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Mental Health Stigma Quotes

Browse 102 quotes about Mental Health Stigma.

Mental Health Stigma Quotes

“Never stand in the way of letting God use people’s actions, in order to solve a greater issue in the world.”

CharacterChoicesEvilGamesFearIgnorancePerceptionLiesAdversityInjusticeTrialsObsessionCrueltyCivil RightsSelfishnessSatanBoredomHypocrisyWickedLiarsBiasActionsConsequencesStalkingStereotypesBlindedHatersHackingGod S PlanSinnersWrong ChoicesMental Health StigmaMeddlingHuman Rights ViolationsCyberbullyingEvil DoersWitch HuntsBlindsightedTsloamaConsequences Of EvilWarpedEvil ActionsJudgersWrong Acts
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“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.”

FearDepressionShameMental HealthMental IllnessRecoveryStigmaDepressedSurvivorsMental Health StigmaRecovery QuotesStigmatized
Book:Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
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“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.”

FearPsychologyDiscriminationMental IllnessBiasDiagnosisStigmaDisclosureMental Health StigmaMental DisorderEmployee RelationsEmployment ContractEmployment RightsEmployment Law
Book:Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill
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“Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first.”

EarthValuesCompassionKindnessEnvironmentCrimeForgivingCaringTheologyVulnerableServiceLiarsActivistMoralsPollutionBiasAltruismHomelessBeing HumanSocial IssuesHypocriteUneducatedOpenEmpatheticOutdoorsMental Health StigmaCommunicationsOceansComplainersCheatersHelperRespect LifeMedical MissionsSimplisticTheifAdulterersHelping OutMental Disorder BiasMarine ConservationRespect NatureCommuicatorCommunity MemberHuman TrafficingRespect For The WorldService Project
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“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.”

MadnessStigmaStereotypesMental Health StigmaAsylumMental HospitalStigmatizationStigmatized
Book:Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
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“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.”

InspirationSupportAdviceDepressionAnxietyStressMental HealthMental IllnessHelpMental Health Stigma
Book:From My Suffering: 25 Ways to Break the Chains of Anxiety, Depression & Stress
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“You can’t be beaten by something you laugh at.”

LifeLife LessonsQuotesLife QuotesLivingLaughterOptimismMental HealthMental IllnessTherapyQuotes To Live ByDisabilityQuotes About LifeLiving LifeCopingLiving Life To The FullestSchizophreniaLiving WellOptimism QuotesMental Health StigmaQuotes Of LifeDisability QuotesMental Illness StigmaBipolar QuotesTherapy SessionCoping StrategiesCoping With ChangeCoping With LifeMental Illness CopingCoping With Anxiety
Book:Freak
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“People don’t necessarily realize it when they contribute to the erosion of a child’s self-worth, but kids pay attention to how people treat them, and they get the message loud and clear. I wish I could say it didn’t distort their self-perception and make them more sensitive and insecure, but it does.”

ChildrenMental HealthBullyingEmotional AbuseMental Health AwarenessChildhood TraumaMental Health StigmaNeurodivergenceKindness Matters
Book:Grateful to Be Alive: My Road to Recovery from Addiction
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“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.”

PsychologySelf EsteemAbuseShameMental HealthMemoryTraumaMental IllnessSurvivorChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderPsychologistDiagnosisDissociationChild Sexual AbuseMultiple Personality DisorderIncestPsychiatricMultiple PersonalitiesMental Health StigmaSplit PersonalityAbusive ParentsPedophilesDidSelf BlameSurvivor Of AbuseChild Range
Book:First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple
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“Try yoga! Think about the good stuff! Keep yourself engaged! It’s all in your mind! Duh! It is! But is more of a chemical imbalance! I don’t know why people don’t take mental ailments as normal. People are accepting of AIDS, cancer, tuberculosis, etc. But mental ailments? They are just all in the mind!”

HumansSocietyDepressionMental HealthMental IllnessCynicalMental Health AwarenessMental Health Stigma
Book:The World's Most Frustrated Man
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“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.”

