In a recent post, I introduced the “Honest, Open, Proud” program, which addresses the issue of disclosing your mental illness to others. In that post, I reviewed the first lesson of the program, which takes you through a process for considering the pros and cons of sharing your story. The ultimate decision of whether to disclose your illness is yours alone to make.
The final two lessons from the Honest, Open, Proud program assume that you have decided to share your mental illness with others. Lesson 2 is called “There are Different Ways to Disclose.” Let’s review this lesson now.
There are different ways to disclose
This lesson describes two ways to not disclose your illness and three different ways if you do decide to disclose it:
1) Social Avoidance: You don’t tell anyone about your mental illness and you avoid situations where someone might find out about it. You may choose to live in a sheltered or supported living or work environment, sometimes with other people who have mental illnesses.
2) Secrecy: You participate in work and community situations, but you still keep your mental illness a secret.
3) Selective Disclosure: You disclose your mental illness to selected individuals, but not to everyone. You may share your illness with a few trusted friends or loved ones.
4) Indiscriminant Exposure: You decide to no longer conceal your mental illness. This, however, does not mean that you tell everyone your story.
5) Broadcast Experience: You actively seek out and educate others about your experiences with mental illness. This is a form of personal advocacy.
The lesson also describes some costs and benefits of each of these possible levels of disclosure for you to consider. Next, if you have decided to have at least some selective disclosure of your illness, you need to then identify one or more people to whom you might disclose your story.
Choosing who to disclose to first
It can be helpful to consider first disclosing to people who might fit one of three types of relationships with you:
- Functional relationship: The person already provides some function for you, and their knowing about your mental illness might help accomplish the function better. Examples include physical or mental health care providers, ministers, supervisors, teachers, and co-workers.
- Supportive relationship: The person seems friendly and may provide support and approval to you when they find out about your illness. Ideally, they exhibit personal characteristics such as being pleasant, open-minded, helpful, and trustworthy.
- Empathic relationship: These individuals may have had similar challenging life experiences to yours, although perhaps not specifically having a mental illness. They are empathic in that they are kind, willing to listen, understanding and honest.
After selecting someone to disclose to, you might test the waters with them in this way: Tell them about a recent news article, TV show or movie which discusses someone’s struggles related to their mental illness. Then ask the person what their thoughts are about this and about people who share their experiences with mental illness. If their responses indicate empathy, sensitivity, and open-mindedness about mental illness, this may be a “safe” person with whom to then disclose your mental illness.
What will you disclose?
The Honest, Open, Proud program makes the thoughtful point that when you decide to disclose your mental illness to someone else, you don’t (and shouldn’t) have to disclose everything. You need to consider what past and present experiences related to your illness you are comfortable in sharing. While you want to give the other person some sense of your challenges, don’t feel that you have to share deeply private information that may be very difficult to talk about.
A possible benefit of disclosing your illness is to let the other person know you may have some ongoing difficulties in the future and that you may need their assistance. For example, you might ask a friend if they would walk your dog for you sometime if you’re feeling particularly tired or depressed one day.
Also keep in mind that disclosure is not a one-time only opportunity. You can disclose further with the person in the future. And if things don’t go well, you can choose not to disclose further with that individual.
Finally, give the person some basic idea about why you wanted them to know about your illness. These reasons for disclosing could likely include not wanting to keep the illness secret anymore, hoping for increased support and understanding, or asking for a job-related accommodation to help make work more manageable for you.
How others may respond to your disclosure
The final part of this lesson discusses the impact of your disclosure on others. People may respond emotionally and they may also have behavioral reactions. Both these types of responses can be either positve or negative.
Positive responses to your disclosure could include support, understanding, and assistance, while negative responses might show disrespect, denial, retribution, fear, avoidance, gossip, or blame. Additionally people may seek you out to express their responses, or they may withdraw and try to avoid you.
I hope these ideas and considerations will help you if you do decide to begin to disclose your mental illness to others. In an upcoming post, I’ll review the third and final lesson from the Honest, Open, Proud program. This lesson, “Telling Your Story,” helps you learn how to publicly tell your story about your mental illness in a safe and meaningful way. Stay tuned.
Here’s a question: What things have you considered as you have begun to disclose your mental illness? Please leave a comment. Also, please subscribe to my blog and feel free to follow me on X (formerly Twitter), “like” my Facebook page, or connect on LinkedIn. Finally, if you enjoyed this article, please share it with a friend!