30 Day Challenge - Day 14

Wednesday 10th September 2014
04:15pm

Day 14
Have you ever experienced stigma?

Yes is the simple answer.  Not just from people who I know through school or work but also members of the public, when I was really low in weight I'd get verbal abuse thrown at me.

I've found it harder with adults in the employment side of things as I have this expectation that adults should be a lot more understanding and think about what they say.  My belief through school was just that kids can be cruel.  If you're not educated about a subject then it's harder to understand.

I've struggled trying to get people to understand my reaction to things or how I behave.  I think at times I can try to hard which makes me more awkward with other people.

I worry if I open up people will become afraid of me, the thoughts which I have in my head at times scares me how do you then explain that to other people without the words which are so often associated with mental health I can see flash around my head and glisten in people's eyes

I don't think we will ever get rid of stigma completely we don't live in a perfect world, but what we can do is use personal experiences to give other people the chance to learn and not stigmatise other people from seeing a true reaction of how stigma which has been faced by a person they can associate with has coped.

Rach x