Ep. 143 | Breaking the Stigma: Why Mental Health Medication Isn’t Weakness

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Welcome to Everyday Therapy, where simple and practical concepts of therapy meet your everyday life. Hosted by a licensed marriage and family therapist Brett Cushing and Krista Overton, we're here to help you unlock tools and strategies you need to become the best version of yourself. Whether you're looking for guidance, inspiration, anecdotes, or actionable advice, you're in the right place.

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Let's dive into everyday therapy. Hello and welcome to another edition of Everyday Therapy. My name is Brett Cushing and I am flying solo today talking about stigma, especially stigma related to seeking mental health care and treatment. If you ever had a stigma, a negative belief, an unfair belief about something or someone. I recently went to Arizona. The great time.

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But I had a stigma about Arizona and my stigma was it's all a kind of orange, you know, there's no green there. There's not a lot of life because it's so hot and desert like, and I'm so glad I went. I had a stigma that it was going to be kind of boring, but I had such a great time.

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There were so many wonderful places to go hiking. The people were wonderful, the food was fantastic. As I was out hiking, I noticed all sorts of vegetation and beautiful plant life that I never knew about. I never would have enjoyed had I not gotten over my stigma about Arizona. And I'm sorry, all Arizona residents and lovers. But here in Minnesota, people have stigmas too, about weather.

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And they think I would never want to live there. And some people have and actually enjoy the snow and dare I say, even enjoyed the cold. But notice what happens with stigmas. We have stigmas and it can't prevent us from actually enjoying and benefiting from things. And today I'm talking about how the stigma towards mental health and seeking mental health treatment really impacts us in such a negative fashion because there is so much joy, there's so much freedom and healing that can happen when people seek mental health therapy and treatment.

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And the good news is that more and more people are realizing this, there is actually a decline there. And the stigma about seeking mental health treatment. There exists there are celebrities that have come out and talked about mental health and their own mental health struggles. There are countless I can think of. Lady Gaga has come out. Simone Biles was a big story, and she was the Olympian that talked about her mental health very openly.

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There was Chicago Bears football player Red and martial, and he talked about his borderline personality, along with a cast member from Saturday Night Live. And Pete Davidson also has borderline personality disorder. And it really helps when people talk about these things because it normalizes this. And I'm so grateful for celebrities who have done that. We also see it in movies.

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I have seen that I really enjoy the movie Iron Man. I can remember what you want. It was where the character Iron Man, because of trauma he had experienced in his life, I think it was Iron Man three. He was going through panic attacks and I thought he portrayed it very well. And again, it normalizes that even Iron Man can have mental health issues.

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But also we are hearing more and more of that in people's own success stories. We've had people on this podcast who have talked about how their trauma, their significant trauma from domestic abuse and sexual abuse and emotional abuse and physical abuse, how they actually found healing and hope for a whole new life through seeking mental health care and treatment.

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And so there it's really interesting. In fact, back in 2000, four, 59 million people saw treatment for mental health issues, 59 people back in 2004. And get this, 80% of them said that their treatment for mental health was defective. That was back in 2004. The field continually grows and gets better, just like many other fields. So notice the the really unfortunate tragedy of this is that people need mental health services and they are benefiting clearly from it, but it's just the stigma that can get in the way.

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So I want to identify some of these determinants, if you will, of the stigma. First of all there's public stigma. Think about this in the way mental health is described sometimes in the public arena, specifically in terms of media. Nearly nearly 39% of articles about mental health emphasize dangerousness, contributing to societal fears and rejection. That's a lot. That is, almost half of the articles have this negative, pejorative aspect of mental health, and specifically that it's dangerous.

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People who have mental health diagnoses, they're dangerous to be avoided. And it evokes fear within people. And that is not the case. It's highly misrepresented. But there's also structural stigma as well. Structural stigma. What in the world am I talking about? Well, there are systemic barriers, such as lower funding for mental health services compared to other health care areas.

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Reflect what the societal under valuation of mental health care. And additionally, there are policies that actually criminalize behaviors associated with mental illness and that further can marginalized people who are affected. I've seen many people who are not dangerous at all. They're delightful people who have a mental health diagnosis. People fear them or others have seen their behavior as criminal, when in fact it was a response rooted in trauma, for instance, that has affected them so much that they exhibited the behavior.

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And now I'm not saying all behaviors are to be excused. All I'm saying is that they can be understood and we can treat people better than penalizing them solely and neglecting their emotional, relational mental health needs. So there's media stigma. There's social stigma that also we I think we see this with men and particularly this is my experience.

