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The Stigma of Mental Illness

The Stigma of Mental Illness

Hello friends,

Oxford Languages defines stigma as, “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” It defines stigmatization as, “the action of describing or regarding someone or something as worthy of disgrace or great disapproval.” Even the definitions make me cringe.

This week we’re going to watch a quick video about the stigmatization of mental illness: Ending the Stigma of Mental Illness (youtube.com). We can discuss personal or witnessed stigmatization of people with fragilities, especially mental illness, and even the stigmatization of families and loved ones of people with mental illness. This video is made by an organization co-founded by Glenn Close, “Bring Change to Mind” which is working to destigmatize mental illness.

Here is a link to an article that discusses mental health stigma

Mental Health Stigma and The Pandemic | Newport Academy

Our warm-up question for this week:

Tell us about a time when you felt stigmatized or witnessed it, for anything, i.e. age, gender, personality quirks… . 

Alex asked me to fill in for him this week, and we all know those are big shoes to fill. Here is the link, and it is the long kind as I don’t know how to make it short like Alex does. Please be patient with mistakes and hiccups. Hope to see you Thursday.

Deatley

What Does It Mean to Have an “Optimally Functioning Mind”?

What Does It Mean to Have an “Optimally Functioning Mind”?

Hello friends,

If I asked you to describe what it means to be in good physical health, I suspect you’d have an easy time starting to answer. Strong, regular heartbeat; breathing easily; able to get around pain-free and with minimal effort; and so on. Now try the same exercise, but with mental health. Sure, it means there’s no mental illness, but that doesn’t really describe what a healthy state “looks like.”

We’ll watch together a wonderful video on what mental health means as a concept, and discuss how we’ve thought about our own health status over time. How do we think about our mental health when things don’t feel optimal? Do we judge ourselves too harshly? Are we as comfortable talking about our mental health in the same ways we talk about our physical health?

Our warm-up question for this week:

Tell us about a fun memory from a time when you were in the snow!

See you soon,
Alex