ON STIGMA

I remember something that happened to me back when the smoking bans were new and not strictly enforced. A friend and I were sitting inside a bus shelter on a bitterly cold winter day. We were smoking, since it was so cold we couldn’t hold our cigarettes in our hands because they would go numb. An elderly woman approached us and told us we were not allowed to smoke there. I pointed out a man in business suit who was smoking a few feet away. The woman replied. “The law doesn’t apply to him, just to you.”

This underscores the daily insults and humiliation that the poor have to suffer every day. I don’t know how many times I have had a complete stranger who wasn’t a guard or a police officer point out to me that I’m loitering or that I am smoking too close to the door. Sometimes bus drivers would ask me for identification when I showed them my bus pass. This may seem like whining, but what I want to write about is the cumulative effect these behaviours have on mental health consumers.

People sometimes may make an insensitive comment about a homeless person as they pass by, and think nothing of it, but if dozens of passer-bys make these comments every day, then it seems very cruel. For an individual suffering from paranoia or feelings of persecution this behaviour serves to confirm in their minds that their worst fears are true.

It is highly unlikely we can ever change this sort of behaviour, so we must find ways to change ours. We cannot take things too personally. They are complete strangers. They don’t know you. All they see is a stereotype. Over-reacting to this kind of treatment will only make matters worse. Caregivers have to know that stigma is real, and not a figment of our imaginations, and that it isn’t childish to be hurt or upset by it. It is a very real fact of our lives.