Mental Health & Celebrities' Mental Health Stories - You Are Not Alone

There is so much stigma around mental health and mental illness. Today we talk about the reality of this and stomp this stigma by sharing the stories of some celebrities with mental illness - Demi Lovato and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

[jillianguilford]

I've experienced stigma for being depressive - I also have DID, even in peer-support groups. I fight for myself to repeatedly start over when any of this tries to take me down.

[donaldkeith]

The information in this video is incomplete and wrong.

Stigma and misrepresentation are different things. Stigma can be a result of misrepresentation, sure, but they aren't the same.

E.g. I have depression.
If my friends want to dress up as a somebody who has depression, and choose to wear the "mental patient" costume, that's misrepresentation.

But if my friends think (and maybe tell me) that I ought to be ashamed of myself for having depression, or they don't want to "catch depression" so they don't talk to me, THAT'S stigma.

Misrepresentation doesn't automatically mean that you stigmatize people with mental health illnesses.
And stigmatizing people doesn't automatically mean you've misrepresented those same people.

You could dress up as a mental patient, and still be caring towards people with mental health illness.
And you could go around telling people how dressing up as a mental patient is stigmatising, and not have a single shred of empathy for people with mental health illness.

Like some priests and preachers who decry sexual immorality, and then go and sexually abuse young kids or their other parishioners. Representation vs. Reality.

[marymount]

This woman has no idea what's she's talking about demi a all so brought out a vibrator. This woman should probably buy one