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I've not seen studies on it, but I think any casual observer in the field would notice that women tend to seek therapy more than men, and men are socialized and conditioned to be independent, to have this belief that they really need anybody else. I'm good, I am okay, I need to be tough. I need to be in control.

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They don't need to be fearful. And in reality, I think what has happened is men have become fearful that they have learned and concluded they don't even have it all together. But there's nowhere for me to go. I can't admit this, because then if I admit that I have a mental health issue, I am no longer a real man.

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And notice what drives that is fear. Fear is driving that avoidance, and it's fueling that stigma for men. There is no closely related to this family. Family stigma really gets in the way for many of us. You know, we can even people listening now, you can hear maybe that voice of a parent or some other family member saying, you don't need therapy and why would you go and do something like that?

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Well, family and friends, they do play a significant role in influencing decisions about seeking mental health treatment. So studies show that individuals who know someone, especially a family member who has sought treatment for mental health issues, they're more likely to seek treatment themselves. This is because familiarity with mental health challenges within one's social circle can improve mental health literacy and normalize treatment seeking behaviors, so it can be very beneficial to overcome stigma.

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But on the other hand, stigma within family dynamics, such as a denial that there are such things as mental health issues or negative attitudes towards treatment that can definitely discourage people from pursuing help. There's also stigma around medication. This is perhaps an elephant in the room that we need to talk about, and many people have, I think some larger, timid concerns about medication.

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Sure, there can be concerns about Big Pharma and that there is big pharmaceutical companies maybe that are just out to make money. Sure, I think we need to be aware of that. We can't stick our hand in the ceiling and ignore that. Yeah, there's money to be made here and there are concerns about over medication. And we've heard them and we're not saying there aren't some legitimate concerns.

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There are legitimate concerns for pretty much any field anywhere. What we need to be cautious about is not move to an all or nothing mentality about medications. There is to conclude that medications are bad all of the time, and we need to think of medication. Also. It's not the only solution. And typically we're not recommending that the patient can actually augment their it be kind of like crutches help us when we have a broken leg.

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We're using crutches to get around. It helps us as we heal and helps us. I always like to tell my clients medication really helps us when we're stuck there. It's kind of like in this Minnesota climate. In winter, sometimes we get a big snowfall, people get stuck in the snow and they can't go anywhere. There's just no traction with the tires.

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And as much as you push and work on it, you just can't get anywhere. And it's really frustrating. There are as you're pushing, you know, notice sometimes all of a sudden maybe you shovel out a little bit under the tires and then you push again and there's traction and you're starting to move again. And now you get hope.

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And that's because there's movement. That's I think how medication can work oftentimes is when we are stuck in peak emotions, for instance, and our mental health diagnoses, medication helps bring traction and enables movement to happen. So then we get home again. But notice the stigma actually prevents. Oh, and can prevent healing therapy. That brings us to the last stigma.

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And this is, I think, the big one and the most ultimate one. And that is our own stigma within ourselves. We have our own idea about mental health, and we have our own ideas about ourselves. Possibly having a mental health diagnosis, such as depression or anxiety or an obsessive compulsive disorder or trauma. And notice what that means to you.

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What does it mean to me if I have this diagnosis? What does it mean to me if I have depression? If I have a personality disorder, what am I telling myself? This means if I actually have bipolar and many people will view that and view themselves in such a negative fashion, and what I find is that people will ultimately define themselves categorically, comprehensively, in terms of their mental health diagnosis.

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I hear people say, I have anxiety, I'm an anxious person, and I would say someone might have a diagnosis of anxiety, but that doesn't mean they are. They're just nervous. That's therapy all or nothing. Absolute claim and definition of oneself. Sure, I like to even tell my clients sometimes. Yeah, you, your body is experiencing anxiety and does not know there is no threat.

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And it makes sense that your body is thinking that way and responding that way. And so you can tell your body how to relax, but it doesn't mean I am anxious. Another way to think about it is, yeah, my body is anxious. Yeah. Just like I've got a dog. And if my dog is anxious, what do I do?

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I give it nurture, I give it comfort, I give it reassurance and tragically notice we don't do that. So here it comes to our own mental health diagnoses. We define ourselves so many times exclusively based on that diagnosis and we there absorb all sorts of shame, and we tell ourselves all sorts of shaming things about ourselves rather than nurturing ourselves.

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Rather than telling ourselves, that's okay. It makes sense. You're going to be okay, and you've got all these other really great things going in there. And so shame is a huge part of our own stigma towards mental health. And so we need to be aware, a lot of us come into therapy with shameful thoughts about ourselves, that we're deficient, that there's something wrong with me that's not wrong with anybody else, or that I'm uniquely flawed or I'm not enough.

