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‘Stigma’ is a very basic word within the study of sociology that could be described by someone as a harmful mode of negative labelling towards someone else with a differentiating characteristic or attribute such as a form of mental illness or an intellectual disability which can lead to stereotypes, discrimination and even societal rejection possibly further damaging a person’s mental and physical state of mind. These people who are suffering from many different types of mental illnesses regularly endure two different kinds of stigmas which include a form of self-stigma where some people with mental illnesses can begin to form negative opinions and stereotypes about themselves due to how they believe the world perceives them, taking on these negative labels as a new part of their identity. The other form of stigma being public or societal stigma where people always tend to fear anything abnormal around them and the unknown. “Some 18.5% of the Irish population was recorded as having a mental health disorder, such as anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, and alcohol or drug use, in 2016” (Cullen, P., 2018), now leaving Irelands numbers among some of the highest mental health illness rates in all of Europe. This statistic in turn leaves much room for the harmful stereotypes and discrimination to take place in Ireland in all age groups with anxiety and depression becoming more and more popular with younger generations constantly growing in numbers. People with mental illnesses are constantly left to suffer from the negative symptoms of their own illness such as anxiety, depression, hallucinations, insomnia and much more all while continuing to carry the enormous weight that society has forced upon them to carry by themselves created by harmful opinions, stigmas and discrimination (Rüsch, Angermeyer and Corrigan, 2005). All of this personal suffering due to the fact that people tend to fear that which they do not fully understand and that they may have never had any personal experience with any forms of mental illness themselves. Nearly every person in the world will experience some form so stigma at some time in their life but due to the unknown and characteristics of mental illness people focus their attention on it creating negative stereotypes.
Common stereotypes that some people have still held onto about people suffering from different mental illnesses are that they choose this way of life or are completely responsible for their decreasing mental state or illness, they are sometimes seen as being lazy, irresponsible and crazy or dangerous (Corrigan, P.W. and Bink, A.B., 2016). These stereotypes can lead to people believing that avoiding people with certain mental illnesses is the best solution to avoid these situations of possible violence that may never even occur, people protest the idea of having helpful homes and programs for people with mental illnesses in their local area out of fear for themselves and their families and often they completely avoid interacting with people with mental illness at all within their local areas (Corrigan, P.W. and Bink, A.B., 2016). People with mental illnesses face many forms of discrimination when it comes to things such as getting jobs, finding homes and being treated within the healthcare system. Many employers choose not hire people with a known mental illness out of fear how their interactions with other employees and customers may be and mentally ill employees sometimes having days where they mentally and physically cannot work due to the severity of their illnesses on that specific day while other people with mental illness can easily manage their illness while they work. With some landlords also taking on the same opinion as those employers in choosing not to rent to people with specific mental illnesses to protect their properties but yet people are more likely to falsely accuse someone with a mental illness of a crime due to stigmas.
Due to the fact that people with mental illness throughout history have sometimes been given the unnecessary stereotype of being crazy and dangerous possibly to both themselves and the people that they surround themselves with daily (Zoppi, L., 2020), they can be left at a huge disadvantage when it comes to situations where their parental rights and custody of children are being questioned or in divorce situations. This harmful stereotype can leave a parent not wanting to be diagnosed at all or possibly not seeking the much-needed help that they require and deserve to improve or control their illness out of fear that they could lose custody of their child or be judged by their society as a bad or inadequate parent for something that they have no control over at all (Healthy Place, 2008). Many children from all around the world have to live with or have lived with parents that suffer from a wide variety of mental illnesses which can sometimes have some very negative effects on the children in the home themselves such as possible isolation from the world due to the parents illness and anxiety as they sometimes cannot open up and talk to anyone about what is happening at home with their parent or they themselves do not fully understand the whole concept of mental illness and its stereotypes.
Stigmas of mental illness within society has not just become a huge problem now, as it has been recorded that throughout history all over the globe many people who were suffering from any sort of mental health problems or illnesses and with intellectual disabilities were often thought to be huge a burden on their families even bringing shame upon them in some cases as mental health illnesses had not been researched to the same extent that they are today and continue to be necessarily researched. People even went as far as believing that mental illness was supernatural or the devils mark as a result of this treatment was quite horrific nearly like torture in the sense that they made things worse for people, especially in the long run using techniques such as electroshock therapy. Many houses and asylums were built to help with mental illness and intellectual disability patients, the unemployed, poor and the homeless to the best of one’s abilities in a society that didn’t care all that much for them, some institutions becoming a safe haven for patients to be helped and cared for while others became a much worse situation for the person to be in than they had before as conditions in some of these places were not great as they would just be an overcrowded place for people to send their children that they couldn’t handle, many being sent to these institutions against their own will with some people living there up into adulthood (Farreras, I.G., 2020).
