Stigma Quotes

They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then - how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

when you speak about feminism
they like to hit you with things
i call 'what about's–
what about women in the middle east
what about women in third world countries
what about focusing on them and not the problems here

and this all sounds good in theory
yes
we need to help them
yes
we need to help young girls
trapped in child marriages
yes
we need to help women
marred by acid attacks
yes
we need to help victims
of human trafficking
yes
we need to help women
who wil be imprisioned
beaten
killed
for speaking out about their sexual assault
for getting an abortion
for leaving an abusive husband

yes
we need to help them
of couse we do
it is our job as decent humans
to help them

but we can help them
and help ourselves at the same time

we can help young girls
in child marriages

and we can fight to end
the objectification of young girls
here

we can help women
marred by acid attacks

and we can work harder
to arrest abusers and assailants
here

we can help victims
of human trafficking

and we can stop stigma and violence
against sex workers
here

we can help women
who will be
imprisioned for speaking out about their sexual assault
beaten for getting an abortion
killed for lea ~ Catarine Hancock

it seems to me that, on balance, soul/body dualism has been the enemy of compassion. For instance, the moral stigma that still surrounds disorders of mood and cognition seems largely the result of viewing the mind as distinct from the brain. When the pancreas fails to produce insulin, there is no shame in taking synthetic insulin to compensate for its lost function. ~ Sam Harris

I want to tell people that I had post-natal depression because there is so much stigma around the subject and there shouldn't be. ~ Jennifer Ellison

The answer to how to engage with obesity, Cahnman said, was 'an agreement of mutual respect for the common humanity of each and every one of us'. Weight stigma, he pointed out, cannot be removed except by treating individuals with obesity as normal human beings – as intelligent and capable as anyone else – and removing any sense of moral shame about their condition. ~ Bee Wilson

When I first started, you could go to a college campus and it was not cool to wear a country artist's shirt on campus. It was taboo, and there was a stigma involved. In the time from then till now, I'm amazed at how much things have changed. It's young now, it's cool, it's hip ~ Eric Church

In the past, there has been a stigma surrounding community colleges, where they were seen as a less viable option because they are not four-year universities. I know differently and so do the millions of people across the country who have received an affordable, quality higher education at community college. ~ Jill Biden

When people asked about his schizophrenia, Eric, who didn't exactly flaunt his illness but wasn't ashamed of it, either, offered up the comparison of alcoholism. Not every drunk is a single bourbon away from skid row, just like every schizophrenic is not a tatty-haired, crazy-eyed gunman who delights in murdering alien-people from clock towers. There are functioning alcoholics just as there are functioning schizophrenics, individuals who work, maintain homes, and have hobbies, goals, and relationships like every other slob on the planet. ~ Vivian Barz

Until women themselves reject stigma and refuse to feel shame for the way others treat them, they have no hope of achieving full human stature. ~ Germaine Greer

Some people don't understand depression. Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small stone or pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~ Fuad Alakbarov

The temptation is to insist that black men 'choose' to be criminals; the system does not make them criminals, at least not in the way that slavery made blacks slaves or Jim Crow made them second-class citizens. The myth of choice here is seductive, but it should be resisted. African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct. In fact, studies suggest that white professionals may be the most likely of any group to have engaged in illegal drug activity in their lifetime, yet they are the least likely to be made criminals. The prevalence of illegal drug activity among all racial and ethnic groups creates a situation in which, due to limited law enforcement resources and political constraints, some people are made criminals while others are not. Black people have been made criminals by the War on Drugs to a degree that dwarfs its effect on other racial and ethnic groups, especially whites. And the process of making them criminals has produced racial stigma. ~ Michelle Alexander

I'm a writer. I was just diagnosed with PTSD. This unfortunate diagnosis, I assure you will not stop me. ~ A.K. Kuykendall

Stigmas speak to the idea of difference and how difference shames us and those we know. ~ Michael Lewis

You do not understand
no accomplishment overcomes the stigma of being different. [ ... ] I try not to think about it and cannot eat my supper or nothing. I didn't understand it at first. But now I do. You are not different in the way difference is acceptable but in another, bigger way. ~ David Adams Richards

Stigma refers to a set of negative associations of a person with something shameful, disgraceful and repulsive ~ Sunday Adelaja

Mental imbalance is about as acceptable as herpes. It's never going to be accepted. But really, it's a disease just like cancer. It just happens, and eats away all the good parts of your brain, like judgment and happiness and perception and memory and life. And you can die from depression just like any other disease. And it's not as if people choose it. So why is it still a joke of medicine? "She died of cancer." is a lot more socially acceptable to people than "She committed suicide. ~ Sarahbeth Purcell

