This is important. Obviously, on a website, most of what we do around here is awareness and education. But, I also feel like I’m preaching to the choir sometimes too, as the post below says:<\/p>\n
“One of the things that bothers me is how much effort has been put toward eradicating stigma through education and awareness, like public service announcements and commercials. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that, but Patrick Corrigan at the University of Illinois wrote a book called The Stigma Effect, in which he\u2019s pretty clear that those things don\u2019t work very well.<\/p>\n
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So, what does work? When we have interactions. We can get all the education we want, but if we don\u2019t have proximity and interaction with networks and family who have mental illness and talk about them, we\u2019re not going to get where we want to go.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There is a whole world of people who aren’t looking at blogs like this one, or trying to talk about mental health on social media. Sure, there’s a lot of us who are, and I love supporting those folks by trying to share information, or just check in. But, that’s not going to change the stigma that exists in society until all of those other folks, actually come in contact with mental health struggles in real life. As long as that’s not happening, it’ll remain stigmatized, and “something that happens to other people”.<\/p>\n
So, if anything, we need to get more people talking, and being honest, so that people are aware of just how common it is. Especially now, when there’s no reason to not be struggling!<\/p>\n