Mental Illness Isn't Contagious!
65You Won't Catch it if you get too close I promise!
What is that saying? What I don't know I fear, What I fear I despise? I recently saw a conversation on a social networking group about homelessness, and I became so frustrated at the choices people make to not educate themselves about why others are homeless, or about who the homeless are. You see one person who is drunk, or you hear about one person who has been beaten up near a homeless shelter; which, for the record, is being shown to demonstrate the lack of activity by the city police, not the character of the people in the video. City statistics show that 30 percent of homeless people have some form of mental illness.
We've got this new committee that says their first goal is to remove the stigma of mental illness. I had to laugh because I have to wonder how they plan to do that when so many people before them have tried and failed. When people make up their minds about something there isn't a damn thing that can change their minds. Period. Besides.. If the media refuses to report something properly, and they incorrectly reported the same story repeatedly this weekend, there's no way to fix it because the media is always right, even when they are wrong. But on a final note for right now because this has been sitting unpublished for a week. Schizophrenia/depression/bipolar isn't a cold folks, You can't catch it if someone who has it sneezes on you!!
Mental Illness on Amazon
 | Amazon Price: $0.99 |
 | Amazon Price: $7.99 |
CommentsLoading...
I agree. There is a stigma associated with mental illness. I have had sever depression my entire life, it's always been there. But I spent so many years labeling myself as overly emotional that I convinced myself it was me being a nut, me screwed up, my fault. I didn't get help until suicide was constantl on my mind and I barely held on to life. I am being treated now and feel as though something inside is finally awake. I wish that I'd gotten help earlier. But I know that society told me over and over again not to talk about it, that suicide was for cowards, and you must be screwed up if you wanted to die.
i don't believe anyone really thinks these mental illnesses are contagious by physical contact, but i have to raise the awareness that close mental contact is and has been (i do everything i can for this person) borderline contagious enough for me to look up on google if bipolar/schizophrenia/o.c.d. is contagious... because having been, as an adult, in a close relationship with an individual and constantly fighting and yelled at for no reason but that disorder, about demons, about evil in my heart and sense of doom. about fear of loss. etc etc. these real and true emotions run deep, and having been close to an emotionally unstable person has me going neurotic, acting bipolar, nervous.... in other words, gaining the symptoms which i never had in the first place. i want to be there for him but i don't know if i can recover.
Well said WD and commentaries. I'm a professional in the field a long time and I'm thinking its time to change the 'illness' model that frightens and stigmatizes people.
I always refer to mental health 'conditions' rather than illness and this is increasing supported in research. Better knoweldge and treatment ideas are emerging all the time: I've seen this over about 25 years of clinical work.
And yes, I think there is a contagion effect with emotional and pschological distress both in how this effects relationships and how the distress starts up. There are many relational and experiencial reasons for good and not so good mental health.
Also, I agree that media often misleads and distorts the news for spin at the expense of public knowledge.
Regards
M
teeray 4 years ago
Stigma! That darned stigma!
s - stoopid
t - television
i - interviews
g - get
m - misreported
a - always