Today I had coffee with a friend who also has anorexia, but she is recovered (or rather, she lives a life that doesn’t include anorexia, even if it’s always lurking somewhere in the recesses of her mind.
We were talking about suicide – both of us have attempted it a couple of times each. Thankfully both of us were not ‘successful’ (well duh, I’m writing this!). Right now I have to stop and ask, why do we call a suicide that ends in death successful? I know it’s because the person accomplished what they attempted… but it sounds so wrong. Especially given that many people who attempt suicide actually do not want to really die, they want help, they want the pain to stop..
My friend (who is quite a bit my elder – two decades+) mentioned that years ago in our state, it was illegal to attempt suicide. Now this is not news to me – suicide has been, and still often is, ‘illegal’, but I thought that was really just a formality. Who is going to run after a mentally ill, distressed person, and arrest them for daring to have lost all hope?
Well, apparently they used to do just that. People who attempted suicide used to be given fines!
This left me gasping silently like a fish out of water for all of five shocked minutes.
The stigma of having a mental illness has lessened greatly since the days of people being institutionalised for life in insane asylums but we still have a long way to go.
Francisco Goya's The Madhouse
Have you ever experienced someone’s treating you differently after finding out that you suffer a mental illness? (If you do have one – if not, would you treat someone differently if you found out that they had a mental illness – and why?)
Have you ever feared telling your boss, teacher, friend – because you were scared of losing your job, being treated differently, ostracised, etc?
Have you delayed seeking help (or are you still to seek help) because of the stigma or the fear attached to having a mental illness?
Mental illness doesn’t make us different to every other human being. All human beings are somewhere on the spectrum when it comes to sanity. What IS ‘sane’ anyway? Who is the best judge of that? Indeed even the ‘sanest’ and ‘healthy-minded’ of us have our crazy moments!
When someone is suffering, and feels unable to ask for help for that suffering, because of a fear of how society will thereafter judge them, there is something deeply wrong with that society. The stigma of mental illness actually contributes to suicidal behaviour -
“Yet suicide is, itself, a source of stigma as anyone with suicidal ideation is considered weak, shameful, sinful and selfish, which prevents these individuals from seeking treatment early in the suicidal process. These judgements are often shared by active churchgoers ( Sawyer & Sobal, 1987), teachers and parents. Also, parents and widows of victims of suicide are stigmatised, which makes recovery from this type of loss particularly difficult (Smith et al, 1995). Destigmatisation should be addressed to mental illness as well as suicide. Increasing the stigma associated with having suicidal feelings will increase the suicide rate. Interventions among families, mental health professionals, military personnel and church activists aimed at decreasing the stigma associated with mental illness and suicide may contribute to the reduction of deaths by suicide.” (source)
This is why we need to keep on speaking out, we who have mental illness – This is why we need to stop letting ourselves be shamed silent. There is NO shame to having a mental illness – just as there isn’t shame for having a physical illness. We were given a body, our body sometimes gets sick and needs treatment to help us get better or live with that sickness managed – and this goes for body and mind.
Know that it is okay to ask for help – that having a mental illness doesn’t make you weak or stupid. Know that there IS help, and that there ARE people out there who understand. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Don’t tell someone who is unwell to ‘snap out of it’. They can’t. Don’t think that you can ‘pray’ them better or that if you make them laugh and do things, they will snap out of it that way. Prayer has it’s place, alongside real treatment and support. Being a friend and doing things with them is also the best thing you can do for them – but it will not make them better – and that is not a failing on your part either.
And if you find yourself needing help – here are some places to start – as well as talking to someone in real life – your friends, your family, your doctor, your teacher, your priest, your counsellor..
In Australia:
Sane Reach Out Lifeline – 13 11 14 (24 hours a day)
Healthinsite – links to support and information
Support Groups – via Black Dog Institute
In the UK:
Sane helpline 0845 767 8000 Mind
In the USA:
Mental Health America Directions for Mental Health
NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health)
toll-free, 24-hour hotline of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)to be connected to a trained counselor at a suicide crisis center nearest you.
“What is madness but to define madness?”, right?
I’ve definitely hesitated to tell employers and friends about my ED because of the stigma. Even in cases where it’s become blatantly obvious and I’ve been directly confronted, I’d rather deny and leave room for doubt than confirm and become a “victim”, “charity case”, “sufferer”, “crazy person”, etc. I suppose in a way I’m perpetuating the prejudice by doing this, but I just can’t deal with the additional pressures imposed by bosses and friends who think I’m a liability who needs “help” and “exceptions”, and who stand around outside the bathroom to see if I’m purging.
