88 Quotes About Mental Health Stigma

Mental illness is a serious public health crisis. In the United States today, one in five adults experiences mental illness. And one in ten Americans experiences a severe mental illness at some point in their life. The stigma of being branded mentally ill can have a devastating effect on both individuals and families Read more

It can lead to discrimination in the workplace, in the community, and even in our own homes. Thankfully, awareness is growing and mental health has become a more prominent issue in the media. If you or someone you know has a mental illness, check out these wonderful quotes about mental-health-stigma from around the web to help you cope with this common condition.

1
They will hate you if you are beautiful. They will hate you if you are successful. They will hate you if you are right. They will hate you if you are popular. They will hate you when you get attention. They will hate you when people in their life like you. They will hate you if you worship a different version of their God. They will hate you if you are spiritual. They will hate you if you have courage. They will hate you if you have an opinion. They will hate you when people support you. They will hate you when they see you happy. Heck, they will hate you while they post prayers and religious quotes on Pinterest and Facebook. They just hate. However, remember this: They hate you because you represent something they feel they don’t have. It really isn’t about you. It is about the hatred they have for themselves. So smile today because there is something you are doing right that has a lot of people thinking about you. Shannon L. Alder
2
When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like. Jenny Lawson
3
Mental illness" is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their employers. Elyn R. Saks
4
Disclosures of childhood sexual abuse have frequently been discredited through the diagnosis of hysteria. In this view, women/female children were seen either as culpable seducers who were not really damaged by the sex abuse or as dramatic fantasizers projecting their own incestuous wishes onto the father. I will argue that this view pervades the false-memory movement and can be found, for example, in Gardner's work (1992). Judith L. Alpert
5
The drug I take is called schizophrenia, among other labels, which I desperately want to put away. I want to put the drug of schizophrenia down, and I want to put down the stigma surrounding its label. Jonathan Harnisch
6
I have schizophrenia. I am not schizophrenia. I am not my mental illness. My illness is a part of me. Jonathan Harnisch
7
The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die. Juliette Lewis
8
Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good. Theodore J. Kaczynski
9
I hated these visits, because I kept feeling the visitors measuring my fat and stringy hair against what I had been and what they wanted me to be, and I knew they went away utterly confounded. Sylvia Plath
10
When you go into the psych ward, you can’t have anything with you except colored pencils. You can’t have any electronics. If you have a drawstring on your pants, a belt, shoelaces, a hood, or extra-long fabric, your very clothes are ripped off your back. They search you with a metal detector like you’re a criminal, doing everything short of putting their hand up your butt. Before you go through those cold, automatic, barred doors, you know your life is not your own. This is especially true during the first week, while you stare at florescent lighting and wait impatiently for your meds to kick in. I wish I had remembered the psych ward prison cell a week ago. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be wearing this hospital gown that they gave me until I can get more compliant clothes. Jacquelyn Nicole Davis
11
Brains are like toddlers. They are wonderful and should be treasured, but that doesn't mean you should trust them to take care of you in an avalanche or process serotonin effectively. Jenny Lawson
12
I think the stigma attached to mental illness will disappear just like it did for cancer years ago. Sally Graham
13
Been under treatment for PTSD and bipolar since 1992. I’m not ashamed of my illness. I’ve been shunned by many and I feel for those shunned, too. Stanley Victor Paskavich
14
Having DID is, for many people, a very lonely thing. If this book reaches some people whose experiences resonate with mine and gives them a sense that they aren't alone, that there is hope, then I will have achieved one of my goals. A sad fact is that people with DID spend an average of almost seven years in the mental health system before being properly diagnosed and receiving the specific help they need. During that repeatedly misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated, simply because clinicians fail to recognize the symptoms. If this book provides practicing and future clinicians certain insight into DID, then I will have accomplished another goal. Clinicians, and all others whose lives are touched by DID, need to grasp the fundamentally illusive nature of memory, because memory, or the lack of it, is an integral component of this condition. Our minds are stock pots which are continuously fed ingredients from many cooks: parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, teachers, schoolmates, strangers, acquaintances, radio, television, movies, and