When there is guilt from a stigmatized medical condition, there is guilt and fear. However, what can be done to eradicate this fear? It is simple. Forget the condition completely. In the space of psychiatry, people forget that they have control over their own perception of their mental illness. It is impossible to lose this perception even when diagnosed. Most believe a diagnosis means freedom and the ability to understand. Yet, understanding become majorly impacted and complicated after the diagnosis. Billions feel the effect of a diagnosis and what it means to them, their family and their loved ones. Why are we not doing something about removing the guilt and throwing it in a box to the left?
The guilt of mental illness is real. (Reupert 2021) Most understand little of how it feels because no one discusses the ramifications for the individual or their loved ones. It is painfully clear that relevant diagnoses impact a person’s daily motivation, interest, emotion, their ability to interact with others, their enjoyment, what this means for chores and routines, etc. In the space of psychiatry, experts cannot pin down what stigma actually looks like interestingly because there is little study of the ramifications of stigma of a mental illness. This needs to be looked at much more closely.
With any mental illness or even condition in the medical field, I would venture to say forgetting can be the best medicine. The amygdala is tied to the memory and fear that most feel. If the amygdala is shrunken, then perhaps we forget fear of stigma and how that feels to anyone going through the suffering of a diagnosis? How does it shrink even? Through practice and courage and appreciation. The frontal lobe of the human brain has executive function as one of its principal features. Humor appreciation has been cited as one of the abilities of the frontal lobe as well. (Shammi 1999) Perhaps executive function can direct the brain to shrink its memory and fear-inducing features centralized in the space known as the amygdala because it is so powerful especially with the growth of courage. Courage is also seated in this part of the brain, and together the frontal lobe which ties executive function with courage can lessen the intense difficulty of a situation that would otherwise be completely traumatizing. Frontal lobe courage, along with executive function, makes a person able to forget and lose their fear of a psychotic episode thus understanding themselves and their environment better just like Hippocrates, the father of medicine, described early on in his theses. Forget and live with humor appreciation is perhaps the best lesson from any difficult experience.
References
Reupert, A., Gladstone, B., Hine, R. et al. 2021. Stigma in relation to families living with parental mental illness. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. https://pure.rug.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/160757950/Stigma_in_relation_to_families_living_with_parental_mental_illness_An_integrative_review.pdf
Shammi, P., Stuss, D. T. 1999. Humour appreciation: a role of the right frontal lobe. Brain. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/122/4/657/295854?login=false