Mental Illness Stigma Quotes

“Like a lot of people with mental illness, I spend a lot of time fronting. It’s really important to me to not appear crazy, to fit in, to seem normal, to do the things “normal people” do, to blend in.
As a defense mechanism, fronting makes a lot of sense, and you hone that mechanism after years of being crazy. Fronting is what allows you to hold down a job and maintain relationships with people, it’s the thing that sometimes keeps you from falling apart. It’s the thing that allows you to have a burst of tears in the shower or behind the front seat of your car and then coolly collect yourself and stroll into a social engagement…

We are rewarded for hiding ourselves. We become the poster children for “productive” mentally ill people, because we are so organized and together. The fact that we can function, at great cost to ourselves, is used to beat up the people who cannot function.

Because unlike the people who cannot front, or who fronted too hard and fell off the cliff, we are able to “keep it together,” whatever it takes.”
― S.E. Smith

“I keep moving ahead, as always, knowing deep down inside that I am a good person and that I am worthy of a good life.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“Dying sometimes feels like the only way out. It’s that I-just-can’t-take-it-anymore feeling, and you’re tired of letting everyone down, so you just hit your breaking point and you want to die. I don’t mean that in a selfish way To me, suicide isn’t selfish. The people who say it is selfish early have never been suicidal, nor have they endured a mental illness.”
― Emma Thomas, Live for Me

“No one would ever tell a cancer patient to 'just get over it.' Why people think they can tell those with a mental illness as much is baffling.”
― Sara Ella, Coral

“And if we do speak out, we risk rejection and ridicule. I had a best friend once, the kind that you go shopping with and watch films with, the kind you go on holiday with and rescue when her car breaks down on the A1. Shortly after my diagnosis, I told her I had DID. I haven't seen her since. The stench and rankness of a socially unacceptable mental health disorder seems to have driven her away.”
― Carolyn Spring, Living with the Reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Campaigning Voices

“People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can’t answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It’s easy.

And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it.…

…In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest; and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks; faces, flowers.

These are facts you find out later, though.

Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you came from looks huge and menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly; at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit. Either way, it can’t be discounted.

Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“I cut myself up really badly with the lid of a tin can. They took me to the emergency room, but I couldn’t tell the doctor what I had done to cut myself—I didn’t have any memory of it. The ER doctor was convinced that dissociative identity disorder didn’t exist. . . . A lot of people involved in mental health tell you it doesn’t exist. Not that you don’t have it, but that it doesn’t exist.”
― Alice Jamieson, Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind

“Both men and women can have mental health issues, and neither should be ashamed of that. We shouldn't have to act like everything's okay and try to "fit in" with society's expectations, because that is JUST an act in most cases. Let's change this.”
― Brien Blatt

“Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, just like physical health. Going to a professional for your brain is no different than any other part of your body, so let’s stop stigmatizing that and mental “illness.”
― Brien Blatt

“Only those who have been on the receiving end of poverty, unemployment, homelessess, mental illness, domestic violence, racism, sexism or ageism can fully identify with others' reactions to those distressing experiences. Only those who have been members of marginalised minority can fully appreciate how that feels. [p50]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“When I certify someone insane, I am not equivocating when I write that he is of unsound mind, may be dangerous to himself and others, and requires care and attention in a mental hospital. However, at the same time, I am also aware that, in my opinion, there are other people who are regarded as sane, whose minds are as radically unsound, who may be equally or more dangerous to themselves and others and whom society does not regard as psychotic and fit persons to be in a madhouse.”
― R.D. Laing, The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness

“In every family there is someone who suffers from some type of mental illness. We should not treat it as a taboo. People who suffer from mental illness did nothing to acquire it. They should be treated with the same compassion as others who suffer from any other illness.”
― June Stoyer

“If you have a mental illness, people don't trust you. And if you take drugs to fix the illness, they trust you even less.”
― Jack Heath, Headcase

“I was shocked and terrified to hear Dr. Summer say I had what was formerly known as multiple personality disorder. Is that like Sybil? Am I like the woman in The Three Faces of Eve? My head began to spin. What do I have inside of me? Is there a crazy person in there? What am I? I felt like a freak. I was afraid to have anyone know. I have a mental illness. People make fun of people like me. Upon hearing my diagnosis, I stopped thinking of myself as smart, creative, or clever. Even though Dr. Summer had worked hard to help me understand that I had developed an amazingly adaptive survival technique, I no longer thought of it that way at all.