books. These are the fixings of learning and memory, which are stirred with a spoon that changes form over time as it is shaped by our experiences. In this incredibly amorphous neurological stew, it is impossible for all memories to be exact. But even as we accept the complex of impressionistic nature of memory, it is equally essential to recognize that people who experience persistent and intrusive memories that disrupt their sense of well-being and ability to function, have some real basis distress, regardless of the degree of clarity or feasibility of their recollections. We must understand that those who experience abuse as children, and particularly those who experience incest, almost invariably suffer from a profound sense of guilt and shame that is not meliorated merely by unearthing memories or focusing on the content of traumatic material. It is not enough to just remember. Nor is achieving a sense of wholeness and peace necessarily accomplished by either placing blame on others or by forgiving those we perceive as having wronged us. It is achieved through understanding, acceptance, and reinvention of the self. Cameron West
15
We must understand that those who experience abuse as children, and particularly those who experience incest, almost invariably suffer from a profound sense of guilt and shame that is not meliorated merely by unearthing memories or focusing on the content of traumatic material. It is not enough to just remember. Nor is achieving a sense of wholeness and peace necessarily accomplished by either placing blame on others or by forgiving those we perceive as having wronged us. It is achieved through understanding, acceptance, and reinvention of the self. At this point in time there are people who question the validity of the DID diagnosis. The fact is that DID has its own category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders because, as with all psychiatric conditions, a portion of society experiences a cluster of recognizable symptoms that are not better accounted for by any other diagnosis. Cameron West
16
Janna knew - Rikki knew – and I knew, too – that becoming Dr Cameron West wouldn't make me feel a damn bit better about myself than I did about being Citizen West. Citizen West, Citizen Kane, Sugar Ray Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Robinson miso, miso soup, black bean soup, black sticky soup, black sticky me. Yeah. Inside I was still a fetid and festering corpse covered in sticky blackness, still mired in putrid shame and scorching self-hatred. I could write an 86-page essay comparing the features of Borderline Personality Disorder with those of Dissociative Identity Disorder, but I barely knew what day it was, or even what month, never knew where the car was parked when Dusty would come out of the grocery store, couldn't look in the mirror for fear of what–or whom– I'd see. ~ Dr Cameron West describes living with DID whilst studying to be a psychologist. Cameron West
17
I believe the perception of what people think about DID is I might be crazy, unstable, and low functioning. After my diagnosis, I took a risk by sharing my story with a few friends. It was quite upsetting to lose a long term relationship with a friend because she could not accept my diagnosis. But it spurred me to take action. I wanted people to be informed that anyone can have DID and achieve highly functioning lives. I was successful in a career, I was married with children, and very active in numerous activities. I was highly functioning because I could dissociate the trauma from my life through my alters. Essentially, I survived because of DID. That's not to say I didn't fall down along the way. There were long term therapy visits, and plenty of hospitalizations for depression, medication adjustments, and suicide attempts. After a year, it became evident I was truly a patient with the diagnosis of DID from my therapist and psychiatrist. I had two choices. First, I could accept it and make choices about how I was going to deal with it. My therapist told me when faced with DID, a patient can learn to live with the live with the alters and make them part of one's life. Or, perhaps, the patient would like to have the alters integrate into one person, the host, so there are no more alters. Everyone is different. The patient and the therapist need to decide which is best for the patient. Secondly, the other choice was to resist having alters all together and be miserable, stuck in an existence that would continue to be crippling. Most people with DID are cognizant something is not right with themselves even if they are not properly diagnosed. My therapist was trustworthy, honest, and compassionate. Never for a moment did I believe she would steer me in the wrong direction. With her help and guidance, I chose to learn and understand my disorder. It was a turning point. Esmay T. Parker
18
You can’t be beaten by something you laugh at. Jonathan Harnisch
19
I keep moving ahead, as always, knowing deep down inside that I am a good person and that I am worthy of a good life. Jonathan Harnisch
20
In my community, mental health isn't taken seriously enough. Therapy is replaced by prayer. Tears are a sign of weakness. When you are different, you are told to change. And really, what does that do? It isolates desperate, vulnerable people and creates victims. Frida R.