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And so with that shame comes fear, this fear of rejection. And so what do we do? We hide, right? We hide by suppressing how we feel. We hide behind all of our performance in different areas of our lives, and our performance at work, and our performance and other roles as a parent at or wherever we are. And that suppression and that performance helps us live how in denial and minimizing what's really going on here.

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I once heard in one of my grad school courses that the difference between a dysfunctional person or a dysfunctional family and a healthy one is how they view therapy the dysfunctional person, the dysfunctional family or company, whatever. It's rooted in how they see truth, especially when it's hard and difficult and challenging and they see truth then as the enemy.

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And so therefore needs to be a avoided. And there's a lot of emphasis on performance and appearance management. Whereas the healthy person, the healthy family, or even the healthy company looks at truth when it's hard and difficult and challenging, it still sees truth as a friend. And then they embrace truth and not focus on appearance management. Everything's okay here, but rather problem solving, and that's where freedom occurs.

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So that takes us to the last part here. The demise, if you will, of the stigma. They're not seeking mental health treatment. First I would help people remember get off the performance treadmill. It's just going to exhaust this idea that I've got this. I'm okay. You can just admit that you don't. I don't have it together. Some of the healthiest therapists and the ones I respect the most, are the ones who are very readily able to say, yeah, I don't have it all together.

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I gotta keep working on myself super healthy. And when we can get off that performance treadmill where we're working on appearance management, suggesting to the world, we got it all together. Oh, boy. Well, we do that. We're getting exhausted. We can get off of that and find real freedom. But also in this own stigma we have, we can be aware of our own sense of self sabotage when it comes to seeking mental health services.

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Do you know why a lot of people don't like to come for mental health services? Because they actually are in such despair they're lacking a whole therapy. Stay with me. This actually makes sense. Their thought is I'm not going to go to therapy. And they'll say things like, therapy doesn't work there. And Billy, what's behind that is I go to therapy and it doesn't work.

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There it be. There is nothing. And so they never tried it. And so notice the fear again. That's behind that. But yet many people find therapy even back in 2004, so many of the people studied 80% of 59 people with sort of treatment, 80% found it effective. And I would suggest for those who had not found it effective, they hadn't found it effective therapy.

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There is something to consider. Third, prioritize yourself. Prioritize your own mental health. I worked with a client for many years. She was so inspiring to me and she said, from now on, moving forward, my mental health is going to be my number one priority. And I asked why? And she said, because everything else falls into place when I keep that my number one priority.

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And still it was hard. It was hard for her because life is busy, life is stressful. There's lots of demands, and we have to keep coming back to prioritizing ourselves and our mental health. That does not mean we're being selfish. That just means we're practicing good self care and how tragic it is when we start to practice self-care that we define ourselves as being selfish.

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No, we're just prioritizing our own care. And lastly, I would say embrace vulnerability there. Many of us go through life society many times is really characterized by us hiding from one another and hiding from ourselves. I would encourage you go back to I think it might even be a first episode ever on this podcast dealing with the benefits of vulnerability.

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There. We're vulnerable and really able to be our authentic selves. Sometimes that's when we can truly be known by somebody. The pleasure I have and the privilege I have as being a therapist is that when people come to my office, they actually share more with me than they have with anybody else, even themselves, that they've never realized. And it becomes kind of a sacred place, if you will, because that's the place where they can truly be vulnerable and truly be known there.

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That is one of the first steps towards finding freedom, healing, hope there. And I do want to ask yourself now ask yourself, what is the threat of seeking mental health treatment? For myself, that's a great question. What is the threat to you for seeking mental health treatment? Or conversely, the other side of that coin? What's the benefit of not seeking federal health treatment?

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We're avoiding it for a reason, and because there's a threat or there's a benefit in therapy not changing. Another question I ask you, do I see myself as worth it, worth the investment of the time and the money? And if I don't, why not? What gets in the way? How I view myself there? I mean, another question. What's the worst thing that can happen if I do seek mental health treatment?

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And what's the best thing that can happen is a really good, I think, penetrating questions. And notice how existing stigma can turn into a success story as we seek mental health treatment, and we will be able to find the life that we never dreamed even possible and have joy is. And it doesn't mean that everything is wonderful there.

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Things that things can be awful, things can be painful and can still enjoy life. I can still enjoy myself. So I enjoyed this episode with you and hopefully it's been helpful. Look forward to talking to you next time on Everyday Therapy. Thank you for listening to this episode of Everyday Therapy. We hope you're inspired to apply today's insights to your own life.

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