As some of you might know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s a time for open dialogue about mental illnesses and elimination of the stigma attached to our conditions. This was started in 1949 by Mental Health America, a national advocacy organization. But almost no one knew about it because psychiatric illnesses were a taboo subject and oftenContinue reading “Mental Health Awareness Month”
Tag Archives: stigma
On Stigma: World Mental Health Day
Today, October 10th, 2014, is World Mental Health Day—a day to acknowledge the importance of mental health, and a day to educate others about mental illness. Here’s my contribution. Today I’m going to talk about stigma. I’ve discussed it in this blog at times, but I’ve never really gone into it in depth because itContinue reading “On Stigma: World Mental Health Day”
Stigma Sucks!
And then just about the time I get to thinking the world is my oyster, along comes something that reminds me of how marginalized people like me really are in our culture. Yesterday, it was a quote from some gun-rights nutcase named Larry Pratt, whose idea of gun control in the wake of tragedies such as the school shootingsContinue reading “Stigma Sucks!”
Out of the Closet
During my morning perusal of Facebook today, I managed to get involved in an animated discussion about how open one should be with a bipolar diagnosis. While most posters freely admitted they were open about their illness, a significant minority were either fearful to disclose it or proudly defiant about NOT disclosing it, as inContinue reading “Out of the Closet”
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