Stigma can create self-doubt and shame, and gear toward discrimination. With mental health, it’s not an easy problem to solve, for example- your arm is broken, lets fix it. Mental Health concerns can include symptoms such as:
- Overthinking
- Guilt
- Low self esteem
- Intense sadness
- Anger, irritability, easily frustrated
- Physical symptoms including itching, headaches, stomach-aches, tight muscles, loss of sleep
Metaphorically speaking, stress can be equated to building a snowman – you can be on what appears to be flat yard rolling a ball of snow around to make it bigger and bigger but say you don’t notice a slope and next thing you know it’s too big and heavy to lift onto the snowman and now you have multiple snowmen to make up for not being able to bear the weight of the snow ball.
How can we help reduce what we can’t see?
- Try to be accepting of each other’s differences
- View different loads of stress as a difference, not as a weakness.
- Offer to help with tasks, be open minded that tasks you might be fine with may be too much for someone else
- Offer to listen – not fix
- Remember that you don’t know what that person’s day has looked like leading up to this moment and they may need some empathy
- Education, look into what stress may look like in different environments – work, personal, and differences in positive vs. negative stress. Check out this page for some more details on stress
Reducing the stigma isn’t only one person’s task, it’s a little bit from everyone, a community effort. Smile at someone today, even the smallest behavior from you can be a big influence on someone else’s day.
