Study Mental Illness Stigmatization Study

[thinlizzy4010]

done, I am sure that all of these studies will help ptsd sufferers somehow. found it pretty easy to fill out and its only 4 pages which is good too.

 

[Martin Taylor]

I was not aware that PTSD was an illness. IMHO a response to trauma is not a disease (physiological effects notwithstanding). Having a fever is not the same as having the flu. The flu is the illness, not the fever. I have difficulty classifying my response to external stimuli in such a way as to define myself as the sick one. I don't mean to sound defensive or in denial, but something about this does not ring true. Can anyone provide clarification? Thanks in advance.

 

[anthony]

I was not aware that PTSD was an illness.

If you wanted to be extremely technical to the letter of definition, you can call PTSD a disease, as most illnesses, physical or mental, all come back to that one umbrella term. I know it sounds nasty, and I hate it when used myself, compared with something more appropriate, ie. mental illness, being more exact.

 

[Girl3]

My psychiatrist doesn't see PTSD as a disease or a mental illness.(Which isn't to say that you can't have a comorbid mental illness.) In his research he is looking at it as a changed physiology - sort of like pregnancy is a changed physiology. We don't view pregnancy as a disease even though a woman's body and physiology changes drastically to accomodate a fetus. Sometimes the changes in pregnancy create such a disorder in the physiology that it can harm the mother, but pregnancy itself is not a disease.

His approach to treatment/research is that you have a different HPA axis response that has been altered from the norm and that restoring it is possible. He believes in a multilevel approach utilizing diet, exercise, medication if needed, cognitive therapy, and of course his research is looking at novel biochemical approaches. He believes one day it will be possible to speed up returning the brain physiology to a normative set point. He likens the PTSD brain to a high performance car in park but with the gas pedal floored - lots of energy not going anywhere useful and in danger of blowing up the engine. He doesn't think I need a new engine - just a way to get out of park and on the road at a normal speed.

 

[anthony]

He likens the PTSD brain to a high performance car in park but with the gas pedal floored - lots of energy not going anywhere useful and in danger of blowing up the engine.

Another very apt way of citing PTSD. I do love reading all these different analogies over the years... this is one of the good ones for sure.

 

[jo may]

I did the study but i found it very annoying and my head is killing me :mad:

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

I've always thought of myself as being mental ill, not as having a disease. Having a disease sounds way more curable. While being ill suggests, a on going, long term illness.

But there is a lot of stigma is saying you have a mental illness. Being mental ill is seen as frighting, and that the person might be dangerous. It's hard to tell people, even if you have too. If I say I have PTSD vs. saying I have mental illnesses. People then seem to realize that it effects my ability to function. That my life is some how altered.

Now, Awareness is what it comes down too...and that's a whole different cup of tea.

 

[Tyler]

Awareness is a huge problem. I work in the healthcare field and when I have doctors (the one I work for and other specialists we work with) working on me - I lie on my medical history. You should hear the way doctors talk about staff that they know have mental illness, are taking medications, etc. If it gets around in the community that you have a mental illness you might as well start looking for a new career.

 

[Girl3]

Yes it is difficult when you are working with people who supposedly should both have the knowledge and empathy to deal with mental illness. I have been very careful over the years about just having depression - let alone PTSD. In fact, only my psychiatrist, my primary care doc, and my best friend who is a surgeon, know that I have PTSD.

I try to educate all those I work with about the various mental illnesses - I'm known for being a terrific book worm so people just assume it is yet another manifestation of my being a nerd.

The good news is that supposedly legally you cannot be fired for your mental illness once you disclose it. Of course, that is just a theory.

 

[Finding Lifes Butterflies]

@Tyler, Are the statements on your medical history not followed up on and if they were to find out at a later time would you be fired for misrepresenting yourself?
@Girl3, Are you saying you admit to depression and not ptsd, or neither?

I would really appreciate your input as I am changing careers partially due to mistreatment directly related to my ptsd and have been struggling with the way this should be approched. The event that caused my ptsd is well known in the area I am from and some people have the nerve to even come out and ask if I was present or knew people harmed at said event. I have mostly denied my knowledge or said I wasn't comfortable discussing. Please let me know. I understand this leads off topic. If there is a better way to ask, please let me know. Thx.

 

[cdinwv]

I took the survey. It is long and repetitious but I do see how the input of answers could better help define the stigma related with mental illness. In my rural area, mental illness or really any medical condition is hard for others to believe and accept because drug use and prescription drug abuse is so prevalent. Distinguishing who is for real in their medical issues and who is not is very hard to do honestly.

Drugs are usually the only first remedy offered or recommended as course of treatments for mental illnesses not investment of time in alternative methods that are more beneficial than a pill.

