Stopping to listen to the story of people who suffer from a mental disorder and understanding their inner world is an essential way to break the stigma. We do it with the help of Mateo, Javier Martín, Eva Piedad’s brother, Eduardo Matute and Johana.
He stigma in mental health is an obstacle that still persists in society, perpetuating erroneous ideas about people who suffer from psychological illnesses. Stopping to listen to their story, understanding their inner world, is an essential path to breaking those beliefs. We do it with the help of Mateo, Javier Martín, Eva Piedad’s brother, Eduardo Matute and Johana.
Johana: “They treated me like I was crazy”
She is a Salvadoran woman diagnosed with depression who has gone through three suicide attempts. From a young age she began to be harassed for not having the resources that her classmates had. She comes from a family whose parents divorced. “My father abandoned us all when I was nine months old,” she argues. That feeling of abandonment is what has influenced her throughout her life to make the decisions she has made, she says.
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Art against the stigma of mental disorders: “We need your hand, your understanding, not for you to flee”
Art against the stigma of mental disorders: “We need your hand, your understanding, not for you to flee”
She married when she was 20 and her first daughter was born shortly after. The girl was born with a severe heart disease and that led to the newborn being admitted to a hospital, intubated, during her first months of life. She subsequently gave birth to two more babies and throughout that time her relationship with her husband worsened. All of this led to a divorce.
“People started to judgehere in El Salvador they called me ‘the divorced’,” she says. The social judgment dragged her into thoughts of death. “The people around me who knew my intentions, knew my feelings, treated me like I was crazy and evaded the subject by ignoring it. importance,” says Johana, demonstrating the reality of stigma. The reality of misinformation in mental health.
“Depression makes it difficult for me to travel”
A major Turkish businessman, whose company turns over millions of euros annually, has preferred to remain anonymous due to possible consequences derived from making his mental illness public. This source to which EL MUNDO has had access is a great example of how the stigma reaches all types of social strata. “Depression makes it difficult for me to travel and socialize; in my work, these two actions are essential,” she says. “There are falls and then life goes on,” she concludes.
Mental illnesses not only affect population segments that are at risk of social exclusion. It is something that affects all families in the world.. According to the WHO, one in eight people in the world suffers from a mental disorder.
Eduardo Matute, a double complexity
48-year-old Madrid native, fond of painting and music, Matute is a person diagnosed with dual pathology. This pathology, Manuel Martin defines it as the simultaneous presence of substance use disorders and mental disorders. This means that a person who suffers from a mental disorder, such as depression or schizophrenia, also has problems with addiction to substances such as alcohol or drugs. This combination, it ends, can make diagnosis and treatment are more complex.
Matute has suffered several psychotic breaks throughout his life. Furthermore, he was born with a severe visual impairment. “I suffer from bipolar schizoaffective disorder along with an addiction to drugs and alcohol that, for now, I manage well,” she conveys. The affected person says that he had a group of friends with whom he went out daily, but he ended up distancing himself from them due to his illness.
He painted pictures For many years of his life, he currently does not practice that artistic field because his visual disability has worsened. Thanks to associations such as ELEVEN either Mapfre, carry out activities with other people. That gives you a feeling of accomplishment. “You have to surround yourself with people who support you and understand you. Without support, you can’t get out of all this,” she concludes.
Eduardo Matute He is a clear example of improvement since he has overcome addictions. “I would never try drugs again,” she says. Thanks to people like him, who do not hide his illness and communicate what is happening to him without any prejudice, the door to change remains ajar. Matute has created portraits of cultural references from the late 20th century with admirable and enviable mastery.
Eva Piedad: “Live and let live”
47-year-old woman from Madrid. Eva Piedad He has a brother who suffers from serious mental illness. “People leave him aside, there are individuals who have even laughed at him in his presence,” he attests.
“Once we were walking and a group of young people made fun of me. I didn’t hesitate. I stood in front of them and said, ‘Do you think it’s normal to do gratuitous harm to a person who is just like you? Yes, my brother is not well.’ , but this could happen any day to you or a close family member,” he says through tears.
He confirms that it is one more of all the situations his brother goes through. “I know that worse things have happened to him, but he doesn’t tell me out of shame. They have even tried to rob him or hit him“.
The family of a person with a diagnosis of mental illness is a direct victim of stigma. They suffer it as if it happened to them firsthand. Piedad narrates with sadness and between tears that her brother is a totally normal person, but that society treats him badly because of his diagnosis. “I suffer everything they make him suffer, naturally, he is my brother,” she concludes.
The lesson that Eva Piedad gave to the people who made fun of her brother, contributed to the cause, made a group of people understand that, just because you suffer from a mental illness, you do not have to judge and disrespect. “Live and let live, they have enough already,” she reflects.
Javier Martín: “You are not always upset”
51-year-old professional actor, Javier Martín suffers from bipolar disorder. He participated in the program ‘Fall who falls’ presented by ‘El Gran Wyoming’. “Until he was 39, he led a wonderful life like any other person,” he says, but after an incident that caused him hallucinationswas admitted.
From there he had several episodes of mania and depression. All of this led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. This disorder is characterized by having episodes of mania followed by depressive episodes.
Martín began to obsess that everything was going to go wrong for him. Unbearable suffering led him to approach the abyss of thinking about suicide. “From there, he began the whole process of recovery and self-knowledge.”
“There is an idea that when you are diagnosed with a mental disorder, you are always disturbed,” this is not the case, the actor specifies. Since then he has dedicated himself to helping others in their individual processes and published a book with the aim of breaking that stigma called Bipolar and much honor. A work in which he deals with the topic of mental health as a result of his experience with bipolarity under a comic tone to dedramatize the topic.
Mateo, voice of hope
A young man youtuber 30 years old who works as a warehouse worker. Mateo was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the age of 17. Today, he assures EL MUNDO the following: “I have been on a long journey that has not been easy at all” full of personal growth and effort to fit your diagnosis.
It confirms that stigma has had a clear impact on the self-esteem. “When I couldn’t study, he was the stupid one. When I couldn’t get out of bed, he was the incapable one. When he had aggressive behavior and broke things, Mateo was the violent one, the crazy one,” he says. This whole series of aspects limited him and prevented him from growing. He sank even further and did not successfully overcome the ‘hard stage’ of the disease.
Mateo has a YouTube channel called ‘I’m like the air’ whose objective, he points out in his biography is: “Demystify the diagnosis of schizophrenia and Give hope through my experience to people who suffer from some type of mental health problem.
The work of the Danish artist also brings light Overtaciwhich not only challenged the limitations imposed by a mental disorder diagnosisbut also reminds humanity that creativity and artistic expression can be powerful tools of healing and transformation.