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Tedx: What They Don’t Tell You About Mental Illness
What catches my attention most is when she attributes her IOP/Intensive Outpatient Program experience in a positive way. She banks on the effectiveness of her experience being that they could all come together and talk about a very human experience without judgements. In my interpretation, she is saying that her IOP experience helped because the stigma was left at the door.
Even more so though, greeted with all high functioning individuals, many being young adults like herself, she felt welcomed and relieved to be with those similar to herself. Trust, this won’t happen with just any IOP; only in a young adult setting or program can this happen. It’s so important we young people stick together!
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I’m glad you brought up this important aspect to recovery! Peers who are going through the same thing can really help people with mental illness feel as if they aren’t alone. I think that’s what is great about this website. Young people can stick together and share their stories to relate with others going through the same thing.
Yeah, it made me sad though because I didn’t get that kind of IOP experience. I was with people drastically unlike me, and I felt stigma in the air the second I arrived. When it did help, I only returned to friends and family fully judging me, not understanding, and talking down on me even more- as if they now had a good excuse.
It got to the point where I didn’t belong at the IOP, nor did I belong in my own life. I didn’t belong anywhere. I’m glad this girl didn’t experience it like that.
Something to mindmap?
I’ve been rethinking things from different angles…
Stigma doesn’t have to be all bad. Does it? While the ultimate stereotyping is so harmful in our context here, stigma still functions for many as a reminder to nottt engage in drugs or unsafe behaviors. Imagine that. Whether aware of it or not, there is a mental construct for us social beings to orient ourselves to. When I hear the word ‘cutter’ my mind involuntarily works to understand- or define, identify. Is this ‘cutter’ a good thing or bad thing? Help me or hurt me? Judgements are mean- judgements are natural- I wonder if they can be considered building blocks of understanding. It Many people who would ‘want’ to drink or smoke more, hold themselves back because they don’t want to be the image of what their mind has- so badly- interpreted that word to be. In their mind, they are watching themselves for they don’t want to get ‘that bad.’ I remember catching myself with smoking pot primarily because I did not want to be thaaat baad, like ‘thosee stoners.’
Funny the way it is. Stigma alone has hindered my road to recovery in many ways (bottomline=rejection over sincere help). On the other hand I don’t want to forget the value in being able to say ‘I’m better than thaaat.’