21
I can understand why some people might look at me and say, 'What's she got to be depressed about?' I get that a lot in Britain, where mental health issues seem to be a big taboo. Natalie Imbruglia
22
Stop shying away from people. If you actually took a moment to listen to what they have to say, they might just say something that will change your life. S.R. Crawford
23
There’s nothing worse than bottling something up inside and letting it eat at you. It’s like being shot, and leaving the bullet inside our bodies. The wound would never heal. Instead, we need to let it out. S.R. Crawford
24
Psychotropic drugs have also been organized according to structure (e.g., tricyclic), mechanism (e.g., monoamine, oxidase inhibitor [MAOI]), history (first generation, traditional), uniqueness (e.g., atypical), or indication (e.g., antidepressant). A further problem is that many drugs used to treat medical and neurological conditions are routinely used to treat psychiatric disorders. Benjamin James Sadock
25
I’ve found that it’s of some help to think of one’s moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather. Here are some obvious things about the weather: It's real. You can't change it by wishing it away. If it's dark and rainy, it really is dark and rainy, and you can't alter it. It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row. B U Tit will be sunny one day. It isn't under one's control when the sun comes out, but come out it will. One day. It really is the same with one's moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are all are real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE'S CONTROL. Not one's fault. B U T They will pass: really they will. In the same way that one really has to accept the weather, one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes, "Today is a really crap day, " is a perfectly realistic approach. It's all about finding a kind of mental umbrella. "Hey-ho, it's raining inside; it isn't my fault and there's nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow, and when it does I shall take full advantage. Stephen Fry
26
There is a moral imperative to seeing mental health through the same lens we use for other pathologies or illnesses. Being sad or overwhelmed is normal, much as being short of breath after a run is normal. Both become abnormal when they happen with no apparent cause and are hard to stop. Those situations need medical attention. Matthew Goldfinger
27
Mental imbalance is about as acceptable as herpes. It’s never going to be accepted. But really, it’s a disease just like cancer. It just happens, and eats away all the good parts of your brain, like judgment and happiness and perception and memory and life. And you can die from depression just like any other disease. And it’s not as if people choose it. So why is it still a joke of medicine? “She died of cancer.” is a lot more socially acceptable to people than “She committed suicide. . Sarahbeth Purcell
28
Take it from me, that kind of torment causes you to retreat to a place in your mind where you are so strong that nothing and no one can bother you. Or so you think! What you don't realize is that each time an incident occurs, you retreat inside of yourself a little bit at a time, until one day you might not recognize who YOU are. Yassin Hall
29
My mother smiled. "I knew my baby wasn't like that." I looked at her. "Like what?"" Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused. "I knew you'd decide to be all right again. Sylvia Plath
30
Why, when you have a mental disease, is it always considered an act of imagination? Why is it that every organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy except the brain? Ruby Wax
31
I'll say it again - mental illness is a physical illness. You wouldn't consider going up to someone suffering from Alzheimers to yell, "Come on, get with it, you remember where you left your keys?" Let us shout it from the rooftops until everyone gets the message; depression has and nothing to do with having a bad day or being sad, it's a killer if not taken seriously. Ruby Wax
32
It's an unfortunate word, 'depression', because the illness has nothing to do with feeling sad, sadness is on the human palette. Depression is a whole other beast. It's when your old personality has left town and been replaced by a block of cement with black tar oozing through your veins and mind. This is when you can't decide whether to get a manicure or jump off a cliff. It's all the same. When I was institutionalised I sat on a chair unable to move for three months, frozen in fear. To take a shower was inconceivable. What made it tolerable was while I was inside, I found my tribe - my people. They understood and unlike those who don't suffer, never get bored of you asking if it will ever go away? They can talk medication all hours, day and night; heaven to my ears. Ruby Wax
33
It's so common, it could be anyone. The trouble is, nobody wants to talk about it. And that makes everything worse. Ruby Wax
34
As special as it is to listen to your friends argue over whether or not you have a mental illness, I'm starting to get the urge to go back to class. Kendare Blake
35
Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first. Shannon L. Alder
36
To not have your suffering recognized is an almost unbearable form of violence. Andrei Lankov
37
Calling it lunacy makes it easier to explain away the things we don't understand. Megan Chance
38
