#cure stigma

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(Please appreciate this photo of freshmen me at the movies after crazy socks day) Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month I’ll be sharing a fact about mental health a day and my own experiences with anxiety and how I cope. To cure the stigma it’s essential to talk about it so you’ll find everything reblogged starting with this post. #CureStigma For the first fact I wanted to start with something basic because it actually might shock some of you who aren’t familiar with mental health. Fact #1: 1 in 5 American’s are affected by mental health conditions. Also remember that many people who struggle with mental health don’t speak out about it because of the stigma. Think of everyone in other countries which I didn’t include as well. I started getting bad anxiety and had my first anxiety attack my freshmen year of high school. Even after experiencing all of that I didn’t take it seriously and brushed it off dealing with it in an unhealthy way which set me up for worse circumstances in the future. I don’t necessarily think the stigma kept me from getting help because I genuinely thought I was fine (which was problematic because I wasn’t educated on mental health AT ALL) but I remember not telling anyone because I didn’t want them to see me as damaged goods. With or without anxiety I was still the same person. If you met before I had anxiety I was still the same. And if you met me once I already had anxiety then thought/looked at me differently after finding out then that’s stigma.

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You can help cure stigma through compassion, empathy, and understanding. Visit www.nami.org to take the stigma free pledge and gain a better understanding of mental health illness. Help is available, if you or someone you know may be struggling with substance abuse and mental health visit www.asac.us.

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Ryan Reynolds Reveals Lifelong Struggle with Anxiety

This week in the news Ryan Reynolds shared that he has struggled with anxiety for most of his life. When I receive news like this, I feel empathy for anyone who has suffered from this condition, but also gratitude for celebrities who reveal they that live with mental illness.

While promoting the new Deadpool movie, Ryan Reynolds shared his experience in detail:

“I have anxiety, I’ve always had anxiety,” Reynolds told the New York Times. “Both in the lighthearted ‘I’m anxious about this’ kind of thing, and I’ve been to the depths of the darker end of the spectrum, which is not fun.”

He gets wracked by dread and nausea before every talk-show appearance and becomes quite convinced he might die. During his ABC sitcom days, he chose to warm up the audience, partly to ingratiate himself, but mostly to redirect his panic or, as he describes it, “the energy of just wanting to throw up.” When we met at the Four Seasons here in Beverly Hills late one afternoon in April, he had barely eaten all day, because interviews for profiles make him crazy jittery too.

According to The Mighty, Reynolds’ admission sheds light on the underreporting of anxiety with men and the need for more males to come forward:

It’s important to hear stories like Reynolds’ because men speaking openly about anxiety can be hard to come by. According to the American Psychological Association, 9 percent of men in the U.S. experience depression and anxiety. Though most anxiety disorders are more prevalent in women than men, a few affect both women and men equally such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder. Men are also less likely to seek help or talk about their experiences.

Reynolds also shared how he manages his anxiety, mainly with humor and the app Headspace. While those strategies work for Reynolds, they may not for others. In addition to seeking professional help, consider some of these tips.

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Walking to Cure Stigma

There are a number of reasons why I am participating in the upcoming NAMIWalks fundraiser, but a primary one is to increase awareness and shatter stigma. 1 in 5 Americans are living with a mental health condition and many do not seek treatment due to the shame that these conditions carry. 

In my own life, it took me a long time to recognize that the constant worry I felt was actually anxiety. Once I figured this out, I was slow to find treatment since I believed I could manage this on my own. Although I chose counseling as my profession, it was only in the last few years that I overcame my own stigma around seeking help. I believed that as a helping professional, I should not need help when in reality, my own challenges with mental health have empowered me to bring my advocacy and counseling skills to a much higher level.

In my work managing a major mental health grant in a CBO setting, I realize that stigma is a major barrier for the clients I serve. As I teach psychoeducation using a lot of NAMI materials, I hope that my clients realize the prevalence of mental illness and seek treatment as they would for any other condition. 

We are making progress, but we still have a long way to go. If you can support my walk with NAMI with a small donation, I would be grateful! Their resources and advocacy have supported my work and my own challenges.