Mental Health Stereotypes

“I just want to kill myself!” said the annoyed college student. “Why are you so moody today, are you bipolar?” said the over-dramatic friend. “You need to smile more often or you won’t make any friends,” said the oblivious mother. Walking around a college campus one hears remarks that have become a normality to say, but are offensive to other people. When people joke about killing themselves or throw around terms such as bipolar or depressed they do not realize they are supporting the mental health stigma society has created. The statistics speak for themselves, and show that more people suffer from mental health illnesses than one would think. For example on a college campus, one out of four students is suffering from a mental illness (Kerr, …show more content…
Stereotypes are considered “social” because they represent collectively agreed on notions about groups of persons. They are “efficient” because people can quickly generate impressions and expectations of individuals who belong to a stereotyped group. Commonly held stereotypes about people with mental illness include violence (people with mental illness are dangerous), incompetence (they are incapable of independent living or real work), and blame (because of weak character, they are responsible for the onset and continuation of their disorders) (Corrigan, …show more content…
There are numerous programs and projects that have been created to help stop the stigma against mental illness by spreading treatment and coping mechanisms to educating others. One program, the Butterfly Project, was created to help support those who self-harm. It encourages a person to draw a butterfly in pen where they would self-harm and name the butterfly after someone who wants them to recover or someone who loves them. People can support those who self-harm by drawing butterflies on themselves too, showing they don’t support the