Category: <span>Individual Treatment</span>

Confidence Individual Treatment Stigma Therapy November 26, 2018 By Patrick Wood 2,169 Comments

Celebrities Chip Away at the STIGMA of Mental Illness

If you have reached this blog post, you are either interested in celebrities, mental health/illness, or both. You may be wondering what in the world celebrities have to do with mental health. The truth is that many celebrities struggle with mental health issues. Not long ago, one celebrity, Robin Williams, committed suicide. And over the last few years, Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, and others have experienced a crisis due to mental illness. Mental illness, like physical illness is a condition that affects us all and is detrimental to your overall wellbeing. It is “an unhealthy condition of the body or mind”. Mental illness leads to numerous physical conditions including heart disease, chronic pain and fatigue, arthritis, and several others physical conditions.

BUT

In your life and the lives of most Americans, mental illness is not a condition that you are likely to find yourself sharing with others and it is certainly not something you are likely to find yourself getting help for. If you were to develop heart disease, chronic pain, or other physical ailments, you are more willing and able to communicate this with others and will most likely not risk rejection or derision. But, if you tried to talk with those close to you about “mental illness,” there is much more of a chance that you will not be taken seriously, be rejected, or simply told to “stop talking crazy.”

With so much pressure in our personal lives and in the communities we live in to remain silent, we need champions to help us develop courage to be honest with ourselves and others. Celebrities oftentimes serve as a standard for many and are looked at as these champions or role models. Celebrities have usually carry with them images of perfection that no one is able to live up to, not even them. Yet more and more, celebrities are standing up in support of being open and honest about the presence and reality of mental health in our lives. Celebrities have been coming forward to help to break the stigma of mental health that we all feel at times.

So, what is a stigma, anyway?

According to the dictionary, stigma is a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. If you are reading this, you have probably noticed that mental illness has become one of these “disgraces.” Those of us who are mentally ‘ill’ are called “crazy”, “weak”, “complainers”, and are generally seen as different from “the rest of the normal population”. People will say and think these things about you even when they struggle with the same issues. In counseling, we call this Projection. People find the things they hate the most about themselves in others and condemn them for those things. The experience of stigma creates fear and fear creates a host of mental, emotional, and physical problems in us. You might notice these symptoms of stigmatization:

Fear
Mistrust
Prejudice
Violence against those with mental disorders
The avoidance seeking necessary mental health care
Developing a practice of self-stigmatization
Helplessness
Poor work performance
Problems in relationships
Digestive problems
Chronic Pain
Aggression
Arthritis
Poor memory / cognitive deficits

With all of these negative consequences of unaddressed stigma and mental struggle, it is very important to get necessary help, but more often we don’t until there is a life or death crisis. We don’t often take the steps necessary to help ourselves when those steps are embarrassing.

That is, unless we have very motivating positive role models...

Recently, several celebrities have been showing up in the news for a variety of reasons, often times doing something that proves to us ‘regular people’ that mental illness does not discriminate and that nobody is perfect. Some of these celebrities are actively championing treatment for mental illness. It is important to realize that our idols are really “just like you and me”. They are all very susceptible to psychological pain, just like all of us.

Chrissy Teigen: Postpartum depression
Prince Harry: Depression/Anxiety
Dwayne Johnson (The Rock): Depression
Demi Lovato: bipolar disorder, bulimia, addictive disease
Chris Evans: Social Anxiety / Social Phobia
Lisa Nicole Carson: bipolar disorder
Kendrick Lamar: depression with suicidal thoughts
Wayne Brady: depression with suicidal thoughts
Robin Williams: depression, suicidal thoughts, addictive disease
Emma Stone: anxiety & panic attacks
Kid Cudi: depression with suicidal thoughts
Lady Gaga: PTSD
And more.

Some celebrities have become passionate advocates for mental health treatment and reaching out for help:

Prince Harry:

“You need to know a part of being strong and tough is having the courage to ask for help when you need it,” he said.
“You must not silently suffer. You are all in this together and if I may speak personally we are all in this together, because asking for help was one of the best decisions that I ever made.”

Lady Gaga:

“Stigma, fear, and lack of understanding compound the suffering of those affected and prevent the bold action that is so desperately needed and so long overdue.”

“The time has come for us all, collectively, to tackle the causes and symptoms of mental illness, and provide care for those who suffer from it. You don’t have to be an international artist or the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) to make an impact.”

Dwayne Johnson (from Twitter):

“Got tons of responses to this. Thank you. We all go thru the sludge/shit and depression never discriminates. Took me a long time to realize it but the key is to not be afraid to open up. Especially us dudes have a tendency to keep it in. You’re not alone.”

Selena Gomez:

“DBT has completely changed my life,” she explains. “I wish more people would talk about therapy. We girls, we’re taught to be almost too resilient, to be strong and sexy and cool and laid-back, the girl who’s down. We also need to feel allowed to fall apart.”

I want to encourage you to develop the willingness to let go of believing that you must rely on false strength to survive. I want to encourage you that you can develop almost infinite strength by developing a willingness to acknowledge your own vulnerabilities and by reaching out for help. It is only when we admit that we are struggling are we able to except the hand of help that is already reaching out to us, use that help to lift ourselves out of the pit of despair, and stand in the true strength of brotherhood and sisterhood with our fellow human beings.

See the following articles for a brief overview of the variety of experiences celebrities have with mental illness:

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