...some patients resist the diagnosis of a post-traumatic disorder. They may feel stigmatized by any psychiatric diagnosis or wish to deny their condition out of a sense of pride. Some people feel that acknowledging psychological harm grants a moral victory to the perpetrator, in a way that acknowledging physical harm does not. Judith Lewis Herman
39
You do not need to be temperamental or upset to be a novelist. Don’t embrace the tortured artist rhetoric that any life difficulties might serve to benefit and enhance your writing. That’s damaging. Counterintuitive. Writing can be so incredibly lonely, and when you’re alone with your thoughts for long enough to produce a hundred thousand words of your own headspace, it can be scary. Suffering is not good for your art. Mental health care is. So talk to someone other than your future readers about the problems you are facing. Someone you know and trust. There is no shame in asking for help. . Bryant A. Loney
40
Never stand in the way of letting God use people’s actions, in order to solve a greater issue in the world. Shannon L. Alder
41
You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle. Julian Seifter
42
You’re not fine. You’re not. And that’s OK. The first thing I want you to do is to finally tell yourself that it’s OK not to be OK. To accept that you’re feeling badly and that something isn’t right. Too many of us are in denial because we think that to admit there’s something wrong means we’re weak or broken or odd. I don’t know if it’s society, or just who we associate with, but we need to change our way of thinking. We are not weak. We are not broken. We are not odd. . S.R. Crawford
43
Anxiety is the monster that resides within. Karon Waddell
44
Although enlightened people know that an extreme phobia wasn't a form of madness, hey could not help but regard it as odd. Dean Koontz
45
Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since violation of standards, rules, and goals are insufficient in its elicitation unless responsibility can be placed on the self. Stigma may differ from other elicitors of shame and guilt, in part because it is a social appearance factor. The degree to which the stigma is socially apparent is the degree to which one must negotiate the issue of blame, not only for one's self but between one's self and the other who is witness to the stigma. Stigmatization is a much more powerful elicitor of shame and guilt in that it requires a negotiation not only between one's self and one's attributions, but between one's self and the attributions of others. . Unknown
46
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. Nathaniel Lee
47
Stigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a number of those faces. Elyn R. Saks
48
There needs to be a nationwide awareness programme for all NHS staff, to educate them about dissociative disorders. Diagnoses need to be more obtainable within the NHS; people's lives should be placed ahead of funding restraints and bureaucratic red tape. We need minimum standards of care and treatment agreed and implemented within the NHS to end the current nightmare of the postcode lottery–not just guidelines that can be ignored but actual regulations. Carol Broad
49
Those with dissociative disorders face a big enough battle living as multiples and dealing with past trauma. Like everyone else, they deserve to be heard and recognised, not stigmatised. Carol Broad
50
And if we do speak out, we risk rejection and ridicule. I had a best friend once, the kind that you go shopping with and watch films with, the kind you go on holiday with and rescue when her car breaks down on the A1. Shortly after my diagnosis, I told her I had DID. I haven't seen her since. The stench and rankness of a socially unacceptable mental health disorder seems to have driven her away. Carolyn Spring
51
To actually accept that you have an eating disorder or a mental health issue is actually a sign of great, great strength. It is not a sign of weakness at all. Nigel Owens
52
While a psychiatric diagnosis can serve a purpose in treatment plans, it should not become a tool to discredit a person's disclosure of abuse. Lee Ann Hoff
53
The stigma of mental illness is first and foremost a social justice issue! Patrick W. Corrigan
54
Self-stigma refers to the state in which a person with mental illness has come to internalize the negative attitudes about mental illness and turns them against him- or herself. Patrick W. Corrigan
55
A panic attack is pathological exaggeration of the body’s normal response to fear, stress or excitement. Abhijit Naskar
56
It’s hard to imagine a more squarely on-the-nose example of demonizing mental illness than portraying a mentally ill man as a literal demon. Charles Bramesco
57
Beautiful things have been broken before… S.R. Crawford
58
In talking with people that have experienced it, I learned that PTSD is something that a person in a position of authority sometimes thinks they’re not supposed to have. They don’t always have an avenue to personally address it or even discuss it. Stana Katic
59
