Mental health stigma at school from peers can lead to bullying. Bullying can be an extremely difficult and traumatizing problem for children, especially those with mental health issues. Short term, when a child is being bullied and has a mental health problem, additional problems may add to their original diagnosis. These could be anything from social anxiety problems to depression. Further, during a child's critical formative years, mental health stigma at school (as bullying) affects the child for years to come. Here are some things you can do when your child faces mental health stigma at school.

Social isolation caused by mental health stigma can be debilitating. Many people are aware of social anxiety disorder, but social isolation is a form of anxiety where a mental health patient is not in a care facility but their own home and has a hard time facing the many forms of mental health stigma in society (Mental Illness, Isolation, and Loneliness).

Some people don't realize it, but mental health stigma can affect those in school or career training. This stigma, which affects people with mental health issues from elementary to post-secondary training, not only hurts the person involved when it happens, it can create barriers that keep the person from finding the right job, making a living, and having what he or she deserves--a full and productive life. Mental health stigma is almost always unfounded; for example, when people think of schizophrenia as having links to violent crime, and it is also extremely unfair to the person who is being stigmatised in the classroom. Don't let mental health stigma stop your career training or schooling.

The phrase “get over it” is something the mental health community has heard and spoken out against many times (What Is Stigma?). In particular, we hear it applied to depression and anxiety, but likely because those are the two mental illnesses that are most spoken about. The problem is, even though we’ve discussed the phrase and the problems it presents, it’s still something we hear over and over again, which, to me, means it’s something we need to continue speaking out against. "Get over it" just isn't helpful advice for a person with a mental illness.

When a parent is affected by mental health stigma, there are unique problems that occur (Issues for Parents With Mental Illness). These difficulties can range from a neighbor or friend commenting on your fitness of being a parent while living with a mental health issue, to having to battle for your children during a divorce hearing, or even facing losing your children as a result of a breakdown. The important thing to remember is when you are a parent affected by mental health stigma, there is always hope and you have to focus on getting yourself better first.

Sometimes, mental illness stigma comes from a loved one's concern for us but mental illness stigma that comes from concern still hurts. For example, I don’t talk about the period of time in my life when I was suicidal. On the rare occasion I might, it will be a fleeting comment or a quick attempt to brush it off as if it were nothing. Even in the articles I’ve written about it, it’s more to talk about how it worked (the way the idea was stuck on repeat in my head; the way it drowned out all other options) rather than the way it actually impacted me. I wish my loved ones didn't react out of concern for me. When they do, I feel as if I must explain myself instead of just talking out the problem. Their concern shows mental illness stigma.

Mental illness stigma and when to be honest in a relationship is tricky business. Being in a relationship when you have a mental illness can often make the difference between feeling good about yourself and feeling as though life has no meaning. Unfortunately, sometimes being honest about mental illness in a relationships causes people who believe in the stigma to leave. 

Sometimes even mental health advocates suffer self-stigma. There’s a lot more to advocacy than meets the eye (It's Critical to Be an Advocate for Those With Mental Illness). It’s not just standing up and saying or writing some words and expecting everyone to believe it – it’s about living the words, too. The challenge that comes with being a mental health advocate is that it creates an image or expectation of how people will see you. A mental health advocate's self-stigma can be a problem. 

It's hard to overcome stigma and judgement but you can overcome the stigma of mental illness with peer and family support. Just about everyone who suffers from a mental illness has experienced some form of mental health stigma. Stigma can take many forms, but for the sake of this blog post, I want to focus on the type of stigma that causes others to judge people with a mental illness and lower the status of mentally ill people in social situations. When others judge you, it affects whether they will choose to befriend you, whether they will give you the respect you are due as a human being, and it affects many different social advantages that people without mental illnesses take for granted. But you can overcome the stigma of judgement of mental illness with support.

There’s a video that came out just over a month ago that tells me to stop saying I'm depressed. It was made and posted by Prince Ea (Discussing Depression and Mental Health: Why Language Matters). Despite his enormous Facebook following, I had never heard of him before this video, but from what I can tell, he is a motivational speaker. His large following and the viral traction the video gained are the reason I want to write about it. You see, Prince Ea's message is fundamentally flawed. It tells me to stop saying I'm depressed.