Mental health labels can cause self-stigma, but they don't have to. An interesting realization came to me the other day. When I think about it now, it kind of seems self-evident, but it really struck me just how much of an issue it is. I’m talking about the self-stigma we feel when it comes to labels – whether the generalized “mental health” or “mental illness” label or more specific ones like depression or bipolar or whatever mental illness it is you deal with. But you can remove self-stigma from mental health labels.

You can use social media to combat mental health stigma. In today’s day and age, the Internet provides us with memes, cat videos, celebrity news, and Facebook plus other social media platforms, among other things. A lot of people would scoff and say some people spend too much time online and not enough time interacting with others. I can agree with this to some degree – that we see more online interaction than face-to-face interaction sometimes – but I think people who demonize the Internet are failing to see the amount of good it can do if we use social media to combat mental health stigma.

Sometimes corporations promote mental health stigma. I saw an example of this recently and knew I had to write about it. Corporations may not know they promote mental health stigma but sometimes they do it anyway.

The holidays can be a time of mental health stigma. The holidays can be a wonderful time of the year; the sparkle of tinsel and coloured lights, the cheery tunes on the radio, gift giving, and time with friends and family all contribute to the festive air. What a lot of people don’t realize is all that festivity can become a time of struggle for those with mental health issues (Your Mental Health and the Holiday Season). Those with mental illness may have to survive mental health stigma through the holidays.

I recently read a blog written for Healthy Minds Canada, titled Getting Bad Again and this made me realize how much mental health stigma affects our personal stories. The piece, written by Emma Holden, broached a subject I find myself dwelling on. What she wrote about was how as bloggers, as writers, and as people dealing with mental health issues, we tend to only discuss things in the past tense. We talk about that time we were sick, but how now we’re in a much better place. In her post, she says, “It’s a lot harder to open up and admit something you are currently dealing with.”1  I agree. I also think there are pretty distinct reasons as to why: mental health stigma affects our personal stories.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a stigmatized disorder, and we need to separate social anxiety disorder and shyness to decrease stigma (What Is Stigma?). Some people say that people with SAD are just shy, which is perceived as cute, and if we were to go out more it wouldn’t be so bad. This belief does not separate shyness from social anxiety disorder, and they are not decreasing the stigma around social anxiety disorder.

Sometimes it feels like romanticization of mental illness is everywhere these days and this feeds mental health stigma. Whether it’s some trendy post about what mental health “is” or how people with mental health illnesses “actually” are, it’s pretty likely to be somewhere in the social media sphere. One of the ones that bothers me the most is the one about “being strong for too long.” I’ll elaborate on how it romanticizes mental illness and feeds mental health stigma.

Don't be fooled: peer support can help break mental health stigma. People often think of treatment as going to sit in some office on one of those couches and spilling out their souls, or attending meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous and having to announce who they are and what their problem is. Treatment doesn’t have to be either of these things. What I’ve discovered is that peer support groups can break mental health stigma and be just as healing.

Mental health stigma teaches us that mental illnesses are rare, that only a few people have them, and that we should feel alone if we are one of those few. Stigma subtly teaches us to question the commonality of our mental illness. When people come forward saying they have mental health issues, one of the automatic, and unfortunate, assumptions is the person must be doing it for attention. I'll also add it's true that it's hard to say how many misdiagnoses there are; however, the fact of the matter is mental illnesses are not rare.

We tend to think of mental health stigma as a blanket statement, but the reality of the situation is that it’s really not. Different mental health disorders face different versions of mental health stigma. I came to this conclusion recently as I realized that although I’ve overcome the stigma I felt for Excoriation (Skin-Picking) Disorder (dermatillomania), I still let the stigma of my depression and anxiety overcome me.