The uncomfortable, as well as the miraculous, fact about the human mind is how it varies from individual to individual. The process of treatment can therefore be long and complicated. Finding the right balance of drugs, whether lithium salts, anti-psychotics, SSRIs or other kinds of treatment can be a very hit or miss heuristic process requiring great patience and classy, caring doctoring. Some patients would rather reject the chemical path and look for ways of using diet, exercise and talk-therapy. For some the condition is so bad that ECT is indicated. One of my best friends regularly goes to a clinic for doses of electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment looked on by many as a kind of horrific torture that isn’t even understood by those who administer it. This friend of mine is just about one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and she says, “I know. It ought to be wrong. But it works. It makes me feel better. I sometimes forget my own name, but it makes me happier. It’s the only thing that works.” For her. Lord knows, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t understand the brain or the mind anything like enough to presume to judge or know better than any other semi-informed individual, but if it works for her…. well then, it works for her. Which is not to say that it will work for you, for me or for others. Stephen Fry
60
Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19, 33):- fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities;- authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others;- benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for." World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16—20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness P A T R I C K W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON . Patrick W. Corrigan
61
Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32)."World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16—20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness P A T R I C K W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON . Patrick W. Corrigan
62
Sometimes the people around you won't understand your journey. They don't need to, it's not for them. Joubert Botha
63
No one would ever say that someone with a broken arm or a broken leg is less than a whole person, but people say that or imply that all the time about people with mental illness. Elyn R. Saks
64
I had people saying 'it's all in your head'. Do you honestly think I want to feel this way? Sonia Estrada
65
1 in 5 people have dandruff. 1 in 4 people have mental health problems. I've had both. Ruby Wax
66
Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. Bill Clinton
67
I'm not the kind of person who likes to shout out my personal issues from the rooftops, but with my bipolar becoming public, I hope fellow sufferers will know it's completely controllable. I hope I can help remove any stigma attached to it, and that those who don't have it under control will seek help with all that is available to treat it. Catherine ZetaJones
68
The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation. Glenn Close
69
This disease comes with a package: shame. When any other part of your body gets sick, you get sympathy. Ruby Wax
70
Severe mental illness has been likened to drug addiction, prostitution, and criminality (37, 38). Unlike physical disabilities, persons with mental illness are perceived by the public to be in control of their disabilities and responsible for causing them (34, 36). Furthermore, research respondents are less likely to pity persons with mental illness, instead reacting to psychiatric disability with anger and believing that help is not deserved (35, 36, 39).Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry. Feb 2002; 1(1): 16—20.PMCID: PMC1489832PATRICK W. CORRIGAN and AMY C. WATSON. Matthew W. Corrigan
71
Stigmas speak to the idea of difference and how difference shames us and those we know. Unknown
72
People who live with mental illnesses are among the most stigmatized groups in society. Fighting the stigma caused by mental disorders: past perspectives, present activities, and future directions. World Psychiatry. Oct 2008; 7(3): 185—188. PMCID: PMC2559930 Heather Stuart
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Public stigma Stereotype Negative belief about a group (e.g., dangerousness, incompetence, character weakness) Prejudice Agreement with belief and/or negative emotional reaction (e.g., anger, fear) Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., avoidance, withhold employment and housing opportunities, withhold help) Self-stigma Stereotype Negative belief about the self (e.g., character weakness, incompetence) Prejudice Agreement with belief, negative emotional reaction (e.g., low self-esteem, low self-efficacy) Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., fails to pursue work and housing opportunities) Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry. Feb 2002; 1(1): 16—20.PMCID: PMC1489832 . Matthew W. Corrigan
74
My therapist told me that I over-analyze everything. I explained to him that he only thinks this because of his unhappy relationship with his mother. Michelle Templet
75
Here I want to stress that perception of losing one’s mind is based on culturally derived and socially ingrained stereotypes as to the significance of symptoms such as hearing voices, losing temporal and spatial orientation, and sensing that one is being followed, and that many of the most spectacular and convincing of these symptoms in some instances psychiatrically signify merely a temporary emotional upset in a stressful situation, however terrifying to the person at the time. Similarly, the anxiety consequent upon this perception of oneself, and the strategies devised to reduce this anxiety, are not a product of abnormal psychology, but would be exhibited by any person socialized into our culture who came to conceive of himself as someone losing his mind. Erving Goffman
76
