Triggering: Why do you not tell others about your mental health?

[Rika]

I am marking it as triggering just in case.

So why do you not tell anyone about your mental health? I do not like telling people outside of doctors and possible partners for obvious reasons. I will not tell any partner until I know for sure we'd hit it off and actually be a thing. It's hypothetical, not really happening with me at this time. I also feel like there's still a stigma for having mental health issues, and seeking help for these issues.

At the end of the day, I only disclose these issues with certain close people and my medical care team.

[Proud90sKid]

Because Asperger's (or if I was diagnosed today, it would be called Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)) is still very stigmatized. I feel that is my primary mental condition from which my anxiety stems from. I do tell some people that I have bad anxiety and sometimes take benzos for it, but this feels like a much milder disclosure. If I had depression, I may be more ashamed to admit that , not because people with depression should face stigma, but depression typically involves bad self thoughts (and is therefore more personal) whereas anxiety does not and therefore anxiety is a fairly simple mental condition to admit to as it is mostly just feeling jittery a lot of the time.

Sometimes people say things in conversations that make me feel like they believe that autistic people are overall incompetent. For example, if they don't know that I have it they may innocently say something like "but it isn't like you are autistic or anything like that, so you are gong to do fine" which makes it clear that they view ASD as a serious disability. People just talk about autism differently than other more accepted conditions like ADHD and at the moment, I don't see any utility in disclosing it.

If I told people at work, I honestly feel that it would result in me being denied promotions as people have very pre-conceived notions about ASD. This is a very real concern because people are often given or denied promotions based simply on how a manager intuitively feels about someone, which can be particularly dependent on their pre-conceived prejudices. I actually have experienced this personally when I was denied any teaching duties as a TA in graduate school more or less specifically because I was perceived as "autistic".


That said, when I get a higher paying job in the field that I want to get into (IT), I will start being more open about my ASD. I took a temporary office job after graduate school that has low pay so if I disclosed now I fear people would assume that I am in the right career for me, given my ASD. People seem to believe that all autistic people are only capable of jobs that pay low money. I feel like occupation is very important for how an autism disclosure is going to be perceived. If I ever find myself making more money than the average person, I will probably start to feel very comfortable disclosing. People can't feel superior to someone who is able to make more money than them and it would challenge their preconceived notions about autism spectrum people being incompetent or requiring support.

[Ennui.]

I have a few friends who know the extent of my mental illness. There's one that knows basically everything, one that knows a lot but not all of it, and then there are a few that know I am mentally ill but don't know the full extent of how it impacts me.
My parents knew about my self harm growing up and knew that I've been in therapy, but they never really took my mental health seriously until my suicide attempt. My dad would then take me to my PHP appointments, and after I ended up in the hospital a second time after a wellness check from my therapist he'd take me to my DBT appointments. He'd also check in on me to make sure I didn't need anything and was okay, but I don't talk to him or the rest of my family about it. The damage was already done growing up when they would yell at me, ground me, and say I was doing things for attention. They would yell at my therapists when they suggested I felt suicidal, needed medication, or needed a higher level of care. This limited how much I could really tell my therapists because if they thought I was a danger to myself or others they'd have to report it to my parents, but I was still pretty honest with my therapists.
Now I'm just worried about how it will impact my future such as with jobs and things like that. I've been in the hospital twice as an adult but thankfully my job was flexible and gave me the time off. Most other jobs won't be like that and I am afraid of getting fired. But I can't tell if my second hospitalization will be my last or not.

I don't tell people about my mental health because like you (OP) said, there is such a huge stigma against it. Those on my medical care team knows, and my best friend knows; and they're really the only ones that I feel are trustworthy enough for me to share things with. But I share more with my best friend than my medical care team for obvious reasons.

It seems that when I try to open up even about the simplest things, that I get criticized and gaslit. I'm making too much a big deal of things, or that it's all going on in my head, or that I'm not understanding what's being said/done correctly — that last one going along with me having Autism and that too has its own stigma against the diagnosis.

It's hard not to let my mental health issues show, especially my anxiety, and especially in a professional setting. People are so unwilling to open their eyes and understand that my anxiety is legitimate. All those posters advocating for anxiety awareness are not all made-up; they are very, very real!

[Dawn.]

This is a very good question.
For me personally, I don't feel comfortable in talking to people about how I feel besides a mental health professional. Even then, I question as to whether or not they really understand. It's something that I never really have done, even when I was younger, and I've gotten into the habit of just keeping things to myself. I also think that it's no ones business to know what I think or how I feel.

[Silvan]

Fear of judgement, being treated differently because of my mental health.