I was overwhelmed by fear and shame. The words multiple personality disorder echoed in my mind. I thought of all the ways people with multiple personalities were ridiculed and marginalized: They're locked away in mental institutions. They are really sick. I'm not going to be the subject of people's jokes. I am a lawyer. I work at the U.S. Department of Justice. The more I thought about it, the deeper my despair grew.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“Telling a person who is depressed to have positive thoughts is the same as telling a sick person not to be sick. It doesn’t work.”
― Yong Kang Chan, The Emotional Gift: Memoir of a Highly Sensitive Person Who Overcame Depression

“The widespread agreement among mental-healfh professionals about DID's symptoms, the near uniformity of its roots in childhood trauma, and the positive response of patients to therapy30 all support the existence of DID as a diagnosable and treatable mental disorder.31 Despite questions raised by skeptics about the diagnosis of individual cases,32 DID's general acceptance rate among mental-healfh professionals is at least eighty percent.33”
― Mary E Grego

“Screw all mental illness stigma. Having the courage to admit yourself for psychiatric care to heal is phenomenal. Shrugging off a panic attack is badass. Battling through intense spells of fatigue and demotivation is incredible. Going to the psychologist to attend to your mental health is a boss move. Achieving things despite having little to no interest or pleasure is impressive. Frequently practicing self-care is fantastic. Picking yourself up after hitting rock bottom is exceptional. Openly talking about your mental health struggles is courageous. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
― K.J. Redelinghuys, Unfiltered: Grappling with Mental Illness

“I experience thousand of emotions in a day But, one thing is for sure.I am bipolar, and I am proud. I want to write a book and carry a burning torch, To illuminate and eradicate the stigma attache to it. I am not an illness. I have a story to tell and I am winning the battle by loving myself”
― MARGARET CABAL CABANTAN COHEN

“In this sense, Hitler´s painting supports [Hannah] Arendt´s theory of National Socialism--that it was defined by its banality and lack of empathy. The Nazis relied on the ability of people not to imagine themselves in someone else´s shoes. The lack of a connection was very much the point.”
― Charlie English, The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Modernism, and Hitler's War on Art

“Half the time you refuse to even acknowledge that I have a fucking mental illness, and the other half you try as hard as possible to make me feel like I'm the last person you ever wanted as a child!”
― Alice Oseman, This Winter

“Given that recent research has demonstrated the complex psychopathology of DID, equating the disorder with one specific but broadly denned behavior (multiple identity enactment) is clearly unwarranted. The latter should be conceptualized as one observable behavior that may or may not be related to a feature of the disorder (identity alteration). As an analogy, equating major depressive disorder with "acting sad" would be similarly unwarranted because the former is a complex depressive disorder characterized by a clear group of depressive symptoms, whereas the latter is one specific behavior that may or may not be related to one of the symptoms of the disorder (sad affect). One could also easily generate a list of factors that affect whether one acts sad that would have little relevance to the complex psychopathology of depressive disorders.”
― David H. Gleaves

“Mental illness do not designate a set path to failure. It’s simply a chemical or hormone imbalance that causes individuals to accept and process new information in a different way.”
― Okisha Jackson, In His Service, Love Always, Ms. Jackson

“mental illness is not a switch you can turn on and off.”
― K.Y. Robinson, Submerge

“when they find out
you have a mental illness,
they’ll treat you like glass
and anticipate you breaking
at any given moment.”
― K.Y. Robinson, The Chaos of Longing

“Support is the number one thing when it comes to fighting a mental illness. And the ones who have walked in the same shoes as you are the very best support system. There is no stigma in this group. There is no judging. We aren’t here to judge. We are here to understand and to let you know you aren’t alone in whatever battle you are facing. And that is why we started this group called You Matter.”
― Emma Thomas, Live for Me

“Did you know that people with mental illness can have strong mental health? More often than not, mental illness and mental health are used interchangeably, however they do not mean the same thing! Every person has mental health, but not every person will have a mental illness. Mental health is the ability to adapt to change, be resilient in difficult circumstances and live a full and passionate life. Mental illness on the other hand is diagnosed by a professional (psychologist etc.) and require a well-managed plan, therapy and occasionally medication. Mental health is improved by journaling, yoga, exercise, healthy boundaries, good diet and active self-care!”
― Christine Bergsma, Alignment Journal: Self-love, acceptance and personal growth

“I was really into this caddying job and on a natural high. Unbeknownst to me, I was showing symptoms of mental illness for the first time. I didn’t have a clue that I was
becoming progressively more manic as the day went along.”
― Don Walin, The Crazy Golf Pro: My Journey with Bipolar Disorder

“Being behind bars is a degrading and humiliating experience. And I deserved to be there. I had to pay the consequences for driving drunk and causing an accident. In the end, I got off really lucky.”
― Don Walin, The Crazy Golf Pro: My Journey with Bipolar Disorder

“I wish I had some physical disease so I could tell people ‘Oh I have been resting. You know how it is with all the treatments going on.’ If I had a real illness, like heart disease or cancer, then maybe I wouldn’t have lost my friends. I wouldn’t have had to lie that I am fine. Maybe then people would have come to meet me, spend time with me, hold my hand for a while, crack jokes so that I could smile, and send over flowers and chocolates I couldn’t eat. Only if I had anything other than a mental illness, maybe I would have survived it.”
― Khushboo Aneja, If Anyone Could Have Saved Me

“Every day I learn that life is nothing like they taught us growing up.
They tried to teach everyone the same useless thing and expected everyone to behave the same.
And those of us that don't fit the criteria of their reality, they either medicate and deem us mentally ill so it's always on record for the world to never give us a fair chance.”
― Alexander McKellin