From reading your blog, I have seen you writing about this – about being in the workplace and in school – and I can see how your situation would be SO much harder if you did tell them. It’s really sad that it’s like that but I do understand. Myself – I find it so hard to tell people about the eating disorder. I actually find it easier to tell them about depression, about the self harming (because people ask about my scars, now I’m okay with saying in a matter of fact way that I used to self harm and why) but the ed? NO. i am cringing just thinking about it. And given I’ve just written a blog about this.. I’m not doing my bit for awareness either.
Why? For much the same reasons as you wrote. I can’t bear for people to wait outside bathrooms, to scrutinise everything i eat or drink, to watch me after eating or drinking, to scrutinise my body… and on and on. I still feel so much shame about the ed, mostly because of what it has made me do and become. I get the charity case thing – I have been that all my life, and I’m grateful, but feel like such a loser.
I hope some day neither of us has to worry about this again.
Hang on – have been thinking of you xx
Well said! When I was in the ‘throws’ of depression my family knew and anyone close to me knew but in my job situation I didn’t advertise the fact…if I was off work ”it was sick leave” I was on because I was worn out or extremely fatigued etc. Then little by little people found out..can’t keep a secret once one person finds out. And yes, some didn’t know what to say and avoided the subject…some shook their heads feeling sorry that I was such a mess…(or at least that’s how I felt) Some of them actually I’m sure were sincere in their feelings but we don’t always take sincerity for understanding.
I was shocked one time ..after having one of the worse bouts ever…with ECT etc. and losing my job….shortly thereafter wanting to apply for a new job ..thinking no one is going to want me as an employee..but I had a ‘dream’ the night before applying, that I was in the interview and came clean about my depression and the woman doing the interview said “That’s okay I went through the same thing myself”. To make a long story short ..that is exactly what happened, and I got the job… Talk about God’s intervention!! ….Diane
I’m so glad you listened to God – perhaps He was finding that way to try and ease your fears of nobody wanting to employ you. Or He was steering you to that job! Whatever – it is awesome
And I’m happy for you. I understand that fear – that has been my fear for years. Who will employ me, 34, ‘mentally ill’, strange looking, never had a paid job, no experience? God is finding ways – I’ve started at an employment agency for people with mental illnesses and who have been out of work for years – and have been feeling for the first time, actually hopeful and positive about it.
I’m sorry that people weren’t really understanding or supportive when you were deep in your depression. Glad that you are out of it now. xxx
Fiona, this is my first time posting on your blog, but I have read what you write and share (for some time) and just want to say how much I appreciate your willingness to allow ‘us’, the reader, into the realm that you’ve known.
I relate to quite a bit of what you share. I’m grateful through and through for others willing to “voice” aspects that I am catatonic to.
As for this post.
The stigma. It’s a sad, sad thing. There even ought not be the word “stigma” as far as I’m concerned. Simply because we really all are singular souls journeying about on our paths. Along the while we have these “expectations” thrown at us that truly make no bit of sense, yet we “must” adopt or adapt them into our own travels. Before I get off course here; for which I tend to do as I lean non-linear heavily; to answer the questions you’ve asked.
I have kept “quiet”. Feeling and believing I must “fix it” on my own. For which now several decades later has found me yet in a space of a melancholic abyss. One where “suicide” is a constant nudge. Yet, I view “suicide” as subjective. I believe that we have been “told” that “suicide” is “wrong” (sorry for all of the quotations – it’s how I place something somewhere in a way that I don’t relate but am trying to communicate effectively. Even if it doesn’t make sense!)
The wording and definitions used; the, then stigma attached to these doesn’t necessarily reflect the aspects of the individual. This is where I sort of draw a line and say, “To each their own.” I truly believe we are all give our free choice in thought, in motion and eventually the execution of our decisions. Why does one need to be judged by it?
So, I just want to THANK YOU for posting this. For simply saying what many of us “out here” experience and might face. Stigma or otherwise; the battle to be ourselves, true, through and through can be a challenge. The more awareness we have ourselves, the better we can discern and go about our paths.
I believe what comes of our body is manifest of our mental/emotional state. If it were as simple as “snapping out of it”, no doubt; we all would have done this many times over and over. And I suppose we DO get to do just that.
With light.
Hello Rearrangingthesenses (I would love to know what to call you)
This is an amazing comment.. and I just want to say thank you. The main reason I wanted to blog was to try and throw that closed door wide open and allow people to see the reality of a life with mental illness – and that we aren’t any different from them really – just sick in a different way. Stigma is, yes a horrid word that I hope one day will not exist – but to get there we have to educate people – it’s ignorance that leads to most of it. Education leads to acceptance.
I am sorry that you have struggled so deeply and for so long. It’s not a journey I would wish on anyone – even though it’s a journey with the most amazing rewards and I often think I would do it all again because of that. We truly experience the very utmost highs and lows from this life rather than coasting along.
I don’t think we should be judged for exercising our free will at all. Just like I don’t think anyone should be judged for being human when it comes to pain and suffering – trying to alleviate that pain is the human thing to do – and people need to have more understanding of that.
