lost many friends just because at times I’ve been too sick to go to and participate in social activities.

I know that I’ll never work again even though I’m highly qualified in my field of work. I’m discriminated against socially in my town as most women my age either work and/or do volunteer work.

It seems that somebody like me is left on the garbage pile. Ready for the weekly rubbish truck to come and collect me. I’m discriminated against in so many ways that I feel like.....screaming!

Sometimes I feel like I can’t take it much longer? I often have to be my own therapist now and keep on convincing myself that it’s worth living. As quite often I just can’t see the point of it all anymore. Sad but true! 😞

Same here, especially when I give a history of the many medications I can't take due to prior severe reactions. I've had nurses and a couple doctors who seemed to think it was simply anxiety-based. It's frustrating.

The worst discrimination I've experienced by far is from my extended family. My sisters have always acted like they roll their eyes behind my back. My mother could be condescending by telling me that something or other might, well, make me..."sick."

A few days ago I posted on Facebook that I had had a screw removed from my tire. My brother-in-law of 50 years came back with, "A screw in your tire? I thought the nut was behind the wheel!"

Because I had a bout of major depression then intense mixed state last autumn and had to be 5150'd my son-in-law strongly pressured, and has convinced my precious daughter, with whom I was extremely close, to stop communicating with me.

Attitude and remarks.

The most pathetic irony of all? Every one of the people who discriminate against me because of my mental illness are very much in need of mental health treatment. Every one of them. But to those people, because I get treatment it means I am messed up. Very weird - and in incredibly ignorant denial about themselves.

I’ve had physical health issues brushed off
I’ve been labelled wrongly and treated with disrespect

Everyone deserves respect including Fuzzy bear

It was before I was officially diagnosed with severe anxiety, but I definitely was written off 90% of the time I was upset for being "emotional". It still happens nowadays, most people I talk to refer to me as dramatic or emotional. My therapist thinks that my responses are completely normal, I just have a lot of things happening at one time.

Honestly the worst experience of it was being written off by my mom whenever I'd come to her for help. I'd be sobbing about being bullied by a girl in my class, and my mom would say I'm just on my period and that's why I was so upset. I cut myself off from friends and isolated myself because I was being abused by my boyfriend at 14, my mom assumed I was just being a teenager and dramatic. To this day, 7 years later, she still can't admit that I was abused. I tell her multiple therapists defined what happened to me as abuse, and she just shrugs and goes "yeah, he was a chump I guess." It makes me feel like I'm going crazy. I know my reality gets warped at times, and I register things as threats when they're really not (which is common post-abuse!), but making myself constantly question whether or not things happened to me only makes things worse.

This is an interesting point, H, as are all the threads you bring up.

It's something I haven't considered much, but when I got thinking about it I realized that once while I was in the working world the company changed insurances and we all had to fill out health questionnaires for the new insurance company. So I went about filling mine out. "Do you have a history of this, do you have a history of that," -- that sort of thing.

Well, one of the categories was "mental & nervous". I marked that I had a history of those problems.

As a result they refused to cover me. They covered everyone else in our small company, but not me -- I was told, for that reason.