Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
IASP Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. It's also National Suicide Prevention Week and National Suicide Prevention Month (that's a lot of awareness!). I thought it would be a good time to talk about suicide attempt survivors. The term "suicide survivor" isn't generally used for people who've lived through suicide attempts. Rather, it's the term… Continue reading World Suicide Prevention Day: A Look at Suicide Attempt Survivors
Recently, I came across a post that was a myths vs. facts type deal on mental illness stigma. One of the myths identified was that people with mental illness are disabled. The blogger's response was that on some days, mental illness could make it harder to work for some people, but there are also people… Continue reading Is It Helpful to Sanitize Mental Illness?
An open letter to the Hon. Judy Darcy, British Columbia Minister of Mental Health and Addictions I'm writing to express my dismay that it appears that the Government of British Columbia does not intend to take advantage of the modernization of the Health Professions Act to remove section 32(3), which stigmatizes health professionals with a… Continue reading Stigma Enshrined in Law: An Open Letter to BC’s Minister of Mental Health and Addictions
While doing some research for my upcoming book on stigma, I came across a 2004 discussion paper on Stigma and Work. It was written by Heather Stuart, a public health faculty member at Queen's University in Canada. It quickly became clear that the author's PhD in epidemiology didn't prevent her from having some strange attitudes… Continue reading Attitudes About Mental Illness That Make You Go Hmm…
I recently did a post on whether the wording "committed suicide" was likely to be an effective target for anti-stigma messaging. A commenter mentioned that in their home country, suicide was only decriminalized quite recently. That got me curious about where attempting suicide is illegal to this day. Why suicide first became illegal The Stanford… Continue reading Where Is Attempting Suicide Illegal?
A still from the surveillance video shows Const. Lacy Browning stepping on student Mona Wang's head after a wellness check by the RCMP on Jan. 20. (Submitted by Bridge Law Corporation) I've written before about defunding the police as a way to approach the mismatch between a police approach and mental health. The picture above from… Continue reading A Police “Wellness Check”/”Arrest” Gone Wrong
Public stigma, involving prejudice and discrimination from outsiders that's directed at us, is damaging enough as it is. But sometimes that stigma gets internalized into self-stigma, an unpleasant gift that keeps on giving. How self-stigma develops Researchers Patrick Corrigan (my academic crush) and Amy Watson described three broad types of reactions by people who are… Continue reading How Self-Stigma Happens
I saw a post recently by Nathan of My Brain's Not Broken about stigmatizing language to avoid. One of the things he mentioned was "committed suicide," which is something that comes up regularly in discussions of language use related to suicide. Personally, it's not a term I find offensive, although I know some people do,… Continue reading Is “Committed Suicide” Worth Making an Issue Out Of?
The emerging blogger series is aimed at community building through giving mental health bloggers who are early in their blogging evolution the opportunity to have their work seen by a wider audience. It's also a way to introduce you as a reader to some newer members of our community. This post is by Tori Talks.… Continue reading Emerging Blogger Series: Tori Talks
I'm pretty active on Pinterest, and sometimes I'll create new pins related to older blog posts. Recently, I created a pin asking whether people in mental health crisis should be handcuffed, and linked to a post I'd done on that topic and the stigma inherent in it. Once in a blue moon I'll get a… Continue reading There’s a Name For That — It’s Stigma