Stopping stigma - how the arts can save lives
The word stigma has roots that literally mean “to stick”. It has come to mean to stick an idea on something or someone- crudely, inaccurately and unfairly. The arts can have a hand in positively changing stigma’s about mental health, in both our personal and professional lives.
The best jobs I’ve had in the last few years involved violence prevention or health promotion projects that aim to break stigmas. They aim to use artistic representations through marketing campaigns and I am now combining that experience with my emerging comedy and writing career. A lot of these have involved ‘own voice’ stories alongside the voices of experts and it’s incredibly powerful, healing and de-stigmatising.
That’s why my part time arts career is so satisfying-and I hope to combine that with over a decade of community service and anthropology. To be create art, or promote projects that both entertain and shift thinking about mental health, disability and stigma. Here’s why.
In the arts breaking stigma/taboo is our business. I’ve experienced more than my fair share of stigma. Particularly about being outspoken about mental health. Frustration about stigma and my love of making people laugh led me to become part of the disability pride/mad pride movement in the arts.
I’ve also walked away from jobs in community services (the “caring” services) where those speaking up are further stigmatised or demonised in the name of caring for others. To me, this is clear proof that no industry (for profit or non-for-profit) is immune from stigmatising and mentally unhealthy workplace cultures.
A good place to start smashing stigma is to question some old world economic ideas about mental health in workplaces that try and split us into two — between money earning beings and our humanity. You spend 8 hours (or 8hours+) a day at work, if it’s mentally unhealthy and hostile — it will be an affect on your mental health.
A common feature of unhealthy workplaces is the ‘can-do’ attitude, where work priorities are placed above well being in the name of productivity. In recent years, in my humble opinion, the ‘can do’ of the 1990’s which promised innovation has been hijacked to mean, in some instances “at all costs”. It’s really just reinvention of 1950’s production lines dressed up as innovation. This needs to be promptly sky-rocketed back to the industrial revolution and the production lines of the 18th century where it really began.
People are not machines and if people think a big wage makes up for poor workplace culture, you can be certain it won’t buy back your mental health. You only have to look at the long list of wealthy public identities that are struggling or have lost their lives to suicide to work that out.
We are not trees, we don’t have to stay stuck. If getting away from a work environment makes you feel better — you’ve done the right thing.
I think as a culture, Australians need to wake up when it comes to ridiculous ideas like “put up with it” or “stick it out”. These ideas are killing us if you look at our suicide rates — it’s still the leading cause of death for Australians between 15 and 44.
Mentally healthy workplaces are more innovative, more creative and more productive .*even the productivity commission recognises this!
I’ve blogged elsewhere about struggles with episodic depression and social anxiety and how my arts pursuits have changed my life for the better. A key mental health preventive for me is staying away from work environments that don’t take staff mental health seriously — or where they treat staff with mental health concerns as damaged goods.
You don’t have to do art either, as an arts consumer you can seek out community theatre and art (online and offline) that can be helpful to your mental health or that of your workplace (particularly if you engage with it as a group). If a podcast, short film, performance or a blog helps you identify you risks and benefits and allows you to change things up then art has done something more than entertain you.
Mental health is like any other health condition and workplaces need to have mentally healthy environments. If the aircon at work is giving people a chest infection — you fix the aircon. You don’t stigmatise the people who need the air con and blame them, you do something about it.
Far from being rocket science, if the working environment is hostile and workflows are breaking people — fix the environment. Head’s up, a national non-for-profit initiative fronted by Beyond Blue provides a range of resources for workplaces to explore doing just that and creating mentally healthier workplaces.
If workplaces don’t have wellbeing days or an employee assistance service I’m not interested. Here are some of the ways workplaces (that I have experienced) workplaces can take care of employee mental health:
- encourage a culture of acceptance — no hush hush stigma
- have an employee assistance program
- while open acceptance of mental health is important don’t force or coerce people to disclose either
- wellbeing days — break the stigma of “sickie days” “or sick of working days” but actually encourage taking care of our mental health as well
- social, friendly, accepting workplace cultures — where humour and light heartedness can appropriately thrive
- spaces for quiet or to eat in peace (in addition to a staff room/kitchen)
- regular wellbeing breaks are actively encouraged (5 mins every hour)
- invest in lunchtime learnings and activities that are fun and stress relievers — try a T-rex Tuesday morning tea where you role play your frustrations as a T-rex! (did you guess this is a favourite of mine?).
Time spent creating a creatively mentally healthy workplace is a worthwhile investment.
Stigma sucks and it can kill-there are links to suicidal ideation to stigma. My choice to focus my efforts into an arts career is because of growing evidence of how arts projects and community theatre and storytelling can shift stigma.
Stigma is reinforced by the culture of a workplace. Things like questioning why a staff member took leave through a stressful period or gossip as to why someone needs to access an employee assistance program can be examples of negative mental health stigma in a workplace. They are far from just words, but indicators of culture.
The big lesson for me — is if people you work with talk about mental health as though people are broken — get the heck from them…or maybe you could challenge them by showing them a representation that helps them understand why it’s negative.
But ultimately, as individuals, sticking at something that makes you miserable is self-punishment; even if you think that “I’m just doing this job so I can <insert the endless list of things or holidays that never quite come or your too stressed to fully enjoy here>”.
If you have experienced poor mental health I want to reassure you that you are not broken. Mental health is like any other health condition, you make sure your environment is conducive to staying well, do your best to work with appropriate medical advice and you can live a life like anyone else.
AND it’s not a sentence to life that is less, it may open up possibilities you didn’t expect. For me, comedy and my other arts pursuits have been a most unexpected and possibly life saving joy.
The idea that mental health concerns make you “less” should be, by 2020, a well broken stereotype, inaccurate, ill-informed, potentially discriminatory and ableist and gone!
Psst…a great open access reference here if you interested in community arts and theatre research:
Keller, S.; McNeill, V.; Honea, J.; Paulson Miller, L. A Look at Culture and Stigma of Suicide: Textual Analysis of Community Theatre Performances. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 352. Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/352#cite
Adapted from an earlier post on www.jaccipillar.com from the 12th December 2019
#stigma #mentalhealth