My most proactive campaign to change social stigma ended up with lawyers and doctors telling me how to run my construction crews. I was even fool enough to listen in good faith. Who is to say a female lawyer is more qualified to understand the needs of a construction job site than a female engineer?

I'll let the stigma be, thank you. I work on the understandings eye to eye. 'Taint my job to educate strangers I don't much care to know personally.

Many people are suffering unnecessarily at the hand of others' stereotypical attitudes. I think it's a highly unfair and unjust stigma, which needs to be changed.

What is your campaign strategy? What are you campaigning to change ^it^ to?

I am welcome to any suggestions.

Mine are: educating others through many communication channels (online, in-person, tv, billboards), creating mental health awareness and anti-stigma campaigns (like the one which was held here this year, raising 10 million dollars towards mental health initiatives, groups, etc.

I guess my question would also be what are you personally actually going to do?

For me, I'm "resting" from campaigning - I used to do alot for Amnesty and the sort of thing we were trying to do made the bipolar stigma thing look like very small beer.

I remember a long time ago I was recruiting and one question on the form was "name something from your childhood you vividly remember" to which one candidate wrote "watching my father being shot by government forces"

anyhoo, apart from some kind of tacit support for organisations like MIND personally I try and show people I'm an ok person and then tell a limited number I'm bipolar once they know me. I'm supporting a work colleague over her current mental health issues.

Probably more I think about all the other stigmas in the world and become aware of my own prejudices regarding ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation and remember that there are many places in the world where diversion from the norm is life threatening.

It's very complicated....finding the right way to get people to listen. I think it involves more prominent people speaking up about lifelong histories and how mental illness has affected their lives. I do my part every day I can to fight stigma and yes, it's important!

I also think it's important to be an advocate for seeking help when one needs it....show others there's nothing wrong with asking for help. I approach it by trying to be encouraging in the "fight", if that makes sense.

Well, I have heard about a famous professor named Professor Nash, who had a lifelong battle with schizophrenia (and was portrayed in the movie "A Beautiful Mind."). It is an amazing and inspiring story, that even people with mental health conditions, can make distinct contributions in society. In his case, he was able to make important advancements in the mathematics realm, and was an inspiration to many. I read that he did not undergo any standard drug regime (may or may not be true; it was on the Internet), yet he still led a productive life.

Count me in...just let me know what to do.

" It is an amazing and inspiring story, that even people with mental health conditions, can make distinct contributions in society"

um, "even people with mental mental health conditions can make a distinct contributions in society"

tell me how that's not stigma right there?

Most people experience mental health problems in their lives. You've got at least 1 in 4 who have a problem every year quoted in stats. That excludes problems not reported to doctors. Even if you don't have some kind of inherent mental illness you get stress induced problems and nearly everyone goes out to lunch when they lose their partner (and lets face it there's a good proportion of the population there).

Sorry to be awkward here but I think we need to shift from believing we are some kind of persecuted minority (which we clearly aren't), we are actually the majority of humankind.

Russel Crowe is wa-a-a-ay cuter than the original Professor Nash. I loved that movie. I was more stunned that they did a movie about a math nerd than the schizophrenia. Math nerds get more stigma than just about any group I know.

There are quite allot of high-achievers in my therapy support network. 100% of them keep it personal and don't worry about the misconceptions of others. I follow their example.

Seems appropriate to post a link here to a page of famous people who have struggled with mental health problems. We are not alone. We are capable of greatness. I believe in us.

http://www.biography.com/people/groups/mental-illness

those famous people include a large proportion of mass murderers????

charles whitman
ed gein
andrew cunanan
jeffrey darmher
adam lanza
edmund kemper

is this some kind of joke? something like a quarter of these people with mental illness are complete monsters

is it a website designed to instil fear and increase the stigma?

Apologies, acuriousfish. I should have screened more carefully. My bad.

I have a mom that is bipolar and I was living with and realized that it was a toxic situation. I have a child and it was best for the both of us to pick up and leave the situation.

I love my mom, but I can no longer accept her mood changes and her unconscious physical actions that came with living with her. When. I decided to leave she approached Jewish men and told them my daughter left me and I am sick and their response was " how could she leave you, I would never do that, if my mom needed my eyes I would give them to her." Unfortunately they are not aware of both sides of the situation. And today she said that to me, and i did not comment.

Anytime i comment to her when she is emotionally unstable or stable it ends up a lose lose situation for me.
Because I am the one who needs help not her at least that is what she thinks.

I know deep in my gut that I made the best decision for me and my child. I dont want to lose my mom out of my life.

My question to you all is how do we better understand individuals with Bipolar illness?
What is it that you ask from us for example your family to do to be able to have a more functioning and happier relationship with you? What could we could be doing to better help you live the fullest? Are there things we are doing know or have done in the past to you that have hurt you emotionally?
. I want to know this to be able to have what ever is left of a relationship with my mom.

I say this because I am at the point where I don't really want anything to do with my mom and it hurts for me to have to say this.

@ Arfie, can you please update your post and remove that link please? I can't do that for you

@amalk, what you are talking about has nothing to do with bipolar, being a controlling mother is something else and it seems the issues you have with her aren't really to do with bipolar but they are common in family relationships - you might want to look at the Healthy Relationships board.

@Fish I was just trying to prove my point, that the negative stigma out there, in which mentally ill persons in society are deemed as "crazy," "useless," "non-productive," and unintelligent, does not hold true. Professor Nash is an example. There is also another professor named Professor Elyn Saks who is a professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law at Yale University. She herself suffers from mental health conditions, yet was able to rise above her life challenges.