When my husband began suffering from mental health issues and then died of suicide I was basically slapped in the face with stigma. As the spouse, so many innuendos and blame…..how I was responsible, how I should have known, how I didn’t do anything to prevent it. And the worst part was the impact on my child…the neighborhood children who laughed at him and made fun of him….the comments such as “your daddy was crazy”….Momma bear mode kicked in, pulled him out of school in that district, enrolled him in new school in a new town, would not let him play outside in the neighborhood, eventually moved to another state.
The stigma I suffered does not need to be the current realty. Breaking stigma doesn’t require big, public actions. It often starts with small shifts. The more people share their experiences in honest, realistic ways, the more normalized those conversations become. It creates space for others to recognize themselves in those experiences. And recognition reduces isolation.
Breaking stigma isn’t about eliminating discomfort completely. It’s about making it easier to have real conversations—even if they feel a little unfamiliar at first.
Because the more those conversations happen, the less stigma has room to exist.