Nurtured Words

 repressive fear of not being good enough

Hello my lovelies,

I thought it would be good to do a little post on self-stigma with a few words by my most wonderful partner, Luke, who has experienced this since he first tried to tell someone about his experiences as a teenager whilst also sharing a few words on my experience.

How do you define self stigma?
Luke: For me self stigma is that repressive fear of not being good enough. It’s that insidious needling thought of why can I just be normal, why am I like this.

What happened when you first started experiencing this?
L: I withdrew heavily, I couldn’t bear the thought of being a failure according to my own mind. I withdrew from friends and family, kept all emotional contact low. I was a teenager struggling to comprehend a changing mind and the pressure of having to be strong left me feeling there were few other paths to doing that.

What impact does it have now?
L: I have come a long way since then. But even now the self doubt can eat at me. I still struggle to always communicate my thoughts and feelings. But I try, endlessly, I try. I know just because it isn’t easy doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. My fiancée is a great help in that respect, she is always there to listen and support me.

Can you sum up what kind of things help relieve the stigma? Such as what brings you out of your spiral?
The thing that it wants me to do the least is its greatest tonic. Talking to those who matter and care are the perfect remedies against what these feelings bring; to know there are those who care and love no matter what.

My personal view is that self-stigma is a prejudicial sense of ourselves in relation to our mental wellbeing. The notion we have to be strong, that because we aren’t “normal” then we must be abnormal. I feel like, for me, I was always a bit “too much”, too emotional, too high strung, too…deficient. It turned out not to be the case, I do love myself but there are errant, intrusive thoughts that come up telling me my illness makes me a burden and difficult to deal with. The impact compounds all this. When my personality was labelled, I subconsciously worried about it until it became a conscious thing, an element of truth that I was, and can be, lesser. It can destroy good condition mental health, leading to a worsening of the condition(s) itself. This can lead to so many things, and it is not for me to assume. But for me, I am still unlearning all my self-stigma, and what helps is saying hello and embracing these wrong views, knowing I am more than these notions.

Journal prompt: what kind of self-stigma do I hold against myself?

Kindly, Leanne x