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Self esteem and stigma

User Profile: Soulcomfort
Soulcomfort February 19th, 2019

I did want to post this earlier in the month but life happened.
I would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts 💭💞
Thanks for reading, much love to all 🤗

February is here the month of self esteem and stigma.

I've heard all the jokes and they can be popular and quite 'throw away', it's almost acceptable to laugh at a bipolar joke, it's the 'norm'...

An acquaintance once said to me "if you are bipolar can I be gay panda" ?


I'm all for humour as a coping skill, I make light of my own problems with humour but I do not laugh at the expense of others.
I think it's important to know your audience
I am wondering :-
Does it feed the stigma when we are all busy trying to starve it out of existence ?

2
User Profile: soulsings
soulsings February 19th, 2019

@Soulcomfort I belong to a support group and we talk freely about the challenges we face. That is the extent of me talking about my problems. So I do not have to face stigma if people are not aware of what I am going through. Maybe it is better for me to say nothing than tell somebody about my problems. I guess that is only one way to cope. It works for me. Interested to hear how others cope.

1 reply
User Profile: Soulcomfort
Soulcomfort OP February 20th, 2019

I understand why you keep it in your group and protect yourself from stigma thank you for sharing with us Soul.

I agree totally, It is a MUST that we protect ourselves from it.

But what if we have no choice but to disclose it?

Stigma is everywhere. Unfortunately 😞

For example at work or at medical appointments not related to our bipolar disorder Dentist, optician, blood clinic etc etc etc. Places were it's important to declare medication and the condition it is taken for

We shouldn't dread or be in fear of disclosing our health condition or worse still, hide it, that in itself can be detrimental.

@soulsings

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