Still thinking about @yumcoconutmilk’s thread about mental illness destigmatization, and how a lot of the focus is on “relatable” mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, while conditions like borderline, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc remain heavily stigmatized.

It’s an interesting discussion for me as someone with OCD, which kinda sits on the edge between the two groups. On the one hand OCD is culturally treated as more of a “real mental illness” than anxiety or depression; on the other hand, people still make cutesy jokes about it.

You could wear a necklace that says OCD, for instance, in a way you probably couldn’t with something like NPD or borderline.

But I think OCD is largely able to exist in this space because of a very poor understanding of what it actually is.

Like, people make jokes about OCD because they think it’s just about being really uptight about being organized, or being compulsively clean. I don’t think you could make a cutesy t-shirt about, say, being terrified that you were going to molest small children against your will.

It’s not funny or cute to be overwhelmed by images of yourself stabbing yourself in the eyes every time you pick up a knife to cut vegetables. But that used to happen to me, peeps!

For me, mental illness destigmatization can’t be about making mental illness itself “cool” or (ugh) “aspirational” — it has to be about making it a morally neutral health concern, like asthma or cancer.

The focus of destigmatization can’t be about making these conditions feel desirable because they are fundamentally *not* desirable. It has to be about reducing shame so that people can a) recognize they have a problem, b) accept their dx, and c) get the help they need.

Like, what would destigmatizing OCD look like for me? Well, firstly, it would mean improving cultural understanding about what OCD actually *is*, which would have helped me get a correct diagnosis and access to treatment a hell of a lot sooner than I did.

It would also mean improving cultural awareness that *we are not our thoughts*, so that people with OCD could feel more comfortable talking about our intrusive thoughts — because the shame so many of us feel about them are what helps to fuel them in the first place.

It’s still really hard for me to talk about the fact that my OCD used to flash images of molesting and maiming children — even children I love! — at me, because I’m afraid that people will think that those images came from a desire to do those things, rather than brain noise.

*That* is what mental health stigma looks like to me. That’s the crux of it. Actually being able to talk about the real experience without fear of being judged as a bad person. Not just wearing a necklace making a jokey statement no one really understands.

Anyway, to circle back to the original point: I think it’s easier to destigmatize anxiety and depression because they’re based in relatively relatable experiences. We’ve all worried about something. We’ve all felt like shit some days.

All these conditions ask you to imagine is, “What if that worry, that emptiness, didn’t go away? What if you were like that every day?”

It’s harder with mental illnesses that ask you to change your perception of how the mind works, and what the mind’s inner workings say about us

But it’s incredibly necessary because *we are all susceptible to mental illness*. Even many of the “scary” mental illnesses. Yes, some of them are rooted in biology and genetics. But a lot of them are triggered by trauma, and the maladaptive behaviors that stem from it.

OCD — or at least some forms of it — is a very natural response to the current cultural moment, for instance, when fear of leaving the house and contamination seem completely justified. Borderline personality disorder and PTSD have a lot in common.

Something like bipolar may not feel relatable to the general public — but it shouldn’t need to feel relatable to be destigmatized. I have no idea what it’s like to have cancer. I hope I never know.

I can still feel compassion for people with cancer, the same way I feel compassion for everyone out there struggling with bipolar.

Even Kanye West.

PS Feels worth adding that destigmatizing mental illness is not “everything a person with a mental illness does is okay.” I’ve cut people with mental illness out of my life when they refused to get help and engaged in behavior that was harmful to me.

Refusing to tolerate abusive behavior isn’t stigma, it’s appropriate boundary setting and consequences. Mental health destigmatization factors in mostly in determining what the appropriate consequences are for certain behaviors.