I object to the unflattering pictures of Amanda Bynes being used.
This is only manufacturing the fallacy that Amanda Bynes is in the midst of a meltdown.
As well, the articles attacking Bynes have very little verification from a third-party health official sound byte.
In short, mass media outlets are complicit in manufacturing the rumor that Bynes is not right in the head. All of it is just a careful ploy to peddle your paper based on your vile contempt for Amanda Bynes.
Mass media did the same thing to Amy Winehouse and recently, Justin Bieber. You're not publishing the truth anymore. You're just using bits and pieces of facts to perpetuate stigma against mental illness to profit from.
Shame on you!
According to Thomas Szasz, psychiatry actively obscures the difference between misbehavior and disease, in its quest to help or harm parties in conflicts. By calling certain people "diseased", psychiatry attempts to deny them responsibility as moral agents, in order to better control them.
Sadly though when mass media plays arm-chair psychiatry on celebrities, they manufacture the illusion that their target is mentally ill.
In essence, mass media is used as form of social control of not only celebrities but also society itself.
Showing posts with label stigma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stigma. Show all posts
20130201
Beating the Stigma of Mental Illness
Even though psychosiphobia is an invented term to describe society's fear of psychosis, mass media has done a disservice by either playing it for laughs or taking it all to seriously.
This fear appears in the minds of people who think if I tough it out, then I can beat mental illness just by thinking it away and gave patience waiting for my inner demons to leave me...
What magical thinking is this??
It's unfair to discriminate and stigmatize a person for his social ineptness even when he is supportive of tolerance of mental health consumers.
For mental health consumers, the peaceful confrontation is the safest path to survival.
If you don't like me for a few of my more eccentric views, and if you ignore the evidence as I've presented it, then my fear is validated — the fear that if you got to know me better, you'd called me weird and scary, and avoid close contact with me.
I agree with your view but we need to do more than complain about this problem that people with psychiatric disabilities face. This problem is called STIGMA.
Most mentally ill people are no more likely to harm others or even be violent to friends, loved ones, or even strangers.
Possibly only psychopaths are more likely to use violence on others.
A world leader with depression is an asset to the world, and a medicated world leader is as effective as a world leader in a wheelchair.
With therapy — whether from a therapist or of the self-help kind — we are mostly harmless.
So I am fed up with the stigmatization of people with psychiatric disabilities.
I am not crazy, a nutjob or totally insane; I have a mental illness. While you may think I might be scary and weird sometimes, that's only my anxiety talking.
It really isn't the real me.
So give the mentally ill a chance.
Thank you for your support!
psychosiphobia: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20061202024408/http://psychosiphobia.com/
This fear appears in the minds of people who think if I tough it out, then I can beat mental illness just by thinking it away and gave patience waiting for my inner demons to leave me...
What magical thinking is this??
It's unfair to discriminate and stigmatize a person for his social ineptness even when he is supportive of tolerance of mental health consumers.
For mental health consumers, the peaceful confrontation is the safest path to survival.
If you don't like me for a few of my more eccentric views, and if you ignore the evidence as I've presented it, then my fear is validated — the fear that if you got to know me better, you'd called me weird and scary, and avoid close contact with me.
I agree with your view but we need to do more than complain about this problem that people with psychiatric disabilities face. This problem is called STIGMA.
Most mentally ill people are no more likely to harm others or even be violent to friends, loved ones, or even strangers.
Possibly only psychopaths are more likely to use violence on others.
A world leader with depression is an asset to the world, and a medicated world leader is as effective as a world leader in a wheelchair.
With therapy — whether from a therapist or of the self-help kind — we are mostly harmless.
So I am fed up with the stigmatization of people with psychiatric disabilities.
I am not crazy, a nutjob or totally insane; I have a mental illness. While you may think I might be scary and weird sometimes, that's only my anxiety talking.
It really isn't the real me.
So give the mentally ill a chance.
Thank you for your support!
psychosiphobia: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20061202024408/http://psychosiphobia.com/
20050525
Why Mental Illness Is feared (satire)
British Columbia Schizophrenia Society: "'Why Do People Find Mental Illness So Unacceptable?'
Fear of Danger
Many people are afraid that people who have a mental illness are dangerous, unpredictable, and aggressive. In reality, people with a mental illness are usually anxious, fearful of others, and passive. The myth of danger is largely based on inaccurate and outdated cultural myths that always portrayed people with mental illness as violent.
Fear of Criminal Intentions
People with psychiatric disorders are no more likely to commit crimes than the general population. However, if mental illness is left untreated and allowed to become progressively more severe, people who are acutely ill may inadvertently end up in jail. Another common confusion has to do with the nature of involuntary hospitalization, which is sometimes necessary to treat and safeguard someone who is very ill. Hospitalization for medical treatment to regain one's health should never be falsely equated with incarceration in the criminal justice system.
Fear of the Unknown
People often fear what they do not understand. And when they don't understand, they often make wild guesses. Some cultures believe mental illness is the work of evil spirits, while others believe it is caused by bad blood, poisons, or lack of moral integrity. As people learn more about the real nature of mental illness, many of these harmful beliefs fade.
Aversion to Illness
After hundreds of years, 'mental illness' has finally been identified as a disease just like epilepsy, Parkinsonism, or diabetes. But this change from the realm of the witch doctor to the medical doctor doesn't erase all negative feeling -- only lessens it somewhat. The public still has a very strong aversion to hospitals, disease, and doctors.
Better health education programs can help do away with old myths and misunderstandings.
Giving patients the necessary supports to recover in their own communities will also help overcome the general prejudice against all people with mental illness."
As well, most mentally ill people tend to be less likely to lie than sane people, who might be sociopathic in a good way. Though I will point out that sociopathy is not a mental illness nor is criminal psychopathy. It is a legal term as is in/sanity.
Fear of Danger
Many people are afraid that people who have a mental illness are dangerous, unpredictable, and aggressive. In reality, people with a mental illness are usually anxious, fearful of others, and passive. The myth of danger is largely based on inaccurate and outdated cultural myths that always portrayed people with mental illness as violent.
Fear of Criminal Intentions
People with psychiatric disorders are no more likely to commit crimes than the general population. However, if mental illness is left untreated and allowed to become progressively more severe, people who are acutely ill may inadvertently end up in jail. Another common confusion has to do with the nature of involuntary hospitalization, which is sometimes necessary to treat and safeguard someone who is very ill. Hospitalization for medical treatment to regain one's health should never be falsely equated with incarceration in the criminal justice system.
Fear of the Unknown
People often fear what they do not understand. And when they don't understand, they often make wild guesses. Some cultures believe mental illness is the work of evil spirits, while others believe it is caused by bad blood, poisons, or lack of moral integrity. As people learn more about the real nature of mental illness, many of these harmful beliefs fade.
Aversion to Illness
After hundreds of years, 'mental illness' has finally been identified as a disease just like epilepsy, Parkinsonism, or diabetes. But this change from the realm of the witch doctor to the medical doctor doesn't erase all negative feeling -- only lessens it somewhat. The public still has a very strong aversion to hospitals, disease, and doctors.
Better health education programs can help do away with old myths and misunderstandings.
Giving patients the necessary supports to recover in their own communities will also help overcome the general prejudice against all people with mental illness."
As well, most mentally ill people tend to be less likely to lie than sane people, who might be sociopathic in a good way. Though I will point out that sociopathy is not a mental illness nor is criminal psychopathy. It is a legal term as is in/sanity.
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