The Fallout of Stigmatism

The Fallout of Stigmatism

Well my intentions of posting regularly have not been so successful. Being a full time student taking extra courses has been a learning experience. Life has changed much since my last post. It has been a journey. Hopefully over the next few months I can catch you all up or at least post a few times.

My post for today is a response I made to a friend's Facebook status. In her status she was explaining her reaction to someone's hurtful comment on the death of a celebrity who suicided.

Having worked in Community Mental Health, having struggled with PTSD which included depression, having a nephew, friends and far to many acquaintances who have suicided. I am also on Ordained Deacon. I have a few thoughts.

1. We can never ask the person who is gone so really we can never have an answer as to why they never sought help? We can never have an answer to what we could have done differently or why we didn't recognize they were that depressed. Why they chose the method they chose? Didn't they realize how it would hurt those left behind? We can never ever have concrete answers to many questions and that goes against most of our human minds that seek truth or at least concrete answers to circumstances..

2. People making comments like "the person was a coward", "selfish"
etc creates an unsafe or what appears to be an unsafe environment to talk about feeling suicidal. There is still so much stigmatism that people are afraid to ask for help or for that matter speak about the fact they at one time in their life sought help.

3. Too many "Christians" have judgemental attitudes about suicide, mental health, gender identity, sexual orientation, women, men and so many other things. My opinion on this is that God loves everyone period. Jesus a Jewish man came to this world to teach the Jews a different way of doing things. Teaching about loving your neighbour as much as you love yourself. The result of Jesus coming and teaching his disciples about God's Abundant All Accepting Love started the Christian Church. Over the years different people and institutions have strayed from those original teaching.

4. Access to affordable services are often not available. Access to local services is often not available. I know this is changing a bit but for the past few years where I live access to mental health services for teens has been awful. Often a 2 year waiting list. For transitional teens this wait becomes much longer. The reason for this is that if a youth of 16 goes on a 2 year waiting list by the time they come to the top of the list they are not offered services because they are now too old and have to access adult services... so they go on another waiting list that could be 6 to 24 months. So if you had access to money then you could likely access services sooner but then you still have the stigma to deal with and that is a very hard wall to break through..To get up the courage to ask for help when you know the moment you ask for help you will be stigmatized.

5. I do pity those people who feel that those who chose suicide are cowards and/or weak and/or going to hell. I do pity these people because they do not realize how hurtful those statements are and how untrue those statements are. I pity them because possibly one day circumstances in their lives may be different and they may be faced with understanding how wrong they were and afraid to confess they were wrong so they live with the guilt that they said mean things. Possibly they will never change their heart and always be hurtful to others.

6. We need to continue to have honest conversations to dismantle the stigmatization. We need to advocate for more accessible services.