Learning to Listen With New Eyes: Challenging Stigma

I was asked to participate in a panel discussion for “City Voices – Black History Month Storytelling Circle.” It highlighted lived experiences and how they affect mental health. I didn’t realize that it would also include panelists with diagnosed mental illness.

I was surprised when I heard their stories in the panelists’ introductions, because we had a Zoom meeting and several emails in the run‑up to the in‑person (and Zoom) panel. I didn’t get the sense, like you think you will, that anyone had mental illness. They were each wonderful, graceful, accomplished people.

I feel small and petty for initially thinking that mental illnesses show up mostly in dramatic ways. It was so humbling to hear about their lives in the storytelling of the event, including mental health and everyday challenges. It became so obvious that everyone’s lives have ups and downs while we learn how to make each day better. Yet, it made me think of the invisible load people are carrying in our quests to live a good life.

Mental illness carries a stigma that causes most people to share only as needed because of the biases the general public, employers, co‑workers, and religious leaders show in regular interactions. It is sometimes prejudice, other times ignorance set up as care and assistance. Maybe more, if it’s set up as assistance, because assistance in a biased environment can try to place the person in a lesser‑than category that is not warranted.

Through City Voices’ events, I learned to check myself on what I thought mental illnesses look like, understanding that it doesn’t look one way, and it is not “bad.” It meant learning to listen to what someone was saying to me and what they are communicating about their lives, not rushing into my own supposed understanding while just making assumptions. I credit City Voices with the foresight and programming that keeps each person’s voice front and center while interacting with and respecting each other and in the community.