Losing Credibility Because of Your Mental Illness
Natasha Tracy is not, in fact, my real name. It’s a nom de plume. Writers have a long history of writing under pen names for a whole variety of reasons but one of them has always been judgement. People will judge you, as a person, by what you write. Write erotica, for example, and get yourself a reputation as a slut.
And as a mental health writer, I face similar stigma. True, people aren’t likely to make inferences about my sexual nature (although it has happened) but they will make judgements about me as a person and certainly as an employee.
Because no matter how much I write about stigma and no matter how open people appear to be, a person with a mental illness is simply always assumed to be unequal to someone without a mental illness. Their point of view is always considered to be tainted by their illness. Their thoughts are never considered to be their own.
Getting a Job with a Mental Illness
I am a fairly educated person with a university degree and a great resume. In fact, looking at my resume, you would be shocked to learn I have a life-threatening illness. But many people with a mental illness are like that. We’re just like everyone else.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that if I applied for a fancy tech job and my employer Googled me and found all my writings, that I immediately would be put out of the running for the job. Why? Because my mental illness would have destroyed my credibility in the mind of the employer. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and, in fact, it’s not even legal, but it’s what happens in the real world.
Oh Don’t Listen to Her, She’s Crazy
And this doesn’t just happen in the workplace, this happens in everyday life as well. Simply asserting an unpopular opinion can show how people ignore you just because you’re “crazy.” Suddenly, your thoughts have no meaning or weight because they are assumed to be tainted by an illness. No one would accuse a person with epilepsy of not having an opinion simply because their brain errantly causes seizures, but someone with bipolar, well, that’s different.
Yup, I’m Crazy
Yes, it’s true, I’m crazy. I know that sometimes my thoughts are colored by my mental illness. But most of them aren’t. Most of them are my usual, logical, well-thought-out, arguable points of view that make more sense than your average (sane) Joe.
And unless a person actively has a thought disorder (such as psychosis), most of us are in exactly the same position – we think exactly the same way as everyone else; we have opinions; we have thoughts; we have ideas. They are ours. We take ownership of them. They are no more or less meaningful than anyone else’s thoughts and opinions just because of a label, time in a hospital or medication.
Much as people of different ethnicities have fought to be judged on their own merits and not the color of their skin, we, too, deserve to be judged by who we are and not simply what we are.
You can find Natasha Tracy on Facebook or GooglePlus or @Natasha_Tracy on Twitter or at the Bipolar Burble, her blog.
APA Reference
Tracy, N.
(2012, March 15). Losing Credibility Because of Your Mental Illness, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, May 4 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2012/03/loosing-credibility-because-of-your-mental-illness
Author: Natasha Tracy
Yes, this happens to me all the time. Sometimes it has even endangered my health because, when you have a mental illness such as major treatment resistant depression, OCD, and PTSD, any other health problem you may have is treated by, say, emergency room personnel, or even family, as 'all in your head' (no matter what your blood tests may say!). They'll say it's 'anxiety' (It wasn't and I had to have surgery). They'll tell you you're a hypochondriac (I wasn't and had to be tested for cancer to the point where I ought to glow in the dark from radiation). They'll tell you you don't eat right or exercise right and so it's all your fault you're depressed. (It's not. It's partly genetic and partly brain injury). They'll try to sabotage your treatment by telling your doctor that you're a 'drama queen' and 'just want attention' when you're semi-fucking-catatonic. (If only I were that great of an actress. I'd be on Broadway!) Thank God for those doctors and nurses and medical personnel and friends and family members who do take you seriously when you're hurting and sick and go out of their way to drive you to a hospital where someone actually takes the scans that show one of your organs is begging to be removed or you have a growth in your lung and etc. Not fucking anxiety like that first ER told you. NEVER give up if you think you are right! Try to have a trusted loved one who will be your advocate and stand up for you when you are so sick you can barely keep upright. Always keep an up to date Medical Power of Attorney form (available in the hospital and other places) which gives your trusted person the power to make decisions for you (after a long talk ahead of time about your wishes) when you are unable. Be proactive. Get someone to watch your six before you need them. Try to find medical practitioners who will also stand up for you when a hospital tries to shove your concerns aside. Build a support network before you need emergency care. I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd known. It would have saved me so much heartache and grief and pain and sickness. So, I'm passing on to you my hard won knowledge. Because I love you all! <3
Thank you for a thoughtful and well presented article. Reading it helped me a lot. You see I was the victim of a very malicious computer/wifi/network of things (NOT), hack. I was also drugged and abused by whoever was doing this. When I called the police and explained that this was happening - I was put in handcuffs and almost had to go to mental health court. I was raped. While I was in the hospital following the rape - I was told that this was a delusion resulting from my mental illness.