This journey has stripped me down completely – broken me, shattered me. I have had to start again – rebuild my entire life from scratch. I am still the same person but different – and I think more really myself. And that’s something I only could have become by coming this way.
I just wish people would understand when I tell them why I’ve had to start over – they expect it to be something big like a physical illness or accident or bankruptcy.. they don’t expect it to be something big from my MIND. Hopefully one day they will.
Sorry I’ve gone off on tangents – I just wanted to say I really appreciate your comment and I’m honoured that you are reading my blog. Also that you made perfect sense (I hope I do – been a long day!)
xxx
Fiona; I too wouldn’t wish the struggles that come with a plethora of illnesses or experiences on others. Yet, when we can look upon these times and realize just how much they’ve helped to shape us, bring us strength, wisdom and blessings beyond what we could have fathomed; I honor them. I’d rather have that enrichment than be in a bitter space or even a space of ignorance.
I’m so glad to know that you are as open as you are and strive to be you regardless of that which you’ve come to meet along your journey.
You remind me of this thought :
“One day you finally knew what you had to do and began. Though the voices kept shouting their bad advice, though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew you had to do through the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the shreds of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save the only life you could save.” – Mary Oliver
I remember when a comment of yours first popped up on a blog I had been reading for some time. You came with a grace that one who has a deep compassion carries. I’m so grateful for this “voice” of yours, but extraordinarily delighted that I’ve been touched by your energy.
May you continue to strive towards the goodness you so want and know you can have. May you know your light and embrace it.
Be well.
This is a BRILLIANT post. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much Xo.
Thank you Bek!! xx
Beautiful piece as always. I even have trouble with the stigma of the term Mental Illness. I mean, yea, it is what it is, but perhaps i’ve gotten myself into a catch 22! Right? We shouldn’t feel stigmatized by the word Mental Illness, but there is a stigma attached to it. There shouldn’t be. My boyfriend thinks he will be discriminated against because of his diabetes. He has told no one but me. He doesn’t want to buy medications online because he doesn’t want employers to know ANYTHING about him.
I have told plenty of people (wait LOTS of people about the bulimia and the college drinking) … and usually when the words first come out of my mouth, i can READ peoples’ faces: There’s that moment of hesitation and judgment … is it sympathy or the reaction to T M I! Don’t want to know that?
I want to be open about Bulimia. If i am treated differently, or discriminated against, i want to KNOW. I will flat out ASK if my addictions, especially of the past have anything to do with my qualifications for a job, or whatever.
As far as “mental illness” goes, i’d say there are LOTS of people out there who need help. Those of us who are being honest and talking about it are the brave ones and WE are the Warriors who are getting “better” … now don’t get me started on the “degrees of better” and WHO the judge is of that!!!!
MUCHO love, lil sis!!! Mel
I’m sad that you feel people judge you or that it’s TMI, Mel, so sad. I would hope that people who you DO tell would realise, from knowing an awesome person like you, that wow, if you have a mental illness and you are who you are, then mental illness can’t be bad. And I hate that term too – but for want of another one…
It’s shocking that your BF is worried about diabetes stigma!
This world needs to be more accepting across the board.
As someone who has failed suicide before, and considered it many times since then, thank you for this. I think I may have to email it to the few people who *do* know the full extent of my crazy. I hate the “snap out of it” mentality, as much as I hate the “well if we tell her she isn’t fat enough times she’ll believe it”. Mental Illness are horrible, they need less stigma.
So true – with less (or NO) stigma would come respect – respect for the person, not trying to ‘snap them out of it’ or ‘talk them round’ by convincing them things are okay, they are okay etc.
I don’t think you have ‘failed’ by still being here, I think you have succeeded – you are here for a reason x
“This is why we need to keep on speaking out, we who have mental illness – This is why we need to stop letting ourselves be shamed silent. There is NO shame to having a mental illness – just as there isn’t shame for having a physical illness. We were given a body, our body sometimes gets sick and needs treatment to help us get better or live with that sickness managed – and this goes for body and mind.”
So well said, Fiona! This was a great post.
Thank you for reading, Lola
[...] Stigma and Suicide (faithandmeow.wordpress.com) [...]
I will come back later and answer comments individually – it’s the middle of the day and I’m off somewhere else. I just want to say this –
It takes strength and courage to admit that you need help, ask for help, and accept help.
It takes strength and courage to reach out to others.
It is a very strong and humble person who can accept help when they are unwell, and work with that help, to piece their lives back together again.
Do not be afraid of what other people think – it does not matter.
Thank you for caring for others & trying to give them access to whatever may help.xxoo
Lots of love to you, dear friend xxx
Don’t ever give up on life, my friend! You’ve too much to live for.