PsychologyAbuseMental HealthMemoryTraumaMental IllnessSurvivorChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDiagnosisDissociationChild Sexual AbuseMultiple Personality DisorderIncestPsychiatricMental Health StigmaAbusive ParentsPedophilesDidChild Range
Book:First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple
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“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.”

PsychologyAbuseMental HealthTraumaMental IllnessChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDiagnosisDissociationChild Sexual AbuseMultiple Personality DisorderIncestPsychiatricMental Health StigmaDid
Book:First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple
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“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.”

Mental IllnessPtsdSurvivorsDisclosureDiscreditMental Health StigmaSurvivors Of AbuseAbuse SurvivorMental DisordersMental Illness StigmaPsychiatric DisordersDisclosing
Book:Violence and Abuse Issues: Cross-Cultural Perspectives for Health and Social Services
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“The history of hysteria is a history of the relation between the colonizing father and the colonized devalued other.”

SexismSexual AbuseHysteriaBiasedHystericalDiscreditMental Health StigmaDevalueMental Illness StigmaMental Health BiasMelodramaticStigmatizedDehumanizeColonizedDevaluedPerjorative
Book:Sexual Abuse Recalled: Treating Trauma in the Era of the Recovered Memory Debate
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“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).”

FantasySexismSexual AbuseChild Sexual AbuseHysteriaBiasedHystericalIncestDiscreditMental Health StigmaFalse MemoriesChildhood Sexual AbuseMental Illness StigmaFalse Memory SyndromeMental Health BiasMelodramaticStigmatizedFantasizingFalse Memory Syndrome MythPerjorative
Book:Sexual Abuse Recalled: Treating Trauma in the Era of the Recovered Memory Debate
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“Although, in principle, the psychoanalytical theory of borderlines is not punitive, in practice 'borderline' is almost always used to indicate that the patient is hostile, demanding, unpleasant, manipulative, attention-seeking, and prone to regression and dependency if admitted to hospital; in other words patient is a witch by Malleus Maleficarum criteria. The term 'borderline' functions to rationalize sadistic counter-transference, and to legitimize rejecting triaging decisions within the health-care system. Actually, most of the time, in my experience, the splitting is coming from the staff, not the patient, and it is the mental-health professionals who are using projection and denial. This is an example of 'blaming the victim,' which is a fundamental borderline psychodynamic.”

DenialBiasProjectionSplittingMental Health StigmaBorderline Personality DisorderVictim BlamingMental Illness StigmaPersonality DisorderMental Illness DiscriminationPsychological DefenceBlame The Victim
Book:Satanic Ritual Abuse: Principles of Treatment
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“Within the mental-health system in North America, the borderline victim of severe childhood trauma is usually blamed for her behaviour, which is regarded as having no legitimate basis and being self-indulgent; her trauma history is ignored and not talked about; and she is given as little treatment and follow-up as possible. At St Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, many staff members expressed the opinion, in my presence, that borderlines and multiple personality disorder patients did not have a legitimate right to in-patient treatment, and the out-patient department would not accept patients with either diagnosis. (1995)”

Mental Health StigmaBorderline Personality DisorderTransferenceMental Health ProfessionalsMental Health BiasPersonality DisorderInstitutional OppressionMental Health SystemMental Illness DiscriminationLabellingCountertransferenceMental Health DiscriminationMental Illnesss Stigma
Book:Satanic Ritual Abuse: Principles of Treatment
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“My other client, whom I will call Teresa, thought Lorraine had MPD and hoped I could help her. Almost no one recognized this condition in those days. Lorraine was forty years old and had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since she was thirteen. She had had various diagnoses, mainly severe depression, and she had made quite a few serious suicide attempts before I even met her. She had been given many courses of electric shock therapy, which would confuse her so much that she could not get together a coherent suicide plan for quite a while. Lorraine’s psychiatrist was initially opposed to my seeing her, as her friend Teresa had been stigmatized with the "borderline personality disorder" diagnosis when in hospital, so was seen as a bad influence on her. But after Lorraine spent a couple of months in hospital calling herself Susie and acting consistently like a child, he was humble enough to acknowledge that perhaps he could learn some new things, and someone else’s help might be a good idea.”

PsychiatryDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMultiple Personality DisorderMental Health StigmaMental DisorderDissociative DisorderDissociativeBorderline Personality DisorderMisdiagnosisBpdMental Health ProfessionalsMental Health BiasMental Illness DiscriminationAlter PersonalityStigmatizedLabeling SomeoneEct
Book:Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
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“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. BUT it 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. BUT 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.”

DepressionAnxietyMental HealthMental IllnessWeatherEmotional PainValidationDepression QuotesMental Health StigmaMental DisorderAnalogyCoping StrategiesListlessnessPositive AttitudesWeathering Hard TimesAnti Stigma
Author:Stephen Fry
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“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.”

Mental HealthChild AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationChild Sexual AbuseAbuse SurvivorsMultiplicitySurvivorsMultiple Personality DisorderIncestMultiple PersonalitiesMental Health StigmaTrauma SurvivorsDissociative DisordersRequire
Book:Living with the Reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Campaigning Voices
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“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.”

DenialDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationChild Sexual AbuseSociety DenialMental Health StigmaDissociative DisorderDdnosInvalidationDissociative States
Book:Knowing, Not-Knowing and Sort-of-Knowing
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“...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.”

HealingPridePrejudiceMental HealthDefeatTraumaMental IllnessRecoveryDenialTherapyDefeatedPtsdStigmaAbuse SurvivorsPsychotherapyPowerlessnessTraumatic ExperiencesLabelingMental Health StigmaMental DisorderPost Traumatic Stress DisorderHealing From AbusePosttraumatic Stress DisorderTorturedSelf StigmaLabellingTorture SurvivorsMale SurvivorPolitical Refugees
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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?”

PoliticsCrazyPrejudiceProgressiveStigmaMental Health StigmaMental DisorderWorthlessnessMockingMental Illness DiscriminationStigmatizationStigmatizedLabellingMental Disorder BiasMentally Disturbed
Author:Ariel Howland
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“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.”

Mental HealthMental IllnessHuman MindPsychiatryRespecting OthersBipolarHuman BrainMental Health StigmaMental DisorderBipolar DisorderLithiumJudgemental PeopleInformed ConsentInformed DecisionsPsychiatric DrugsEct
Author:Stephen Fry
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“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: PMC1489832 Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness PATRICK W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON”

FearPrejudiceBlameMental HealthDiscriminationMental IllnessBiasStigmaStereotypesChildlikeMental Health StigmaMental DisorderMedia ManipulationMedia BiasSensationalismMedia DistortionStigmatizationStereotyped PrejudicesDangerousnessPsychiatric CommunityStereotypedMental Patient
Author:Patrick W. Corrigan
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“Split is doing well at the box office around the world, but it misrepresents people with dissociative identity disorder (DID; previously called multiple personality disorder). The trailer is particularly gripping, luring in audiences by depicting a man with DID kidnapping and preparing to torture three teenage girls. Kevin (played by James McAvoy) juggles 24 personalities that are based on stereotypes: a cutesy 9-year-old infatuated with Kanye West, a flamboyant designer, and the “Beast,” a superhuman monster who sees the girls as “sacred food.” Kevin falsely represents people with DID through exaggerated symptoms, extreme violence, and unrealistic physical characteristics. The senior author, an expert in DID, has not seen any DID patient who is this violent in 25 years of clinical practice. Kevin’s ghastly personalities are so over-the-top that terrifying scenes are making audiences laugh.”

Mental IllnessDissociative Identity DisorderStereotypesMultiple PersonalitiesMental Health StigmaSerial KillersSplitDidmpdSplit MovieSplitmoviehurts
Author:Bethany L. Brand
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