When I explained the complicated hack (by the way I was in the computer networking, programming software business after graduating from business school), - I received the same facile and cheap response. Your hack did not happen. It is because you are mentally ill.
The lack of credibility is horrible, and degrading. It dehumanizes. It makes me "The Other", Less-Than, and it makes me sad.
Just imagine if someone had experienced the theft of a credit card. Reports would be filled out and everyone would commiserate. I was treated badly - very badly - I was not believed.
Thank goodness I kept contemporaneous notes of what was going on and had some witnesses. Or else, I may have been put under guardianship forcibly by a Judge. Had to stay in hospital for 8 days - against my will. The hospital charged my private insurance company 50K. So, my insurance rates are likely to go up.
My attorney said I was targeted because I am vulnerable because of my ADHD, and depression.
Fortunately I am lucky enough to have been financially successful in life, and had the resources to fight.
Never give up if you know you are right. Trust yourself.
Blessings to you.
As a man beginning to grow my family with my wife and a child on the way it is easy to imagine the difficulties associated with mental illness as unbeatable. I had spent the first 17 years of my life raised by a sadistic sociopath of a father in a manner that is unimaginable. Convinced I was a monster and manipulated to believe that manifestations of mental illness I was beginning to experience were in reality a demon possessing me; not joking. At an early age being forced to live in various ghettos and having no human contact outside of my father and the sexual and emotional abuse I perceived as affection from him. Understanding the exact limitations my body could take in hunger, thirst, isolation, pain. Being treated like a dog, forced to hurt people for the amusement of a killer; and having the shame of bearing that title. I had enlisted in the military to escape from my father and the influences and control he instilled in my daily life; and in just a few short months my journey in the Air Force will end. I have been seeing counseling regularly for the better part of a year so far, and would not be alive today if not for the compassion of my wife. I war with myself against the beliefs my father had instilled in me for much of my life and the principles I learned to live my life by. Constant struggle with coworkers and the rebuilding of many familial ties make this an uphill battle everyday. I wear the scars of my past on my skin for the world to see and the one thing in this world capable of brining me out of the dark of my life is my wife. I can still never decide which I prefer from society is fear of what I'm capable of doing or blind ignorance of the pain of my early life. I am an intelligent person, yet am treated like a moron. I forget the most simple things and am incapable of understanding many basic norms of society. But then I have an IQ of 138. I hallucinate frequently, which clearly makes me incompetent right? Disassociation, periods of psychosis, post traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder. I am classified as a moderate risk to myself and others. That is how the world see's me. A freak. Even the sentence structure of what I have been writing changes depending on my ever fluctuating mood. I switch between nihilistic views of the world to periods of obsessive empathy. I have no base line in terms of mood or train of thought. I find myself feeling akin to the fictional character Joker more than any person on this planet outside of Cheyenne. I have to gauge appropriate actions and reactions to various struggles in life according to what my wife feels is best. I do not know if I will ever be able to look myself in the mirror without seeing a monster. But I'm trying to be the best person I can be. I want to be a good person. I'm sure to many people this all seems like bullshit. Honestly I don't care what you think; I just thought I'd share something about my struggles. And the gratefulness I have for my partner in life. It gets easier some days, its almost impossible to fight others; my only advice to someone dealing with similar feelings of who knows what is this: You can be whatever kind of person you want to be. There is someone in this world that will not condemn your choices in life, you just have to be willing to accept help from even the most unlikely of places.