My story is not a sad story; it's a real one. It's a story about a girl who fought through a storm she thought would never end. ~ Hannah Blum

And now he had acquired the wisdom to admit that sometimes experienced his disdain for "weak, sick people" because he was frightened by any suggestion he could ever become that. ~ James C. Coyne

When his bravery at the Battle of Hogwarts was publicised, his actions (along with those of Regulus Black, which gained attention in the aftermath of Voldemort's demise) removed much of the stigma that had been attached to Slytherin house for hundreds of years past. Though now (permanently) retired, his portrait has a place of honour in the Slytherin common room. ~ J.K. Rowling

Men and women who have served in harm's way experience higher rates of divorce and suicide. Many battle the debilitating effects and stigma associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. ~ Ron Wyden

Despite what appears to be a low risk of addiction in naïve, chronic pain patients, it is reasonable to ask how much harm is actually done to patients with chronic pain by withholding opiate analgesics. ~ Howard L. Fields

No one would ever say that someone with a broken arm or a broken leg is less than a whole person, but people say that or imply that all the time about people with mental illness. ~ Elyn R. Saks

It's an unfortunate word, 'depression', because the illness has nothing to do with feeling sad, sadness is on the human palette. Depression is a whole other beast. It's when your old personality has left town and been replaced by a block of cement with black tar oozing through your veins and mind. This is when you can't decide whether to get a manicure or jump off a cliff. It's all the same. When I was institutionalised I sat on a chair unable to move for three months, frozen in fear. To take a shower was inconceivable. What made it tolerable was while I was inside, I found my tribe - my people. They understood and unlike those who don't suffer, never get bored of you asking if it will ever go away? They can talk medication all hours, day and night; heaven to my ears. ~ Ruby Wax

Stigma takes many forms, comes from all directions, is sometimes blatantly overt, but can also be remarkably subtle. It is the cruel comment, the unkind smirk, the extrusion from the group, the lost job opportunity, the rejected marriage proposal, the ineligibility for life insurance, the inability to adopt a child or pilot a plane.

But it is also the reduced expectation, the helping hand when none is needed or wanted, the solicitous sympathy that one cannot really be expected to measure up.

And the secondary psychological and practical harms of having a mental disorder come only partly from how others see you. A great deal of the trouble comes from the change in how you see yourself: the sense of being damaged goods, feeling not normal or worthy, not a full fledged member of the group.

It is bad enough that stigma is so often associated with having a mental disorder, but the stigma that comes from being mislabeled with a fake diagnosis is a dead loss with absolutely no redeeming features. ~ Allen Frances

The power to label is the power to destroy. ~ Allen Frances

The AIDS disease is caused by a virus, but the AIDS epidemic is not. The AIDS epidemic is fueled by stigma, by hate, by misinformation, by ignorance, by indifference. Science has accomplished miracles over the past 20 years, and science can now end this disease - but it cannot end the epidemic. We need more than medicine. We can do something about these things. We need to speak out about the changes we need to make in our society. ~ Elton John

No one ever expects a man missing his limbs to perform the same as a whole person in normal society. Why do we expect the mentally unwell to perform equally to those without the handicap? ~ Aaron Daniel Behr

Blaming fatness for heart disease is a lot like blaming yellow teeth for lung cancer, rather than considering the possibility that smoking might play a role in both. And telling people they need to lose weight is a lot like telling someone with pneumonia to stop coughing so much - it may not be possible and won't make the disease go away. ~ Linda Bacon

You told me that a doctor used hypnotism to treat you, with the result that for a long time you lost the memory of your childhood and youth", he continued. "That is the characteristic - the stigma - of all those who have been 'bitten by the snake of the spiritual realm'. It seems almost as if, inside us, one life has to be grafted onto another, as a scion is grafted onto a wild tree, before the miracle of awakening can occur. The separation that usually comes with death is in our case achieved by erasing the memory, sometimes just by a sudden spiritual about-turn. ~ Gustav Meyrink

Society's goal is to make us less foolish. From the cradle to grave the pressure is on: "Be normal!" Our inner fool may be shackled and caged by a world made to suppress it, but Jesus came to free the fool. ~ Mark Batterson

