I have a mental disorder. societal misperceptions label me a loonie. I’ve written about societal misperceptions before; my post about anonymity and my getting started.
those societal misperceptions hold me back about freely sharing. if i had cancer, and blogged about it, i would likely freely share on my struggles. that’s because there aren’t societal misconceptions about cancer; it’s a disease, a disorder. let’s face it, mental disorders are are that, too; a disease.
that’s the dichotomy that goes with mental disorders. society has misconceptions of mental disorders. those misconceptions cause people to feel uncomfortable and cause people with mental disorders to “hide”. let’s face it; hiding is only one of the choices.
what if knowledgable, communicative people with mental disorder took the opportunity to educate people about mental disorder? those people they would touch would then be more knowledgable about mental disorders. if enough people where touched by those people, the societal misperception would slowly change.
that’s the challenge for me, bipolarsojourner.wordpress.com/anonymity/ and all the people blogging about mental disorders only to people with mental disorders. those societal misperceptions won’t change. but by opening up our communication to the masses, those societal misperceptions would decrease. of course, we have to bite the bullet and potentially be mislabeled a loonie, especially to the people we know but can’t educate.
perhaps there is another way. this is what I plan to do. i am going to put myself out in public where i am more or less anonymous. perhaps speaking to groups were there is some form of anonymity about the struggles we with disorders face, the societal misconceptions we face, will start to change society one group, one person, at a time.
so, my next challenge is to try to figure out situations were i could speak to groups and let them know of the struggles we as people with mental disorders face, the societal misconceptions that make us hide in fear.
i am open to suggestions. can anyone think of some ways i could find such groups? I could try to hook up with some nami.org groups, but I’d be preaching to the choir. suggestion?
facing off with the big d 