Really??

By 4katzanadawg Tuesday, July 27, 2010

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My husband and I both have a diagnosis of BP Type II, he was diagnosed about 8 years ago and I about 4 years ago. We've been married 16 years.

We just stumbled on this HealthCentral site and were pretty impressed until we got to this page: Mental Illness/Retardation Health Center

Really? Isn't there enough of a stigma?? My husband has really struggled with his diagnosis because of that stigma. It has made his treatment that much harder and every setback that much more devastating. He has recently just started to see how much havoc this illness has brought to him and to us and really make some strides in working with his pdoc and then he sees this header and he just shut down!

To be fair minded however, I am willing to bet that this is simply an oversight. Perhaps it was a first attempt or a lapse in what appears to be otherwise good judgement regarding mental illness, based on what I have seen elsewhere here.

HealthCentral, I urge you to re-name the page. While I am sensitive and sympathetic to those who are challenged by retardation, mental illness is not in the same category. Not by a long shot.

Comments (2) | Add comment

Chris

7/28/10 6:18am

I agree.

I have mixed thoughts over stigma.

A lot of people are just plain ignorant and don't know better. But it's not acceptable not on this site.

I almost didn't click on the link because of the title.

But I did, and one article looked interesting, so I bookmarked the site.

Americans Seem More Prone to Depression Than Russians

'Negative' cultural tendency may insulate people against distress, research indicates...'

The other prong of stigma, I think we've gone a bit overboard. I get NAMI emails for stigma alert (in movies and from important public speakers).

Black people have the same stigma (is it black, african american, and blacks use nigger right and left within their own race - I'm white and I call white people nigger). I don't like the sound of african american, it sounds like the speaker is paranoid or something.

Hope this helps. Sorry so long. Maybe the whole community will get on board, comment on this article, so you have signatures/email petition.

Take off the rose-colored glasses. The world isn't perfect.

Chris

Eric

7/29/10 4:20am

I think the world is becoming too politically correct. Within our illness we can call each other nut, nutter, crazy, mentally challenged and the list goes on....but heaven forbid someone without the illness even whispers it out loud.

Come on folks....it is what it is. We do have a mental illness no matter how you look at it. It does scare some people mainly because they fear they may also have it. And there are a good many that are ill informed and don't have a clue what our illness is about. That's ok! How many of you are informed on stroke or heart related illnesses? I bet not many unless you have had to deal with it first hand.

So live and let live...some of us in this world do have degrees of mental retardation and it is what it is. Very few of us with bipolar are unless you happen to be drugged so much that it comes across that way. Most of us are highly intelligent and that is what scares people the most....we are the movers and shakers of this world that come up with new ideas, run large corporations and are even past presidents.

Really??

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