I feel very blessed that at a young age I was able to navigate my battle with drug and alcohol addiction, and through recovery live a sober life. There is such a stigma attached to addiction and it was hard for me to both confront and overcome it. I am very proud and grateful that with the support of family and friends, I was able to do so. ~ Cara Santana

Don't let people's stereotypes or stigmas or words - don't let that put you in a box. Don't let that ruin your day. ~ Lil B

Many factors other than your size, fat, and muscle tissue figure in resting metabolism. Some are genetic and immutable. You may have been born with the ability to burn a lot of energy quickly and effortlessly, while others have what's called a "sluggish metabolism"and don't use energy at a very fast rate. It's interesting to consider the cultural value judgment in using the term "sluggish"; from a scientific perspective, the person with a slower metabolism is much more efficient, a trait that would have been highly prized in earlier times when food was harder to come by. ~ Linda Bacon

When I was growing up, everybody smoked, including me. When I was 14, I started. We all did it. That was just the way it was. And nowadays there's a stigma attached to it. It's a big shift. ~ Wayne Dyer

In Hollywood, there really is a stigma against wrestling. I think that's why people think wrestlers are Neanderthals who can't string two words together. ~ Chris Jericho

The fact that I didn't even love myself was just enough to know it's time to change. I accept that not many are able to help, let alone, understand the troubles that lie within. ~ H.M. Gautsch

People say the darkness is where secrets are best hidden. Night time brings clarity and focus to owls, even if the aperture of this vision comes with a stigma. ~ Kimberly Morgan

The fact of the matter is that we're all aging, and there's this stigma that older actresses don't work as much as younger actresses, and I don't think that's true anymore. ~ Jewel Staite

There is that idea of seeming crazy when you're seeing spirits or you're seeing dead people, you know what I mean? There's a certain sort of stigma, a sort of kookiness, when it comes to that. ~ Deborah Mailman

I've found nothing but support and generosity from older comics. I think comedians are a lot nicer than the stigma is, at least from my experience. ~ Bo Burnham

self-stigma is not a person's fault; nor is it a part of the person's illness!
If the public did not hold negative and stigmatizing attitudes in the first place, these would never have become internalized, causing people the painful and disabling experience of self-stigma. ~ Patrick W. Corrigan

A common misconception is that some people are only in pain because they are weak, anxious, depressed, or do not deal well with stress. This is not correct.
Every experience you have - touch, warmth, itch, pain - is created by the brain and thus is all in your head, but it does not mean they are not real.

Things like fear, anxiety, or depression can increase pain levels and can increase the chance of persistent pain. But often, these feelings only develop after a person already has chronic pain. ~ Tasha Stanton

There's that stigma about New Yorkers, how they're so mean, but in my experience it was quite the opposite. People were very genuine and very nice, even on the subway. ~ Taylor Kitsch

There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one. ~ Laurence J. Peter

I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it's about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted. ~ Olivia Laing

Mental illness

People assume you aren't sick
unless they see the sickness on your skin
like scars forming a map of all the ways you're hurting.

My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s
Have you tried exercising? Have you tried eating better?
Have you tried not being sad, not being sick?
Have you tried being more like me?
Have you tried shutting up?

Yes, I have tried. Yes, I am still trying,
and yes, I am still sick.

Sometimes monsters are invisible, and
sometimes demons attack you from the inside.
Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth
does not mean they aren't ripping through me.
Pain does not need to be seen to be felt.

Telling me there is no problem
won't solve the problem.

This is not how miracles are born.
This is not how sickness works. ~ Emm Roy

The stigma of movie actors doing television is gone now. ~ Sean Bean

Telling a person who is depressed to have positive thoughts is the same as telling a sick person not to be sick. It doesn't work. ~ Yong Kang Chan

I have friends of mine who have died of AIDS and many of those friends ... did not tell me until the very end ... because they felt that there was a stigma, a taboo, attached to it ... now we have more women infected with HIV/AIDS, many of those women were infected by their husbands who did not tell them ~ Bianca Jagger

I have a soft spot in my heart for suicidal people. I know that others make presumptions about suicidal people, painting them with the darkest of paints; but the way that I see it, these are people who look out into the world and see how broken it is and they look into their lives and they remember all the people they've hurt and then they look into themselves and they are faced with how ruined they are and they think that if they can't make anything really better then they just shouldn't exist anymore. It's not a form of selfishness or mental illness. It's a form of extreme state of empathy and selflessness. Suicidal people really are the best kinds of people. But they need to know that this world has a place for them, that this world needs the kind of light that they carry with them as they walk through it, they need to know that they have a home. That their type of darkness is like the darkness of the universe: it's the type of darkness from whence comes forth the light! Some people are just okay with everything, they don't feel the pain and the guilt that comes with the way that this world is. And I don't think that the lack of feeling makes anybody healthier in the mind. Our world is sick. And some people know that. These are not the sick people, these are the beautiful creatures! ~ C. JoyBell C.

