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Friday, July 25, 2025

Words transmit stigma

People matter, the words you choose matter

by

1529 days ago
20210518

Near­ly 450 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide are cur­rent­ly liv­ing with a men­tal health chal­lenge, yet near­ly two thirds of per­sons with a known men­tal ill­ness nev­er choose to seek treat­ment. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had a pro­found im­pact on the men­tal health of per­sons of all ages, sta­tus and walks of life.

These num­bers will on­ly in­crease, lead­ing to an­oth­er pan­dem­ic. In No­vem­ber 2020, the CDC re­port­ed that 44 per cent of us were deal­ing with ei­ther de­pres­sion or anx­i­ety.

While his­tor­i­cal­ly da­ta shows us that one in five adults will ex­pe­ri­ence a men­tal health chal­lenge, these days it cer­tain­ly feels like it’s five in five.

How­ev­er, let us not on­ly fo­cus on dark facts. Let’s shine a light in the dark­ness. Now, more than ever, it is crit­i­cal to re­duce the stig­ma around men­tal health strug­gles, be­cause that stig­ma of­ten pre­vents in­di­vid­u­als from seek­ing help.

“When MHA start­ed Men­tal Health Month in 1949, we did so to com­mu­ni­cate the im­por­tance of men­tal health to over­all health. Our in­sights about the fac­tors that lead to men­tal health for all ––in­clud­ing em­brac­ing di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty, and in­clu­sion in all we do ––have grown since then.

“There are things we must do to change the world around us. And there are things we can do for our­selves along the way,” shared Paul Gion­frid­do, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Men­tal Health Aware­ness.

Build­ing our re­silience

The pan­dem­ic forced us to cope with sit­u­a­tions we nev­er even imag­ined, and a lot of us strug­gled with our men­tal health as a re­sult. Many peo­ple who had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced men­tal health chal­lenges found them­selves strug­gling for the first time.

Dur­ing the month of May, HEALTH PLUS will be fo­cus­ing on dif­fer­ent top­ics that can help process the events of the past year and the feel­ings that sur­round them, while al­so build­ing skills and sup­port that ex­tend be­yond COVID-19.

It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that work­ing on your men­tal health and find­ing tools that help you thrive will take time. Change won’t hap­pen overnight.

In­stead, by fo­cus­ing on small changes, you can move through the stres­sors of the past year and de­vel­op long-term re­silience strate­gies to sup­port your­self on an on­go­ing ba­sis.

Pri­ori­tis­ing your Men­tal Health

We all face trau­ma, ad­ver­si­ty and oth­er stress­es through­out our lives. When peo­ple think of trau­ma, they of­ten think of things like abuse, ter­ror­ism or cat­a­stroph­ic events (big ‘T’ trau­ma).

Trau­ma can al­so be caused by events that may be less ob­vi­ous but can still over­whelm your ca­pac­i­ty to cope, like fre­quent ar­gu­ing at home or los­ing your job (lit­tle ‘t’ trau­ma).

Trau­ma of any kind can be hard on your men­tal health but pri­ori­tis­ing the de­vel­op­ment of these strate­gies and be­com­ing more re­silient can help you feel more at ease.

Tips for cop­ing

1 ↓Pause be­fore re­act­ing

When you feel your­self get­ting up­set, take a mo­ment to no­tice what you’re think­ing, then take a few deep breaths or count to 10 in your head. By giv­ing your­self even just a few sec­onds be­fore re­act­ing, you can put some emo­tion­al dis­tance be­tween you and what­ev­er is dis­turb­ing you––and you might even re­alise that you’re ac­tu­al­ly tense be­cause of some­thing else.

2 Re­lease built up en­er­gy

Anger is a high-en­er­gy emo­tion, and we store that en­er­gy and ten­sion phys­i­cal­ly in our bod­ies. Ex­er­cise is a great way to get rid of ex­tra en­er­gy and can im­prove your mood.

Some peo­ple find ground­ing ex­er­cis­es (like med­i­ta­tion or deep breath­ing) help­ful to calm in­tense feel­ings, while oth­ers pre­fer more high im­pact ac­tiv­i­ties like run­ning or weightlift­ing.

Think about what you usu­al­ly do to de­com­press, like tak­ing a hot show­er or blast­ing your favourite mu­sic and use the tools that you know work for you.

3 Man­age your ex­pec­ta­tions

Neg­a­tive feel­ings of­ten stem from peo­ple or sit­u­a­tions not meet­ing your stan­dards or as­sump­tions. It’s frus­trat­ing to feel let down but recog­nise that you can’t ful­ly pre­dict any­one else’s be­hav­iour or how sit­u­a­tions will play out. Shift your men­tal frame­work so that you aren’t set­ting your­self up for dis­ap­point­ment.

4 Talk­ing it out

Keep­ing your feel­ings bot­tled up nev­er works, so al­low your­self time to ex­plore what you feel. As long as you don’t fo­cus on it for too long, vent­ing can be a healthy out­let for your emo­tion­al dis­tur­bances. You can open up to a trust­ed friend or write it all down in a jour­nal. Some­times it feels bet­ter to pre­tend to talk di­rect­ly to the per­son (or sit­u­a­tion) that you’re an­gry or dis­tressed about––pick an emp­ty chair, pre­tend they’re sit­ting in it, and say what you need to get off your chest.

5 ↓Don’t be afraid to ask for help

If you’re work­ing to cope with anx­i­ety, anger or de­pres­sion but feel like you can’t get it un­der con­trol, it’s time to get some ex­tra sup­port. Anger can fes­ter and be­come ex­plo­sive if not re­solved. A num­ber of men­tal health con­di­tions can man­i­fest as anger, so this may ac­tu­al­ly be a sign of de­pres­sion or anx­i­ety--treat­ing an un­der­ly­ing con­di­tion can help heal your trau­ma as well. Reach out to a men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al or even a trust­ed friend or loved one that can guide you to the right re­sources.

The good news is that there are tools and re­sources avail­able that can sup­port the well-be­ing of in­di­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties. Now, more than ever, we need to com­bat the stig­ma sur­round­ing men­tal health con­cerns.

Lan­guage mat­ters in com­pas­sion­ate care

Es­pe­cial­ly in be­hav­iour­al health care, the words you use mat­ter and that doesn’t mean just what you say in front of a pa­tient. What you say be­hind closed doors with friends and cowork­ers can be the seed for stig­ma and per­pet­u­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Us­ing peo­ple-first lan­guage means speak­ing in a way that pri­mar­i­ly ac­knowl­edges the per­son, rather than the ill­ness or dis­abil­i­ty. In oth­er words, in­di­vid­u­als with men­tal ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ties are first and fore­most … peo­ple!

Look­out for HEALTH PLUS every Tues­day for more in­for­ma­tive ar­ti­cles on achiev­ing op­ti­mal health and well­be­ing. If you have any ques­tions or in­ter­est in sub­scrib­ing to these ar­ti­cles, please email guardian­health­plus2021@gmail.com


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