looking for helpers | ADHD Information

hi, my name is amy. i have suffered with depression, well forever i think! i started taking st john's wort 2 years ago this february. i stopped taking it a few months ago due to being put on antibiotics and i was really worried, but found it made no difference! i often hear that it doesnt work after the first 6 months-year, so maybe that's what happened with me? i was reluctant to go to my GP due to fear of the stigma that surrounds the illness and this is something that i've found has affected my life a lot. i dont know if anyone else has found this to be a problem? anyway, for my degree i decided to write my dissertation about this. i found that a lot of people have conducted studies into public opinion of depression and depressed people, and have found massive (and shocking) degrees of stigma. what i noticed however, is that there were very few studies conducted with actual depression sufferers. no-one has actually spoken to us and asked us how stigma makes us feel. so that is what i'm doing for my dissertation. i'm hoping that some people on here will be happy to complete my open-ended questionnaire on the subject, so that i may compile a report based on the responses. i'm doing it over the internet because i want it to be totally confidential, so you don't know who i am and i don't know who you are. Anyway, i really hope some people will be kind enough to help me out. i need as many people as i can get. i'd prefer if you emailed me at ayms1308@aol.com but if u dont feel comfortable then it's fine to post on here. i've tried to make it as clear as possible what it is u have to do (basically just waffle!), but some people have struggled, so if you're finding it hard, just let me know and i'll explain a bit better. the main thing really is to just put whatever u feel like, there's no right or wrong. try and put as much as u can think of. ok here goes:

1) what do u think public perceptions are of depressed people?

2) how does this make u feel?

3) discuss any ways that u have felt stigma

examples of things to discuss:
- times people have been prejudiced towards u cos of depression
- times you've felt ashamed to be depressed
- times you've had feelings of embarrassment about telling people u r depressed
- times you've avoided telling people cos of fear of stigma?

4) how has the above affected your life?

5) how does this make u feel? e.g. about yourself or about society

by the way, the title of the dissertation is "perceptions of depression-related stigma, as experienced by sufferers"
any questions, feel free to ask,
thank you,
Amyyou're right when you say that ignorance and hatred have been around forever and that it's directed at anyone who's different than the societal norms. however i don't think that it's something that we should just lie back and accept as the way life is. i think it's a good thing that people are shocked by this type of attitude. if people just accepted it and didn't find it shocking or disgraceful then that would be disasterous for society. hatred and discrimination would be allowed to roam free, unchallenged. i think it's necessary for people to remain shocked, even if it doesn't change anything in a noticable way overnight. if people wern't shocked by discriminatory behaviour then women wouldn't have the vote and there'd be "coloured" and "white" bathrooms! i think people being shocked by something is the first step to gradual change and is very important.

It is human nature to find differences in people. It is our way of classifying ourselves and acknowledging our differences. Any difference can and most often will be exploited by others trying to get ahead.

I live by the don't ask don't tell mentality. I have a severe form of ADHD but I never offer that information to others. I have also suffered from depression in the past again the only person that knew this was myself and my doctor.

People will of course still make snap judgements of me. They will assume certain things because I am young or because I'm a woman that are not based on fact but on their particular idea of what that role should be. There is hatred and ignorance for all people whether they are poor or rich, fat or thin, white or black, gay or straight.

My question is with all the intolorance out there why would you even let others know about your depression, ADHD or any other medical problem? And if you have told others why were you surprised by there response? Ignorance and hatred have been around long before any of us were born. So why does it shock us when we experience something that we have literally known about all of our lives?