Ever talk to the senior generation in Victoria, TX? While they have a lot of admirable qualities, they have some more problematic views as well.
For example, their views towards mental health are often based on harmful mental health stigma attitudes. Mental health stigma is when people have harmful or biased viewpoints regarding how mental health affects people.
The stigma around mental health is a problem because it affects self-esteem. It makes it harder to access healthcare, and it makes it more difficult to communicate openly with friends and family.
Are you interested in learning more about this crucial senior wellness topic? Read on to learn more about this important aspect of mental well-being.
There are many reasons why seniors are more susceptible to the stigma around mental health, and many of these reasons are somewhat different from how later generations react.
Regarding aging and stigma, here's why it happens:
Learning how to recognize the sources of mental stigma in the elderly generation is crucial for seniors, their loved ones, and healthcare providers. Without an accurate understanding, it's difficult for these problems to go unnoticed.
If you want to assist seniors who are seeing their mental struggles in a negative light because of mental health stigma, it's important to understand the potential sources of these attitudes.
There are three broad categories of mental health stigma: societal stigma, organizational stigma, and individual stigma. Here's how each of these categories works.
The first, societal stigma, is when people have outdated, biased, or hurtful impressions about mental illness and those who suffer from it. When mental illness comes up as a topic, societal stigma spreads through the negative reactions.
High levels of societal stigma mean that those who are thinking about mental illness are more likely to come to a negative conclusion because of the things that they hear from friends, family, and associates.
While attitudes are still problematic, they're certainly changing; there are many positive signs of societal change. Decisions about local policy and funding are being affected by peer advocacy networks, which are often run by older adults who are often in senior living. Institutions eventually start to pay attention when people with lived experience are the ones driving change.
Be part of the movement for mental health awareness in Victoria, TX, if you want to make a difference. You can help educate people about behavioral health and aging.
When societal stigma finds itself building up in the minds of people within a specific organization, causing it to be reflected in the organization's rules or culture, it's known as organizational stigma. This can affect environments such as hospitals, schools, and workplaces.
An example of how organizational stigma could affect seniors is when those suffering from memory conditions, such as Alzheimer's or dementia, talk to their doctor. The doctor might discount any mental illness symptoms as being part of dementia or Alzheimer's, and only suggest memory care support.
According to a study by Yaroslav Winter et al. in the Journal of Neurosciences in Rural Practice, many physicians sadly discount the fact that mental illness can co-occur with Alzheimer's and dementia. Making this key distinction is crucial to ensuring that local seniors here get the support they need.
Loved ones and caregivers of seniors can help by attending their doctor's visits with them and pushing for a second opinion, or even changing clinics if the organization appears to have a stigmatized attitude.
According to a study by Corrigan and Watson, when mental health stigma has a profound effect on someone, it can seriously impact their self-image. For example, if people say that mental illness isn't real, you might doubt it at first. But the more you hear it from friends, family, and associates, the more likely it is that you'll internalize the attitude and consider it the truth.
Individual stigma is probably one of the hardest kinds of stigma to address, because once it gets to this point, there's a lot of cumulative negativity and bias. Educating people can help, but it's challenging, particularly for seniors who've had this internalized attitude for decades. Learning adaptive coping can help, though.
The best way to approach it is by demonstrating success stories from other seniors. When they see evidence from their peers that mental illness is beatable, and that you're not going to wind up in an institution for asking your doctor about depression, people feel much more secure.
With that said, it's not always an easy process, and it takes more than one conversation to change a lifelong attitude. So don't lose hope if your loved one doesn't immediately open up or change their beliefs; it can take time.
In Morada Victoria, mental health stigma still stands between many seniors and the help they need. Beating the stigma around mental health won't happen by itself; it's up to medical professionals, elder communities, and families to treat mental health as a normal part of conversation.
At Morada Victoria, we don't let any older adults face their mental health struggles alone; we make senior emotional wellness part of daily living.
Want to see how our independent living options support a vibrant life and how we help our residents overcome the stigma of mental health conditions? Get in touch with us to arrange a tour. We have exclusive senior lifestyle programs available for stress-free living.