Lived Experience Forum

[kristin]

Hi all,

I just found this on the Time for Change website on speaking out about MI and thought it might be of interest.

Kind regards, 

Kristin

[kristin]

Dear all,

I've just written an email to the journalist who wrote an article with a very MI stigmatising comment at the and of his article. Here's the email

Re: Your article: How to silence an abusive neighbour 

Dear Mr Thomson,

I just found this article from 7/2/2015.

Here is a quote from the end of the article: 

"I suspect there may also be a mental-health issue here ..."

What a breathtakingly stigmatising assumption! I could say rather a lot of sarcastic things about your ability to make diagnoses long-distance, and suggest your mental health expertise is lost on real estate. 

But I won't say a lot about that. Instead I will ask you to apologise. I doubt that you would have written this sentence substituting any of the following words for mental-health: female, Muslim, aboriginal, disability. So why do you think it is ok to say this with the MH words?

Actually I do have a mental-health issue. I suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder due to the neglect and abuse I suffered as a child. I try to live my life treating others as I would like them to treat me. Most people I know with mental health problems are far more likely to be abused than be abusive, they are sometimes frightened of other people.

I also have abusive neighbours - spiteful people who like to flatten my tyres and tamper with my gas bottles in the middle of the night (yes repeatedly, funny how it stopped when I installed security cameras on my house). I still try to treat them as I would like to be treated, and I try not to react to their bad behaviour by inflaming it further. I don't know the state of their mental health, and if it were poor it would be no excuse. Nor is there any excuse for your highly stigmatising, totally inappropriate and unnecessary comment at the close of your article.

Yours sincerely,

Kristin

[NikNik]

Hi Kristin,

It would be great if you could also send this into stigma watch through SANE.

The more voices, the better.

Nik

[kristin]

Hi Nik,

I actually sent it to Jenni at the same time as I emailed and posted it! It was a rather octopus-like effort but I did it  I was pretty angry. I heard back from Jenni about it today, asking me to let her know if the journo replied. If not she will post it on Stigma Watch. 

Kind regards, 

Kristin

[Terry]

I think calling schizophrenia 'integration disorder' is a great idea as it explains the illness somewhat - people hearing the term 'integration disorder' will understand that somehow there is a lack of integration in the mind.  this is much less scary and much more 'understandable' than 'schizophrenia' which currently has a terrible stigma.  i was sceptical when they renamed 'manic depression' bipolar disorder (especially since i rather liked being a manic depressive along with shelley and nina simone etc) but the change worked - bipolar is not as stigmatised as 'manic depression' although people still aren't sure what it means and 'manic depression' does actually describe the illness, unlike 'schizophrenia'.  'integration disorder' definitely sounds more understandable and less threatening than 'schizophrenia'.  as i say, i was sceptical when they renamed manic depression but the new term, 'bipolar', is definitely accompanied by less stigma.  let's rename 'normal' people as individuals with 'ideal brain pathology delusion syndrome'.  hee hee!

[Appleblossom]

Ha ha @Terry thats been a little bit of my approach. Now that I am older and seen a bit more of the world.

I agree its high time schizohprenia gets relabelled and better categories worked through ... even when I read an old psych nurses handbook from circa 60s ... they had to point out Bleuler's coining of the word doesnt really fit.

Atm I am reading an old treatise on Moral Philosophy..where the term "maniac" is used ... I prefer to talk about intensity to mania ... but thats just me.