“I Hate Myself and I Want to Die”- Self Stigma

"Dec 30

Posted by prideinmadness

The societal stigma exerpeienced by those with mental health issues is painful but nothing is more painful than internalizing that stigma and believing you are in fact the negative things society says you are. You discriminate against yourself.

When you believe you are crazy, stupid, inadequate blah blah blah then what else do you really have? People come and go which is why you need to be able to find it within yourself to keep going.
The best way for me to show you what self stigma is, is through excerpts from my journals I wrote as a teenager which are rampant with stigma that I internalized.
“I’m fucked up.”
“I don’t want to quit [cutting] anymore. I can’t do it!…I’m totally insane! I’m going to tell my counsellor that I think I belong in a mental hospital…I’m sick…I’m a sad little whore.”
“FREAK”
“I’m just fucking stupid and fucked in the head!”
“I hate how I go crazy like that.”
“…this demon creature inside of me.”
“Sick little bitch”
“Just a sick little mind is what I have.”
“I’m not even Kristen right now, I’m someone else, I’m a monster.”
“If I was [my boyfriend] I would leave me.”
“I never thought of myself as selfish, but I guess I am.”
“Just a hopeless girl living in a hopeless world she put too much hope in.”
“I’m a shitty person, a shitty girlfriend, NO ONE CAN FUCKING LOVE ME!”
One of my journals is covered in words: Fake, Insane, Worthless, Ugly, Broken, Twised, Failure, Mental, Sick, Unwanted, Unloved and more.
You can see how believing these horrible things about youself can make recovering from a mental illness or a difficult experience near impossible. It’s this stigma that will lead to suicidal thoughts, attempts and unfortunately successful deaths.
When we help others build the strength to be confident in themselves and toss aside these destructive labels and beliefs then recovery can begin. When you believe in yourself then you’ll want to recover and it’s only through wanting recovery that it can actually happen.
Remember this isnt an individual problem. Soceity plays the biggest role in creating and keeping mental illness stigma alive. Stigma is damaging. People can’t go through life encountering barrier after barrier and not let it get to them. Do not think that when you call someone “crazy” or say things like, “mentally ill people scare me” that you are not hurting someone. You are. You are telling people to hate themselves and then we become sad when individuals, especially youth, commit suicide.
We can stop this. We need to do it together."

~(http://prideinmadness.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/i-hate-myself-and-i-want-to-die-self-stigma/, accessed on 2 March 2014)