The media itself has had both good and bad parts to play in the improvement of people’s opinions on mental illness and the elimination of harmful stigmas. Recently it has become more of a conversation piece online while before anything and everything could and would be posted about mental illness in a negative sense that would not be tolerated in the slightest if it was said or even mentioned about another minority. Along with mental illness being talked about much more in the media comes with the negative aspect of that too which is how the stigmas and stereotypes are being used in shows, jokes and much more with newspapers and televisions showing violence and insanity (Jamison, K.R., 2006). Movies and shows do not tend to portray people with mental illness in a good way as they mainly consist of horror and crime movies where the killer is the mentally ill character portraying them as crazy, violent, irresponsible and like a dangerous criminal thus feeding into the stigmas and negative ideas of people on mental illness and why those stigmas still exist today.
It is clear that both people with mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities face so many different types of difficult stigmas and forms of discriminations throughout their lifetimes from being social outcasts to struggling to fit into societies unfair expectations of them. People who have mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities struggle within society to get certain types of jobs especially with intellectual disabilities (Werner, S., Corrigan, P., Ditchman, N. and Sokol, K., 2012), finding a home among other things while they can be judged quite quickly for how the world views them and not even given the chance to prove themselves. The stigmas and negativity that follows people with intellectual disabilities is linked to mental illness as the struggles of someone with an intellectual disability to deal with these stigmas forced upon them can lead straight to mental illness or another time further into the future. Consequences of societies stigmas can be severe for people as it shows other people’s complete lack of empathy and even understanding towards what someone else is going through in that moment. This complete lack of respect and empathy can lead to anger or fear making people with mental illnesses shut down by delaying their treatment or completely avoiding it for the sake of people not knowing or judging them.
In conclusion, stigmas are a very harmful issue that are being dealt with and studied constantly now and throughout history especially when it comes to a situation involving mental health or intellectual disabilities where people are quick to form their opinions or go with old ones. The negative thinking and stigmas behind mental health and intellectual disabilities can be a lasting effect on someone creating more problems for themselves if they start to self-stigma by listening to what is being said about them. People with mental illnesses are starting to become more comfortable in themselves and talking about their struggles which is a good thing that can only benefit them with therapists becoming popular. People have always been taught through social norms how to think about things such as mental health or illnesses, but as time goes on people are becoming more educated about such things, forming their own opinions or not viewing people as much different than themselves at all. Before studying sociology, stigmas would not have been something someone would probably think often about or even fully understand but they are in fact something harmful that appear in people’s everyday lives maybe without people even realizing it or taking part in the negative views themselves. The most important thing is that people need to start educating themselves on things surrounding mental illness so that these harmful stigmas and stereotypes still attached to mental illness could hopefully be eliminated instead helping those who need it most. These stigmas have a bad influence on people with mental illness as they can even make symptoms and illnesses much worse for the patient, ending up with people being less likely to seek help further into life. Unless people in society are willing to communicate through and about how to deal with mental illness among other professionals the issue is going to stay closed and ignored (Jamison, K.R., 2006).
References
- Cullen, P. (2018). Ireland Has One of the Highest Rates of Mental Health Illness in Europe, Report Finds. [online] The Irish Times. Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-has-one-of-the-highest-rates-of-mental-health-illness-in-europe-report-finds-1.3707073 [Accessed 21 Apr. 2021].
- Corrigan, P.W. and Bink, A.B. (2016). The Stigma of Mental Illness. In: Encyclopedia of Mental Health. [online] Illinois Institute of Technology, pp.230-234. Available at: http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/wp-contentuploads201509The-Stigma-of-Mental-Illness.pdf [Accessed 16 Apr. 2021].
- Farreras, I.G. (2020). History of Mental Illness. [online] Noba. Available at: https://nobaproject.com/modules/history-of-mental-illness.
- Healthy Place. (2008). Parents with Mental Illness and Child Custody Issues | www.healthyplace.com. [online] Available at: https://www.healthyplace.com/parenting/parents-with-mental-illness/parents-with-mental-illness-and-child-custody-issues [Accessed 20 Apr. 2021].
- Jamison, K.R. (2006). The Many Stigmas of Mental Illness. The Lancet, 367(9509), pp.533-534.
- Rüsch, N., Angermeyer, M. C. and Corrigan, P. W. (2005) ‘Mental Illness Stigma: Concepts, Consequences, and Initiatives to Reduce Stigma’. European Psychiatry. Cambridge University Press, 20(8), pp. 529-539. doi: 10.1016j.eurpsy.2005.04.004.
- Werner, S., Corrigan, P., Ditchman, N. and Sokol, K. (2012). Stigma and Intellectual Disability: A Review of Related Measures and Future Directions. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 33(2), pp.748-765.
- Zoppi, L. (2020). Mental Health Stigma: Definition, Examples, Effects, and Tips. [online] www.medicalnewstoday.com. Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/mental-health-stigma#mental-health-stigma Accessed 23 Apr. 2021].
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