When a person like me, that sees, the effects first hand of prescription drug abuse in my mother, sister and brother it is really disheartening to seek professional help even for myself and the way I have been treated also. I am treated with disrespect for my conditions because I do not chose pills as a form of therapy for me even with my doctors and my supporters.

I have spent most of my life in professional help that chose prescription meds as a healing or coping agent. If it were not for my own research and using constructive resources I have found through my own ability to cope and heal including offering mental health professional alternative ideas and alternative suggestions to my psychiarists and psychologists that I have found, I would have not have come as far as I have. I ask as many questions to them as I am provided answers.

@Girl 3, I like what you wrote and shared and the whole take about " He likens the PTSD brain to a high performance car in park but with the gas pedal floored - lots of energy not going anywhere useful and in danger of blowing up the engine. He doesn't think I need a new engine - just a way to get out of park and on the road at a normal speed." --- I would agree with this in my particular case also.

For me this is so true. At my earliest childhood memories and through out my life of the first 18 years I have had to eliminate, re-educate myself, and become aware of stopping re-victimizing myself by trial and errors of what I was taught and had to re-learn for myself. I will always feel that I will be 18 years behind in my biological age of knowledge because the medical industry and lack of care available to the real issues of sexual child abuse and trauma in family abuse and how to help the survivors was not available and even today, it is very complicated and so misunderstand even when seeking help. There needs to be more research done of the effects of sexual child abuse. However, thinking of getting on the road at a normal speed is a great way to look at it. As an adult, one can not simply stop life and quit living to conquer the source of the problem. There are bills to pay, children to raise, higher education to obtain or what ever an adult chooses. But operating at normal speed and finding solutions sounds feasible and very enlightening to hear it put that way. Thank you for sharing @Girl 3.

For you see in my case, even the professionals were only educated in the information and data at hand from 1976-1995, when I turned 18 years old. There was evolution going on in the battle of sexual predators to be "rehabilated" or prisoned and the damage done long term to child abuse survivors. So much was not known about acquired medical complications because of abuse. Survivors did not talk about the truth of their stories to stop it publicly nor seeking medical help. PTSD has not been a diagnosis for sexual child abuse and trauma survivors until the last decade or so, at least not reaching our rural area anyway. In my recovery, I found I am still my best resource for self-preservation until the medical professional work through their data and information to create effective and fundamental benefits to those that receive mental health treatments.

I know that since the day I was born, I was captive into a broken family of abuse enabled by a broken system of child protective services and in a broken medical system to fully help and rehabiliate people like me.I became a victim of abuse and treated as such in society, medically, and professionally even among peers that led to resigning because of their stress not to understand nor care and not my own of what I can and can not do. I accept my limitations and ramifications of abuse. I accept my work to heal, recover and constructively cope. It is others that can not accept the days I have seizures or become emotional because this is how I deal with stress. It's not that I can not work or do a job but the stress from explaining is more than others are willing to understanding increasing stigma. My health is no longer worth compromising because so many do not want to know, understand or care to realize how the 35 years of my life is not just about a dysfunctional family, but the effects of a broken system to protect children and what happens to people when we do not take these circumstances seriously as they are. It affects all of us and not just me. Medically, socially and personally, it does and will impact us all. History teaches us this.

When a person reaches adulthood and finds out for their self that everything they were taught or told was a lie or of alterior greedy motives and not real help to a person, the choices and options of hope to recover become harder to find to do as one ages physically but the mind is still altered of this stain of lacking a normal, healthy mental processing of coping, growing and having a life without the weight of this restrictive programming that went on.

I do hope that one day the medical industry can all get on the same page of what causes mental illness and provides effective treatment to constructively build up patients and decrease social stigmas. I hope that the medical industry can stop to prevent all acquired mental disorders produced by harm and abuse of human beings to each other especially children.

I have seen why others do not seek professional help or chose drugs or the lifestyles of harm they come from. The PTSD and nonepileptic seizure disorders I have are acquired illnesses by abuse that could have prevented in my family, child protective services and could have been hopeful in recovery without a broken medical industry failure to stop these acquired disorders or diseases or research the real truth behind these stories. Validation needs to be a part of the medical industry by looking at the patients for the source of cause and effects of mental illnesses and not the traditional practices of trial and errors that have been used that is not working to educate their professionals and stopping social stigma of these mental illnesses.

 

[Kb3]

Validation needs to be a part of the medical industry by looking at the patients for the source of cause and effects of mental illnesses and not the traditional practices of trial and errors that have been used that is not working to educate their professionals and stopping social stigma of these mental illnesses.

That pretty much nails it for me. Treat the cause, don't just medicate the symptoms into oblivion.