Schizophrenia: Youth's Greatest Disabler - Part 10

» linda7 - Stigma of Schizophrenia & Other Psychiatric

Our teenage son has recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His medications do seem to be helping. Our son, having this disease diagnosed has opened up the door to mental illness for us and created an environment of denial, bewilderment, curiosity, shock and understanding with us and our family. It is a disease that isn't understood totally by the medical profession and so it is even less understood by the general population. What is very troubling to me, is that while families such as ours struggle to gain understanding and the tools to cope and help our son with this, there is so much misunderstanding, gullibility and stigmatism that is created by the news and movies that we watch that the stigmatism that stems from our lack of knowledge and what we see on t.v., retards our emotional growth and understanding from where we should be. With Aids, people who have obvious physical disabilities as well as others such as people who are gay, we are becoming accepting and compassionate. We need to have this same type of compassion extended to people who are ill but are not visibly handicapped, the mentally handicapped. Until we start making movies and report news showing this compassionate and human side of ourselves and people who suffer from these types of illnesses and understand that most mentally ill people are just struggling on a day to day basis to get by, America will not be knowledgeable of this and then we are all less than what we could or should be.

-- posted by linda7

Permalink Print Discussion Join the latest discussions

» Lisa_Marie_Kuhn - Stigma of Schizophrenia & Other Psychiatric

Dear Linda7,

I am a 23 y.o female diagnosed with several different mental disorders, among them is
Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known
as Multiple Personality Disorder).

My first hospitilization occurred during my 9th grade year. No one seemed to understand and not
many shared an ounce of compassion. I so totally
understand where you are coming from in your letter when you talk about the lack of education
and the inaccurate stereotypes set forth about
mental illness in youth and in general.

It is no one's "fault" and parents so often get
blamed when a child is diagnosed with schizophrenia. My mother was dx'd with paranoid
schizophrenia and social anxiety disorder when she
was in her teens.

I get angry when I see a made-for-tv movie about mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or DID/MPD.
I know the movies and documentaries I have seen
on the subject of multiple personalities do the reality of this disorder very little justice.

It has been hard for me to "come out of the closet" and admit I have a mental illness. I feel it would have been easier to announce to the world that I were a lesbian or a criminal of some kind.
Why can't people understand? That is the question I am always left with.

Take care,
Lisa Marie

-- posted by Lisa_Marie_Kuhn

Permalink Print Discussion Join the latest discussions

» sistertodd - Working To Change Things

I too have been diagnosed with a mental illness and experienced first-hand the social stigma it brings. While it is difficult, I try to not hide my illness, and openly speak of it if the opportunity arises. I also encourage others to get properly diagnosed, and talk to children about mental illness (to hopefully help them understand and lessen the discrimination).

Good luck to both of you!

Feel free to email me with suggestions for the site!

Sheri
sheriwallace@surfree.com

-- posted by sistertodd

Permalink Print Discussion Join the latest discussions