I don't believe that's true. There are plenty of mentally ill people (depression, anxiety, bi-polar) that act completely normal like Stephen. They often suffer in silence.
There isn't really a stigma on anxiety disorder or being bipolar, that I know of. There is a stigma on some of the things people with those disorders sometimes do, but that seems reasonable.
If you're bipolar and I don't like you, it's probably because of manic-depressive behavior. Not because I heard you say you were bipolar. It's not a stigma, I just can't handle people with wild mood swings.
How could he possibly have been, "in a highly-respected treatment program", or labelled mentally ill, if he acted completely normal and suffered in silence?
The parent comment was merely questioning the validity of your weird assertion that "People are labelled mentally ill IFF they do things that have a stigma attached". Perhaps you meant "people who do not self-identify as mentally ill but have that designation imposed on them." Maybe you'd have a case there. But the fact remains that many people suffer from mental illness, and it isn't always just a case of society rejecting them for being "different."
You're informing me of a "fact" without a citation. You have not succeeded at persuading me.
If you wish to change my mind, tell me where Szasz was mistaken. If you are not familiar with Szasz, perhaps you should try reading both sides of the issue before passing judgment.
Well I can think of at least one counterexample: myself. I suffer from a moderate case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I have paced back and forth, obsessively checking that the sink in my bathroom is truly off, feeling my anxiety continuing to rise despite obvious visual confirmation. I once ripped the door handle off the front door of my parents' house because I had been strenuously pulling on it, neurotically ruminating on the idea that maybe, just maybe, the door wasn't completely closed.
I suffer from mental illness, and it isn't because my behaviors have a "stigma." It's because my behaviors are illogical and cause me a non-trivial amount of distress. So if you're going to rant on this forum about how mental illness is some socially-constructed tool of oppression, how about you go fuck yourself?
He was what doctors call 'high functioning.' He was able to operate in society and shroud his pain though it was incredibly painful to do so for him. He wasn't 'completely normal'. He was in a very well respected program in Boston and working through his issues to have the life he wanted.
I am unable to comprehend your lack of understanding. He was mentally ill. He was treated for it. He operated within society in a fashion that does not comply with the stigma of mental illness (no murdering people, no sociopath manipulation). We need to remove this stigma (that all mentally ill are dangerous psycopaths). This will help those who are mentally ill find treatment.
I think perhaps you do not believe that depression is a mental illness. Perhaps you also believe that drugs and hormones can not affect mood, that heroin and alcohol have no affect on the body. Or perhaps you believe that there are absolutely no circumstances in which a human can grow to adulthood without exactly normal sensitivity to mood affecting drugs and hormones. Like how we all evolve slightly different nose shapes and patterns of hair growth, but all the organs in the whole body act with perfect regularity with drugs with no variation at all.
I don't know, as someone whose 8 year relationship ended with a partner who never accepted depression wasn't something I can control. To me its like not believing that lung cancer exists or something. We have evidence, diagnosis and treatment for it. Depression is hardly a made-up condition.
