Here is a quick guide that will help you analyse the most common reasons for people to be biased against or discriminate against anyone who has a different neurological thought process or condition.
Remember, you never know what someone is going through or how much they understand if you don't know them. Which brings us to our first reason for stigma -
Without prior information, or just one look, most of us decide what we think about someone. "First impression is the last impression" is what we use to justify our prolonged dislikeness for someone due to an irrational and non-plausible reason, sometimes sympathetic, other times crude, based off of clueless rumours or stereotypes.
For example,
Mere exaggeration in most cases, because a majority of people overcome mental disorders, even though recovery is a long and gradual process, it does happen. And generalising an entire set of people from a few phrases that we picked up from people here and there is not a good way to learn about an entire field of science!
Moving on, another common reason.
While we do recognise that to an extent, studies have proven that mental disorders can relate to aggressive or violent behavior, but it largely depends on the environment of the individual.
The subset of people that commit violent crimes are no reason to generalise all neurodivergent individuals.
After all, we don't call humans naturally violent just because humans have committed heinous crimes? It depends on our motives, our drive and our nature, where humans are inherently good, and people with mental disorders are humans, so it is safe to deduce that they too are inherently good!
Cultural non-acceptance is extremely dangerous. It involves entire communities and large groups of people, all of whom share the same thinking or stigma. Here, the stigma is against the neurodivergent. Social exclusion occurs and that completely deters the individuals from being stable in their lives. The chance of normalcy is ruined by the stigmatisation, and it is worse when it comes from your own, and the people you know.
Lots of parents get an abortion or abandon their children, through eugenics. This is because of the lack of knowledge,
The hidden enemy.
Hope this short read gave you an insight of what you were looking for or accidentally made you more aware, if so, do share it and support us!
By Fariya Maryam
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