Know What Self-Stigma Is

Stigma

Anyone who suffers from a mental illness will or already has faced the stigma of some sort. This could be from friends, family, employers, or other employees, and sometimes even from health care professionals.

Stigma from other people can be very damaging to an individual. That being said, something that is even more dangerous and damaging is self-stigma.

Self-stigma is when we take the stigma and start to internalize it and start to believe in all the negative stereotypes that have been given to us by the outside stigma.

This has a huge emotional impact on us and it can sometimes be worse than the symptoms of the mental illness we are facing.

The shame that self-stigma can instill in us can make us less likely to talk about our conditions. It can also limit our understanding and awareness of our situation which allows the self-stigma to grow strong. It becomes a vicious cycle that can be extremely difficult to get out of.

Types of Self-Stigma:

Alienation

This is feeling disappointed in yourself, ashamed, or embarrassed about yourself just for having a mental illness. You might feel that the illness itself is all your fault and that it is ruining your life.

Stereotype Endorsement

This is when you apply the stereotypes of mental illness to yourself. Things like you can’t do certain things, like dating or a relationship, work a good job, or have any type of contribution to society.

Social Withdrawal

This is when you avoid other people who aren’t suffering from a mental illness, and socializing with people in general because you always feel like you are a burden. You may also feel inadequate or that you are an embarrassment to your loved ones.

Consequences Of Self-Stigma:

There are many different consequences to self-stigma. This is so damaging to us because it can slow down or even halt your recovery, it can trigger or increase your depression, and also lower your self-esteem.

Self-Sabotage

This can be similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy. We expect failure, and believe that we can’t have relationships, and often because of this we isolate ourselves and don’t bother taking risks.

This can oftentimes be viewed as a way to protect ourselves. However, even though it may seem that way, we are actually doing more harm.

Rumination

I believe everyone does this, however, those with a mental illness tend to do this more often and on a more severe scale.

This is dwelling on our negative thoughts. This can include generalizing our experiences. Maybe a few people have treated us negatively and so we assume that everyone will treat us that way.

Suicidal Ideation

Suicidal ideation or thoughts can be increased because of self-stigma. Mental illnesses such as depression usually have suicidal thoughts as part of the illness. When we have self-stigma this can increase the intensity and frequency of those thoughts.

When we feel like we are a burden to others, that things won’t get any better and we can’t do anything with our lives, we begin to lose hope and those suicidal thoughts can increase.

Addressing Self-Stigma

Self-stigma is certainly an area that needs to be recognized and dealt with in order to help with our recovery. We need to alter these beliefs and attitudes and increase and strengthen our coping skills by increasing our self-esteem.

We can do this in several ways.

Try To Understand

We need to know and understand what self-stigma is and what it can do to us. We need to recognize that while we may face challenges others do not, it does not mean that we are a burden, hopeless, or can’t accomplish anything.

Use Facts

Don’t simply rely on what the general population says, thinks, or believes. Do your research and look for the real facts.

For instance, many people believe that people with a mental illness are more likely to be violent than others. The fact is that people who suffer from a mental illness are more likely to become victims https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1389236/ of crimes than be the perpetrators.

Keep In Mind

You may suffer from self-stigma throughout your recovery process. Sometimes it may be worse than others, or maybe it seems like you’ve finally beaten it only to have it come back.

Remember that if you work at it and employ the coping strategies that have helped you, you can push it back again. Keep a record of what coping strategies work for you so that you can easily reference them when you need to.