First of all, thank you to Aimee for letting me
write this blog post as a guest post on her blog!
Secondly, I should probably introduce myself, I’m Sophie. And I have two mental health
diagnosis’. I have anxiety,
both health anxiety (hypochondria) and social anxiety and OCD (obsessive
compulsive disorder). Mental health problems have an unfathomable amount of
stigma, dating back to the mental asylums from the past. It’s shocking that in today’s “modern” society, the stigma
around mental health problems still exists.
Having one mental health problem to contend with
is enough, but having two is harder. My health and social anxiety come into one
diagnosis of anxiety, if you are wondering why I’m not saying three diagnosis’ .
The stigma surrounding any mental health problem
is inevitably large. People are labelled as “crazy”, “nuts” and “crackers”. We aren’t any of those things. We are human beings.
We are people just like everyone else. We have mental health problems is all.
I think the stigma comes from the Victorian age,
where people were locked up because of their “mental state”.
Women were locked up for giving birth out of wedlock, homosexual people were
put into institutions and some physical health problems such as epilepsy were
classified as a “mental health problem”. People did not split the physical body
from the mind. Today, we do. Mental health is shown in a different light to
that of physical health. We can now see the distinction between epilepsy, as
being a neurological problems. We can now see that homosexuality is a norm in
society (although some would contest this) and are now more accepting of women
giving birth out of wedlock. But yet, however much this has changed, people
with mental health problems still face stigmatisation.
Anxiety is talked about as someone who “worries a lot”. Indeed a person would be correct for thinking this but there is
something more to it. It’s
excessive worrying that takes over your day to day life. Health anxiety faces a
big challenge as it’s also more commonly
known as hypochondria. I was called a “hypochondriac” throughout my
childhood and I guess the name has stuck with me as a formal diagnosis. It has been used against me, by way of a joke
and to jibe at me. It’s funny to some
people.
Then there is the social anxiety. This one is
not as big of a problem as my health anxiety
but it is just as difficult. I may come across as confident, but inside I’m shaking, I’m nervous. Thinking things will go wrong. I get labelled as the “nervous one”, the one who is “uncomfortable” in situations where there are lots of people. It isn’t easy being in a crowd of people. I don’t know what to do or where to put myself. It’s been hinted at that I may have some form of autism.
but it is just as difficult. I may come across as confident, but inside I’m shaking, I’m nervous. Thinking things will go wrong. I get labelled as the “nervous one”, the one who is “uncomfortable” in situations where there are lots of people. It isn’t easy being in a crowd of people. I don’t know what to do or where to put myself. It’s been hinted at that I may have some form of autism.
Last but not least we have OCD. It brings with
it the stigma of “so you clean lots
then?”. OCD doesn’t just include cleaning things. It’s behaviours. It’s the thoughts that occur. The obsessive part is the thoughts. They
pop into your head. The compulsive part is the action. What you do to combat
the behaviour. It gets tedious explaining things to people. I sanitise. I still
have some rituals but I’m
getting better.
Explaining to people that I have two mental
health diagnosis’ is difficult. You get told that you are “twice as bad”
by society. That two mental health problems have “polluted your mind”. Yes, someone actually said that to me. Anxiety and OCD are probably
two of the most recognised mental health problems, but they still carry the
weight of the world in terms of stigma. All mental health problems are the same
in terms of severity because no-one wants to have a mental health problem, let
alone two!
I hope that by reading this, you have some more
understanding of multiple mental health diagnosis. If you want to follow more
of my mental health journey then follow my blog: https://socialworkjourney2013.wordpress.com.
You can also follow me on Twitter: @SophieMJSYPE