Government agencies are trying to get doctors to cut back on prescribing opioids. I understand that they need to do something about the epidemic of overdoses. However, labeling everyone as addicts, including those who responsibly take opioids for chronic pain, is not the answer. If the proposed changes take effect, they would force physicians to neglect their patients. Moreover, legitimate pain patients, like myself, would be left in agony on a daily basis. ~ Alison Moore,

When I started on 'The West Wing,' that was at a time when this was still a stigma, because movie stars didn't do TV. Now, every movie star is desperate to find their 'True Detective.' ~ Rob Lowe

The true nature of the Christian's bondage is this: faith commands his every move, his every thought, and his every inclination. Moreover, because faith is tenacious by nature, and because it comes with this attendant stigma that angering God is unwise, the Christian is tempted - no, compelled to err on the side of his faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence that proves the contrary. ~ Michael Vito Tosto

Soaps are great. You learn to work very fast - some say superficially, but that's not really true. You do some very serious character work. I've never had any feelings about a stigma attached to it, and nowadays there seems to be less snobbery about what you do. More and more big names are doing TV and commercials and voiceovers. ~ Charles Shaughnessy

Been under treatment for PTSD and bipolar since 1992. I'm not ashamed of my illness. I've been shunned by many and I feel for those shunned, too. ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

The whole human world is born from the womb of mothers, and if we can't make the motherly act of breastfeeding free from stigma in such a world, then it's an insult to our very existence as a species. ~ Abhijit Naskar

But there was something psychological happening there that was just a little bit different. And the other thing was, there was no stigma. Kids weren't going into the 'Center-for-Kids-That-Need-More-Help' or something like that. It was 826 Valencia. ~ Dave Eggers

we are adaptive rather than disordered ~ Bonnie Badenoch

I spoke so much about being a manic-depressive. I want to bring everyone back to my earliest memories of this companion of mine. Some people call this companion I have an ailment, or worse a terrible nightmare from which some people cannot awaken. I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of. I have nothing that should garner a stigma. ~ Richard Dreyfuss

Sometimes the people around you won't understand your journey. They don't need to, it's not for them. ~ Joubert Botha

Mental illness is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their employers. ~ Elyn R. Saks

Survivors are damaged to different degrees by their experiences. This does not depend on what happened physically. A Survivor who has been raped will not necessarily be more damaged than a Survivor who has been touched. The degree of damage depend on the degree of traumatic sexualization, stigmatization, betrayal and powerlessness, the child has experienced. This in turn depends on a number of factors such as:
* who the abuser was;
* how many abusers were involved;
* if the abuser was same-sex or opposite sex;
* what took place;
* what was said;
* how long the abuse went on for;
* How the child felt and how she interpreted what was happening;
* if the child was otherwise happy and supported;
* how other people reacted to the disclosure or discovery of the abuse;
* how old the child was ~ Carolyn Ainscough

Although by 1851 tales of adventure had begun to seem antiquated, they had rendered a large service to the course of literature: they had removed the stigma, for the most part, from the word novel. ~ Carl Clinton Van Doren

I had to fight to be me and get respect, and to carry that stigma, for me, is pride. Carrying the tag of lesbian. I'm not bragging, I'm not preaching, but I don't deny it . I had to face society, the Church, which says damn gay people ... it's absurd. How do you judge someone who has been born that way. I did not study to be a lesbian. Neither was it taught to me. I was born this way. Since I opened my eyes to the world. I've never slept with a man. Never. I'm pure, I don't have to be ashamed ... My Gods made me so. ~ Chavela Vargas

Abstaining from sex, hitting the books, and wearing loose-fitting clothes are common ways that girls try to molt their "slutty" image. But more often their shame leads them to self-destructive behavior. They become willing to do things that they wouldn't have dreamed of doing before they were scandalized because they now feel they have so little to offer. Some girls do drugs or drink to excess in an attempt to blot away their stigma. Others become depressed and anorexic. And others think so little of themselves that they date boys who insult or beat them. ~ Leora Tanenbaum

