Journaling Prompts for Navigating Mental Health Stigma
The stigma around mental health struggles is real and it shapes who feels safe getting help, who feels safe talking about what they're going through, and whether people extend themselves the same compassion they'd offer anyone with a physical illness. It can come from family, community, culture, workplace—or from inside yourself, which is often the most insidious kind. Writing about stigma gives you a place to put the shame it creates, examine where it came from, and start building a different relationship with your own mental health experience—one that doesn't require suffering silently to be considered acceptable.
Journaling Prompts
What messages did you receive growing up about mental health, emotion, or psychological struggle? Were people expected to cope silently, push through, not burden others? How do those messages affect you now?
What are you afraid people in your life would think or do if they knew what you were struggling with? Is that fear based on experience, or on assumption?
Have you ever judged someone else for their mental health struggles before you had your own? What did experiencing struggle yourself change about how you understand others?
What would it mean to treat your mental health with the same care and urgency you'd apply to a physical health issue? What's in the way of that?
What would you say to a friend who was embarrassed or ashamed about needing mental health support? Say it to yourself, here, now.