by GRAYCE MCCORMICK
Creighton Digital Storytellers

Although societal acceptance has increased, in-depth discussions surrounding mental health and mental illness are few and far between, specifically regarding stigmas.

Surface-level conversations are certainly occurring more often and education is heavily encouraged, but it seems that those not currently experiencing mental illness are quick to resort to stigmas and clichés.

This problem was unpacked by two Creighton students actively struggling with mental illness.

College of Arts and Sciences juniors Macy Damewood and Teresa Spagna expressed their views regarding stigmatization that they’ve experienced and seen others experience and how it affects them on a day-to-day basis.

The first and foremost problematic area Damewood addressed was the lack of conversation present in societal dialogue.

“I always feel like if I open up about [my mental illness] too much, people will think I’m fragile,” Damewood said.  “I bring it up and I worry that people will assume any negative thing I say means they have to watch me and can’t let me be alone. [Talking about it] is scary because you can never un-ring that bell. Once you say it people are going to have it in the back of their heads.”

“Everyone assumes they’re alone because that’s a main part of it,” Damewood added.  “Your head tells you that you’re completely alone even when that’s not true.”

In addition, Damewood said that some people don’t even believe mental illness is a real or valid illness.

“I like to use the comparison of having a fever or a cold,” she said.  “You have an illness. It doesn’t make you not you; you’re the exact same person with a cold or fever. You get treatment and it’s managed. [Mental illness] is the same thing.”

She believes that the difficulty lies in the fact that mental illness is an abstract enigma.

“The stigmas are there because people can’t physically see a mental illness.”

Damewood also explained that people tend to put their own lens on someone’s mental illness and apply their personal qualifications they see fit to each one.

“People tend to only deem you worthy of mental illness if something happens to you that’s traumatic,” she said.  “But your reality is very different from someone else’s reality. Nothing has to happen to you—your neurons aren’t firing right and your hormones are messed up.”

Spagna provided another point of view from the perspective of someone experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.  She said the same stigma stands with those struggling with PTSD: the idea that only certain traumatic events qualify for people and they attach a time frame to it.

“I think PTSD is quite set on veterans,” Spagna said. “If you go through something and it’s been a certain amount of years, [according to stigma] you should be over it by now. But I have a very strong feeling I’ll be having triggers when I’m 40.”

In a medically reviewed article by Julie Revelant, she discusses the stigmas typically associated with PTSD.

“Stereotypes that depict people with PTSD as dangerous, unpredictable, incompetent, or to blame for their illness can promote stigma,” Revelant said.  “People with PTSD may fear embarrassment or shame, too, and if they seek help, they may fear they’ll be hospitalized.”

Spagna said overall, she believes the conversation needs to address mental illness as a strength instead of a weakness.

“We have this idea of mental health being this weakness because it’s under the category of ‘illness.’ People struggling with it see our every day as a strength because it’s something that we’re getting through and it’s making us stronger every day.”