You see, people in the depressive position are often stigmatised as 'failures' or 'losers'. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If these people are in the depressive position, it is most probably because they have tried too hard or taken on too much, so hard and so much that they have made themselves 'ill with depression'. In other words, if these people are in the depressive position, it is because their world was simply not good enough for them. They wanted more, they wanted better, and they wanted different, not just for themselves, but for all those around them. So if they are failures or losers, this is only because they set the bar far too high. They could have swept everything under the carpet and pretended, as many people do, that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds. But unlike many people, they had the honesty and the strength to admit that something was amiss, that something was not quite right. So rather than being failures or losers, they are just the opposite: they are ambitious, they are truthful, and they are courageous. And that is precisely why they got 'ill'. To make them believe that they are suffering from some chemical imbalance in the brain and that their recovery depends solely or even mostly on popping pills is to do them a great disfavour: it is to deny them the precious opportunity not only to identify and address important life problems, but also to develop a deeper and more refined appreciation of themselves and of th ~ Neel Burton

This is what one of the founding fathers of sociology, Emile Durkheim, meant when he wrote in 1895 that the establishment of a sense of community is facilitated by a class of actors who carry a stigma and sense of stigmatization and are termed 'deviant.' Unity is provided to any collectivity by uniting against those who are seen as a common threat to the social order and morality of a group. Consequently, the stigma and the stigmatization of some persons demarcates a boundary that reinforces the conduct of conformists. Therefore, a collective sense of morality is achieved by the creation of stigma and stigmatization and deviance. ~ Gerhard Falk

HIV AIDS is a disease with stigma. And we have learned with experience, not just with HIV AIDS but with other diseases, countries for many reasons are sometimes hesitant to admit they have a problem. ~ Margaret Chan

This disease comes with a package: shame. When any other part of your body gets sick, you get sympathy. ~ Ruby Wax

No one would ever tell a cancer patient to 'just get over it.' Why people think they can tell those with a mental illness as much is baffling. ~ Sara Ella

Too often the mentally ill are marginalized as people who just can't pull up their socks. If only it were that simple. ~ Suzanne F. Kingsmill

Not only is it not remarkable to be a single woman, there's no stigma attached. You see more and more women choosing to be single as well as happenstance. ~ Pepper Schwartz

There is a moral imperative to seeing mental health through the same lens we use for other pathologies or illnesses. Being sad or overwhelmed is normal, much as being short of breath after a run is normal. Both become abnormal when they happen with no apparent cause and are hard to stop. Those situations need medical attention. ~ Matthew Goldfinger

No one wants to admit that they suffer from a mental illness, because of the stigma," I said. "Both of us suffer from major depression. He knows that I've been through a lot of the same things that he's going through now. ~ Patrick J. Kennedy

I would like to take the stigma away. 'Mastectomy' the word seemed so scary to me at first. After doing research and seeing the advancements, the surgery has come a long way from 20 years ago. The results can be incredible. ~ Giuliana Rancic

Generally, the greater the stigma or revulsion, the better the bargain. ~ Seth Klarman

It probably wasn't entirely her fault that she was such a bitter person. Having a name like Grace can be a serious stigma, especially when nature has endowed you with about as much charm as that of a disillusioned walrus. ~ Sorin Suciu

Schizo. It didn't matter how many times Dr. Gill compared it to a disease or physical disability, it wasn't the same thing. It just wasn't. I had schizophrenia. If I saw two guys on the sidewalk, one in a wheelchair and one talking talking to himself, which would I rush to open a door for, and which would I cross the road to avoid? ~ Kelley Armstrong

Being stigmatied by sex is being marked by its meaning in a human life of loneliness and imperfection, where some pain is indelible. ~ Andrea Dworkin

Samson caused the house to collapse, knowing his death would also result. Despite Samson's deliberate suicide, Samson died faithful after having judged Israel for 20 years. His name rightly appears among men who, through faith, were made powerful. (Jg 15:20; 16:29-31; Heb 11:32-34)
We are surrounded by thousands of unseen cruelties, that mostly go unseen. The total amount of suffering each year is beyond comprehension. This world is barbed, dangerous and painful - too painful for some. Give them their space.
On any given day, your nod of approval may perpetuate cruelties that rasp away at the soul of another. We are all bound together in this delicate web of consequence. Tread light. Be kind. Many among us make unseen bargains to push ourselves onward - another hour, another day, another week. Occasionally their bargains create a deadly, unstoppable momentum.
Consider King Saul: When he realized that he would not survive his final battle against the Philistines, rather than letting his enemy humiliate him, or extort Israel, "Saul took the sword and fell upon it." –1Sam 31:4
pg 75 ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