Thank you so much, Hook, I appreciate your support so much. I DO have so much to live for, you are right
Ah the cursed stigma. I went through so many phases, the most dominant of which was denial and pretending everything was fine. Depression? What depression? Eating disorders? I have that in control. Suicidal? Who me? I was hiding from myself. I think the stigma begins with our own attitude towards what we face.
Of course hiding behind my finger never helped. Lied to myself as I tried it never changed the fact that I was suffering from mental illnesses and I needed to address it. Have I gone overly open about it? In some ways but not completely. My employers know only of insomnia and depression. I don’t want them to know anything more. Immediate family knows even less.
Over the past months I have come across so many strange views. A person very close to me asked me: “do you believe in all this?” when she heard I was seeing a CBT psychologist, I was shocked and I didn’t know what to say back. I think I mumbled something about not having any relevance with belief systems but it fell on deaf ears. Someone else affirmed that all mental health issues should tried to be solved inside the family first. I wanted to scream “clueless idiot” but I refrained from doing so. One of my managers saw me in the kitchen during coffee break a few days ago and asked me about my insomnia problems. When I told him how sleeping was impossible, he lowered his voice to a whisper and asked “didn’t they give you any pills?” When he reached the word “pills” he was almost mouthing it soundlessly.
Much of this comes from fear and from binary states when it comes to mental health: crazy and sane with nothing in between. Like all binary stereotypes they are wrong and devised by people holding fear in their souls, probably the same types of people who used to lock away mental health patients and keep their existence a dirty secret never to be openly discussed as the “proper” and “normal” society has no place for people like us.
It’s the snobbery and the total disregard for the person behind the illness that gets me. But what really ticks me off is the change in attitude and how people start treating you in a different way. If you complain about this, you are ungrateful. If you don’t complain you are treated like an invalid, worthy only of pity. And yet if the same people were physically ill and treated in a similar way they would complain and scream about the injustice.
Thank you for writing about all this Fiona. It’s so important that we talk about that but at the same time being completely honest in the current social and work environment is sometimes an impossible feat.
You make some really good points and I agree. Definitely with mental health there’s a black and white thing – you are well, or you are insane and someone to be feared and kept away from society. And the lack of respect – I have had that too, and seen it. Sad how people seem to forget that you are still human the moment they find out and tiptoe around you or watch you closely or whatever.
I’ve been treated with pity, and I’ve been treated like a good for nothing loser just using excuses to get a free ride, and that hurts even more, knowing how hard I’ve fought and what a hard journey it’s been to come back from my own problems, am still fighting to come back.
I’ve hidden as much as I can too, still do. I fully understand why you would. It’s hard to accept something in ourselves that others won’t accept in ourselves.
I just hope some day we will be able to own having a mental illness and therefore it will not be as difficult to ask for help, not as isolating to try and live with it, and not as lonely when people don’t understand. xx
I remember feeling suicidal about a year ago. It scared me how my mood would flip like that. I remember being horrified. That was when I realized I needed help. I wasn’t concerned about my eating disorder at that point. I just wanted to feel better. It’s been a while, but I do:):) Can I just say I feel beyond blessed that you’re safe and here today?? My family has dealt with the successful, and it’s very tragic.
I’m so very glad you are here today too, Andrea. I don’t think we fully appreciate life until we have lived through something difficult. And thank you for being so kind to me.
I’m so very sorry your family’s lost someone to suicide. I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone close as family, but I’ve lost a couple of close friends to it and even years later, you never quite understand it or can get your head around the pain they must have been in. *hugs* and blessings to you.
I very much agree with what you said. Yet the stigma is so big. It’s even a shame to admit that you get therapy over here, and still I think that those who go to therapy are often people who have an interest in self-development and are capable of reflecting on themselves. I often miss those features with “normal” inviduals.
I love the caterpillar cartoon, btw. So true!
[...] those people with eating disorders, and people with mental illnesses in general. She accused my post about Stigma of being contradictory because I counsel against trying to cure someone with a mental illness [...]
mental illness means there’s neurological and/or chemical differences taking place in someone as compared to VAST majority of the population. Those differences oftentimes do require aid and more often necessitate deviations in order to live a life with more ease.
I don’t think receiving help of any form is weak… In fact, I think asking for help can take a LOT from a person… because you have to give up control and give up the idea that you are living a perfect, fulfilled life – or one that can’t be improved upon… rather that you could use some help to better your life.
I agree – it takes more strength and courage to ask and receive help than it does to pretend you are okay. Or in the case of some, gaily carry on in a big act fooling nobody but causing havoc and pain to many.
Mental illness IS caused by neurological and/or chemical differences – you are right. That much is known widely and is a result of years of research. It cannot be made ‘not true’ by someone who would rather believe that there is no such thing as true mental illness – because then she would not be mad herself.
Thank you for setting things straight, Dandelion Girl.