what are the similarities and differences between mentally ill Vs general population?

[Nie]

Hi all! I'm a psychiatry trainee who works in a mental institution in Malaysia. 

 

I'm planning to do an interventional study to reduce stigma in mental health. Stigmatization in mental health is one of the main obstacles which hinder the treatment and recovery process for most of the patients. 

 

Currently most of the interventions are focusing on mental health literacy (by improving the knowledge towards mental illness, hoping that it will reduce stigma).

 

The outcome of current studies show that there is no sustainable effect even after improved mental health literacy.

 

If we trace back the origin of stereotyping, it will be as such : dichotomous labelling ( human capacities to differentiate and to categorise ). This binary thinking leads us to differentiate good vs bad, us vs them. 

 

My idea is to target on this binary thinking. My initial idea was to show them a video which is focusing on the similarity between in-group and out-group (mentally ill vs general population).

 

Here's my questions: 

1) what are the similarities and differences between mentally ill Vs general population? 

 

(My idea is to emphasize the similarities, to reduce the gap in between these two groups) 

 

2) To those who have been battling with mental illness, what do you think that illness had changed you as a person? 

 

3) To those who are not diagnosed with mental illness, what do you think about a person who is having mental illness? In which aspect do you think they are different from you? 

 

I appreciate suggestions and ideas. Please gimme a personal message if you are not comfortable sharing it in public. 

 

Cheers guys. 

Have a wonderful day people.

 

From Nie

 

[sara09]

I've sent you my answer via PM, hope it can help somehow  good luck with your study, Nie! 

[Nie]

Thank you Sara!! It helps a lot!! 

[bone II]

im gonna answer only #2 rn, #1 id need to think about for a while. mental illness hasn't changed anything about me. ive been this way literally since before i can remember. idk if it's even possible to be born with ocd but i have memories about it back from when i was maybe 4 or 5. i developed some form of social anxiety later, maybe around 7 or 8? as soon as i was old enough to realise that i acted different from everyone else and nobody really wanted to be friends with me, then it got worse about when i started high school and started actively getting responses of "i don't like you" or "you're weird" instead of just being confused as to why people didn't want to play with me.  i know that many, many people develop mental illness as a teenager or adult but a lot of us already have it -- for me i consider it simply a neurodivergence and hardly a mental illness at all because i feel i would be a fundamentally different person without it. (note: the social anxiety developed because im autistic and people expect me not to be since i was diagnosed late and im in gen ed, so ive spent my whole life being ignored or turned down by other kids without knowing why)

[Nie]

@bone II hey dahv!! Thank you so much for your reply. Sorry I didn't see this earlier..

 

I like the way you put it as a " neurodivergence" . I have read somewhere in the book called Siddhartha's brain ( a book by James Kingsland) that everyone of us has mental illness.(Perhaps we don't name it as mental illness) It's just the matter of whether one realizes it or not. 

 

I take it as a spectrum .Each of us has emotional disturbances or mental formation disruption to a certain degree, and it is very much depend on the environmental factors. I have social anxiety to a certain degree, some obsessive compulsive personality trait only expressed when in excessive stress, and magical thinking most of the time  which to some people it is totally absurd. 

 

Sometimes I find that it's unfair to just diagnose an illness based on a guideline, as long as fulfilling the so called criteria. It's arbitrary. One is said to be "ill' because he or she doesn't belong to the group which is "healthy". That's what happening when we diagnose mental illness based on a guidebook, based on the criteria. (Which is what I'm doing everyday  ) 

 

But there's one thing which I learned that, in life, we have choices. We can choose the way of who we are, by learning more about ourselves, and be aware of our strengths and weaknesses. With the little insight gained day by day, we will be more comfortable with the surrounding, with the people, with the universe, and with ourselves. 

 

Oh ya, I think weird is also arbitrary. When A perceived B as weird, merely because they have different sets of benchmark or standard. Sometimes conformity in the society can kill. Just because the voices are soft, doesn't mean what we are saying is wrong. 

 

Thank you Dahv and I wish you getting more and more comfortable with us, and with yourself. 

 

Cya around. 

 

From Nie.