I cut myself up really badly with the lid of a tin can. They took me to the emergency room, but I couldn’t tell the doctor what I had done to cut myself– I didn’t have any memory of it. The ER doctor was convinced that dissociative identity disorder didn’t exist. . . . A lot of people involved in mental health tell you it doesn’t exist. Not that you don’t have it, but that it doesn’t exist. Unknown
77
Too often the survivor is seen by [himself or] herself and others as "nuts, " "crazy, " or "weird." Unless her responses are understood within the context of trauma. A traumatic stress reaction consists of *natural* emotions and behaviors in response to a catastrophe, its immediate aftermath, or memories of it. These reactions can occur anytime after the trauma, even decades later. The coping strategies that victims use can be understood only within the context of the abuse of a child. The importance of context was made very clear many years ago when I was visiting the home of a Holocaust survivor. The woman's home was within the city limits of a large metropolitan area. Every time a police or ambulance siren sounded, she became terrified and ran and hid in a closet or under the bed. To put yourself in a closet at the sound of a far-off siren is strange behavior indeed–outside of the context of possibly being sent to a death camp. Within that context, it makes perfect sense. Unless we as therapists have a good grasp of the context of trauma, we run the risk of misunderstanding the symptoms our clients present and, hence, responding inappropriately or in damaging ways. . Diane Mandt Langberg
78
In the same way that the women's movement of the seventies and eighties brought rape and incest into public consciousness, we can do the same with the causes and reality of dissociation and multiplicity. Carolyn Spring
79
Even though I know that breaking your brain is the same as breaking your arm, I'm still ashamed that my brain is broken. A.S. King
80
To resist a compulsion with willpower alone is to hold back an avalanche by melting the snow with a candle. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. David Adam
81
Officially, it is no more possible to be a little bit OCD than it is to be a little bit pregnant or a little bit dead. David Adam
82
Despite the growing clinical and research interest in dissociative symptoms and disorders, it is also true that the substantial prevalence rates for dissociative disorders are still disproportional to the number of studies addressing these conditions. For example, schizophrenia has a reported rate of 0.55% to 1% of the normal population (Goldner, Hus, Waraich, & Somers, more or less similar to the prevalence of DID. Yet a PubMed search generated 25, 421 papers on research related to schizophrenia, whereas only 73 publications were found for DID-related research. Paul H. Blaney
83
Every time you feel like mocking a person you disagree with politically by implying that they are mentally ill, I want you to instead imagine you are talking to every single person who actually is mentally ill and telling them they are worthless. That's how it makes mentally ill people feel. Doesn't seem very progressive now does it? Ariel Howland
84
The history of hysteria is a history of the relation between the colonizing father and the colonized devalued other. Judith L. Alpert
85
In my view, the spurning of DID is highly connected with knowing and not knowing about child sexual abuse. Side by side with denial of childhood trauma and of severe dissociation, is an unmistakable cognizance of dissociative processes as they are embedded in our language. We regularly say things such as, "pull yourself together", "he is coming unglued", "she was beside herself", "don't fall apart", "he's not all there", "she was shattered", and so on. Elizabeth Howell
86
In 2006, there is no army of recovered memory therapists, and Dr McNally’s assumptions about patients with PTSD and those working in this field are troubling. Owing to past debates, those working in the PTSD field are perhaps more knowledgeable than others about malingered, factitious, and iatrogenic variants. Why, then, does Dr McNally attack PTSD as a valid diagnosis, demean those working in the field, and suggest that sufferers are mostly malingered or iatrogenic, while giving little or no consideration is given to such variants of other psychiatric conditions? Perhaps the trauma field has been “so often embroiled in serious controversy” (4, p 816) for the same reason Dr McNally and others have trouble imagining the traumatization of a Vietnam War cook or clerk. One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients." Cameron, C., & Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402. Unknown
87
Although stigmatizing attitudes are not limited to mental illness, the public seems to disapprove persons with psychiatric disabilities significantly more than persons with related conditions such as physical illness (34-36). Severe mental illness has been likened to drug addiction, prostitution, and criminality (37, 38). Unlike physical disabilities, persons with mental illness are perceived by the public to be in control of their disabilities and responsible for causing them (34, 36). Furthermore, research respondents are less likely to pity persons with mental illness, instead reacting to psychiatric disability with anger and believing that help is not deserved (35, 36, 39)."World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16—20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness P A T R I C K W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON . Patrick W. Corrigan