Stigma, Support, Shame, Tools

2020-08-19

Yesterday in Canada was “Bell Let’s Talk” day, an initiative to get more people talking about mental health in addition to reducing stigma. The telecommunications company Bell donated five cents towards from various social media interactions to a multitude of mental health initiatives and programs in Canada. Since its inception in 2011 it has grown by leaps and bounds and this year over $6.5 million dollars was raised in one day! If you’re curious about where that money goes click here. More and more people are coming forward to share their mental illness journeys including musicians, actors/actresses, athletes and media. The picture below from Bell Canada shows Canadian multiple Olympic medal winner Clara Hughes talking to students.

I read a handful of very raw personal stories yesterday about how mental illness has impacted some people that I know. Seeing how authentic and honest people were in what they wrote was truly inspiring.

About a month ago I started seeing ads for “Bell Let’s Talk” day on TV and the internet. The first ad on TV that I saw choked me up…I was nearly in tears. Happy tears.

For the first nine years of my bipolar disorder diagnosis I had too much shame and embarrassment to tell anyone outside of my extended family that I had been diagnosed. I simply wasn’t comfortable talking about it with anyone besides my Mom (and I am truly grateful that I had such a good relationship with her). Other family members were supportive of me yet I never talked about my illness and they never brought it up. One family member told me that they could sense when I was low or depressed, however they didn’t address it with me directly. Who knows…if “Bell Let’s Talk” day had been around at that time perhaps I would have been inspired to talk more openly about my struggles and challenges with my mental health? I can’t say for certain that I would have. That being said I do feel that it could have had an effect on me.

When I was first diagnosed in 2000 my employer at the time was the board of education in a small city in southern Japan. They knew exactly what I had been diagnosed with and it was never discussed with me. A friend of mine took me to my sessions with a psychiatrist for the remainder of my six months in Japan. She had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My friend told me that (at that time) mental illness was not discussed by most people in Japan. I recently had a chat with a different friend in Japan and she told me that mental illness is still very hush hush in Japan, rarely discussed and still a ton of stigma around it.

In the past few years I’m grateful to have had more and more people approach me about their mental health issues, challenges, and history. Any time that a person shares with me I make sure to thank them for doing so. It takes a lot of courage for some people to share openly. The more we get people having these conversations the better!

At the present time I am more than comfortable talking with people who ask about my mental illness and what it’s been like. There occasions when I sometimes get frustrated with references people make to me about things they’ve seen regarding mental illness in various TV shows and movies. While some are accurate, some are way off base. There are a few movies dealing with bipolar disorder that I haven’t seen and I am looking forward to seeing them in the next few months.

How can we keep talking about mental illness?

1. Build/maintain a support network
In my experience, the people I know with a diagnosed mental illness that manage it well have a solid support network built that they maintain. This support network can take many shapes and forms. It could be someone that you regularly have a coffee with, a person you talk with on the phone once a month or more, or someone that you email once a week or more. Personally I have built a good support network and it has helped me immensely. If you are someone that has a good support network in place well done!  If not, do your best to reach out to a friend or family member and ask if they would like to do so. You can word it however you desire – simply say I’d like to be in touch more, you’d like to connect more often, or you’d like to have them as a consistent support in your life.

2. Reaching out to friends/family
At times someone will pop into my head that I haven’t heard from in a while. When I get that thought I often reach out to them simply to say hi. If they are someone I know that has a diagnosed mental illness I will sometimes ask what they are doing for self-care. In my experience, asking somebody this question is a gentle way to start a conversation about their current overall and mental health. This can lead to deeper sharing however does not have to… Personally I find that the more I reach out to others the more gets reciprocated back to me. It is fantastic to hear from someone just saying hi and for them to express that they were thinking about me.

3. Contact media when a story doesn’t sound or feel right
There have been various times in the past year that I’ve read or watched a story about mental illness in the major media that has had an element of stigma attached. In those cases I have contacted them to express how I feel the story could have been written or reported differently/better.

4. Be honest when you hear/see derogatory language regarding mental health
This is something that I am still not 100% comfortable with. For example, recently a friend of mine posted on facebook in a joking way that they were “feeling a little bipolar”. Various people replied with an lol or in a funny way. Personally I found it insulting to those of us who have been diagnosed. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t think of how to say what I wanted to say without sounding like a victim or an angry person. In the future I will be doing my best to respond since those seemingly “little” comments help perpetuate stigma and/or ignorance. When I hear someone say something about mental health that I don’t agree with I nearly all the time tell them how I feel. A prime example is when someone tells that their friend is “moody”. As those of us who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder know, there is a huge difference between a moody person and someone who has had both manic and major depressive episodes.

How will you keep talking about your mental health?