Fighting stigma one story at a time

In January mental health jumped into the forefront of America’s political and media dialog after a gunman shot and killed 26 people, mostly children, in Newtown, Conn. The gunman, Adam Lanza, reportedly had Asperger’s.

As someone who has a mental illness that, unlike Asperger’s, has been associated with violence and psychosis, I am not thrilled when politicians rally around mental illness because they fear the next mass shooter might be “one of us.” In fact, four months after this incident, I worry that the attention it gave to mental health may have caused more harm than good.

In reality, most people with mental illness don’t shoot up schools, or movie theaters, or bomb marathons. People with mental health conditions are more likely to hurt themselves than go on a shooting spree. And much of this violence could be prevented if society didn’t attach a stigma to mental illnesses.

It took seven years for me to become comfortable enough with my bipolar diagnosis to write about it. Seven years.

I can relate to people who don’t want to take their medication after they are diagnosed. I was one of them. I can’t tell you how many people told me to just eat healthier or take St. John’s Wort to get over my bipolar symptoms. Just a couple months ago I had a friend suggest I try a chiropractic treatment for my bipolar disorder.

At first I thought these people might be right. When you are diagnosed with a severe mental illness doctors initially over medicate you and then tapper down until they find the medications and dosage that work for you. This process is long and hard. And when you have a handful of people saying the medications aren’t necessary, well you decide to stop taking them.

Fortunately for me, I had people in my life who had been through this process before or were in the mental health field and encouraged me to stick with the medications. Eventually my doctors did find the right dosage for me.

Once doctor’s tapered down my medications to the right amount of Lithium and eliminated the other pills they had me on, I felt back to my normal self. A new normal self, one that was just as creative, funny and engaged as I had been before. 

I’m writing this because I know that public policy can’t eliminate mental health stigma. But I hope, and pray, that the stories of those of us who suffer from mental illness can.