Take it from me, that kind of torment causes you to retreat to a place in your mind where you are so strong that nothing and no one can bother you. Or so you think! What you don't realize is that each time an incident occurs, you retreat inside of yourself a little bit at a time, until one day you might not recognize who YOU are. ~ Yassin Hall

This cultural Left thinks more about stigma than about money, more about deep and hidden psychosexual motivations than about shallow and evident greed. ~ Richard M. Rorty

The unique stigma of PTSD. The stigma of PTSD remains one of the most formidable barriers to effective care. ~ Michael A. Cucciare

By developing a contaminated, stigmatized identity, the child victim takes the evil of the abuser into herself and thereby preserves her primary attachments to her parents. Because the inner sense of badness preserves a relationship, it is not readily given up even after the abuse has stopped; rather, it becomes a stable part of the child's personality structure. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

There's such a stigma around girls' periods, and women's sexuality - girls can't speak out for themselves or be who they want to be. I think that coming from the social platform that I have, I try to be a positive influence, and this was something that I felt needed to be seen and heard. ~ Chloe Grace Moretz

It's always amusing to see how much less the political class knows than the rest of us do ... it's never occurred to [the likes of Senators Brownback and Obama] that they bear a worse stigma than any AIDS patient, being almost universally regarded as blowhards, crooks, dopes, and fools. ~ Stephen D. Cox

It's vitally important that mental health care services are considered a basic human right."
-Shenita Etwaroo ~ Shenita Etwaroo

There are a lot of myths around Mental Health sufferers. People are very biased towards them. This should change. People should try to understand and not outcry them. The stigma should be erased. ~ Maria Karvouni

I know that language will be a crucial instrument, that I can overcome the stigma of my marginality, the weight of presumption against me, only if the reassuringly right sounds come out of my mouth. ~ Eva Hoffman

In my view, the spurning of DID is highly connected with knowing and not knowing about child sexual abuse. Side by side with denial of childhood trauma and of severe dissociation, is an unmistakable cognizance of dissociative processes as they are embedded in our language. We regularly say things such as, "pull yourself together", "he is coming unglued", "she was beside herself", "don't fall apart", "he's not all there", "she was shattered", and so on. ~ Elizabeth Howell

At the root of this dilemma is the way we view mental health in this country. Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg or your brain, it's still an illness, and there should be no distraction.

– Michelle Obama ~ Michelle Obama

Even with all that - excellent treatment, wonderful family and friends, supportive work environment - I did not make my illness public until relatively late in life, and that's because the stigma against mental illness is so powerful that I didn't feel safe with people knowing. If you hear nothing else today, please hear this: There are not 'schizophrenics'. There are people with schizophrenia, and these people may be your spouse, they may be your child, they may be your neighbor, they may be your friend, they may be your coworker. ~ Elyn Saks

So often we give God a partial obedience. We do not dare to disobey, but we do not care to obey fully. So we compromise. We do some of what we should, thus removing the stigma of disobedience. But we refrain from the most difficult or objectionable or uncomfortable part, and thus try to get the best of both worlds. ~ Ebenezer Erskine

It used to be such a stigma, making that transition to various entertainment medias. There are a couple of actresses who have cut it quite well, and I consider myself one. ~ Joanna Cassidy

We must have increasing participation within the scientific community and reasonable scientific discussion, putting aside the stigma that UFOs are voodoo science before any real advances can be made in understanding the real nature of the UFO phenomenon. ~ Larry Holcombe

In reviewing his own moral career, the stigmatized individual may single out and retrospectively elaborate experiences which serve for him to account for his coming to the beliefs and practices that he now has regarding his own kind and normals. ~ Erving Goffman

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll. ~ Joshua Oppenheimer

The issue becomes not whether a person has experience with a stigma of his own, because he has, but rather how many varieties he has had his own experience with. ~ Erving Goffman

The stigma of mental illness is still alive and well. ~ Kate Clifford Larson

the media, at least in the U.S., tends to focus on pain pill use, abuse, and addiction by people who do not have chronic pain.
Even if these stories offhandedly mention that these pills are used to treat pain in people whose physical pain does not go away, however, the stories of those who use pain medicine responsibly -- or, worse, accused of drug-seeking behavior because they need certain types of pills for chronic pain -- are usually overshadowed by the "How can we prevent pain pill addiction?" concern, instead of asking, "How can we treat chronic pain more effectively? ~ Anna Hamilton