RESEARCH:
Depression is a mental illness that
is surrounded by stigma that discourages those with depression to seek help. Even
though there are many treatments available for depression, people face
challenges with the stigma associated with depression and don’t disclose their
symptoms to health practitioners. This leads to treatment discontinuation rates
to rise. People with depression fear that if they disclose their mental illness
that not only their relationships can be affected but also they’re employment
status, and their status for health insurance. Some of the most common reasons
that patients do not report depressive symptoms or seek treatment are that they
feel embarrassed and fear to be perceived as unbalanced, neurotic, irritating,
and/or dangerous/violent, because of being diagnosed as having depression. Negative
stereotypes towards depression is common, for example one stereotype of
depression is that people with depression are the ones to blame for their
illness, and that only they could solve their issues and better themselves.
The stigma that society has towards
depression has lead to self-stigma for women. A study assessed the self-stigma
from a sample of Latina, African American and Caucasian women with depression
and who have access/qualify to health care services. For this study 37.5% of
the women in the sample said they would try anything to keep their depression a
secret, 55% said that if they disclose their depressive symptoms it would be to
their best friend and 80% of the women make the decision to not disclose their
depressive symptoms to a health care professional. Women who do not disclose
their depressive symptoms believe that disclosing may cause them to be socially
stigmatized and/or socially distanced. In a longitudinal study that observed
the different treatments and gender differences in spouse abandonment showed
that “healthy wives were more willing to be caretakers for ill husbands but
they were unable to explain why ill wives were more likely to be divorced by
healthy husbands” (Oakley, p.513). Especially in today’s society, depression in
the media are seen associated with bizarre behavior, and women that have
children fear that they may be seen as dangerous by authorities, or dangerous
in general for being diagnosed and treated for depression.
REFERENCES:
Oakley, L.
D., Kanter, J. W., Taylor, J. Y., & Duguid, M. (2012). The self-stigma of
depression for women. International Journal Of Social Psychiatry, 58(5),
512-520. doi:10.1177/0020764011409820
Monteith,
L. L., & Pettit, J. W. (2011). Implicit and Explicit Stigmatizing Attitudes
and Stereotypes About Depression. Journal Of Social & Clinical
Psychology, 30(5), 484-505. doi:10.1521/jscp.2011.30.5.484
PERSONAL:
The stigma towards depression
affects more people than we realize, something that people should take notice. This
issue as effected me on a personal level, not because I have known people
affected by their depression but because I’ve have depression. And growing up
with depression I have realized that as an adult one can be more criticized
compared to being in middle school.
I chose this issue because people
can individually start to erase the stigma around depression. By just being
supportive towards the idea of depression, sometimes we just have to ask if they’re
really doing okay. As a society we have to change the image of depression, and
show that depression does not make people weak and that people are not
responsible for having depression. Something I learned is that depression
doesn’t go away, its an illness that we have to fight everyday, because we
can’t let depression control our lives, it should be us in control of our own
lives. When I transitioned from high school to college my depression has slowly
taken control on my life, and I tried counseling but I felt more like the
councilor was interrogating me instead of asking what was really going through
my head and I stopped going because I felt like it wasn’t helping at all.
Currently, because of my depression, I have a hard time concentrating, sleeping
and even eating. No one should feel like they cannot be helped and let their
condition worsen.
My action is to take a stand against
the self-stigma of women when it comes to depression, and starting with the
stigma towards depression in general.
MEMBERS
FROM MY COMMUNITY AFFECTED BY THIS ISSUE:
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