An Introduction to Stigma

Aug 22

One of the biggest obstacles to recovery for someone in active addiction or suffering from mental health challenges is the idea that others look poorly on them—whether they really do or not.

Season 2 of The Mayo Lab podcast kicks off with its first full episode on August 29, but co-hosts Meagen Rosenthal, Ph.D, and Alexis Lee got together for a mini-episode to set the stage for the overarching theme of Season 2: Stigma—and the actionable takeaways the season will deliver.

“We need some tools, practical, tangible, step-by-step things that we can do to make our own lives better, make the lives of our families better, and make our communities better by extension,” said Dr. Rosenthal.

Throughout the next few months, the podcast will delve into stigmas surrounding addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, recovery, mental health issues, anxiety, depression, therapy and more. Guests including researchers, mental health professionals and addiction experts will help shed light into these problematic areas and provide ways listeners can take steps themselves or for their family and friends to get better.

“It’s really hard to maintain those thoughts and feelings about a stigmatized group of people, whether it be people who are suffering from alcohol or drug addiction or what have you, when you meet a real life person in the middle of it.”

— Meagen Rosenthal, Ph.D

“As an individual who has the stigma on them, I think you almost feel like you have to become it sometimes,” said Lee, who is in recovery herself. “You (think you) have to lean into that or think, ‘Well, if other people think that, it must be true.’ It's almost like we're not taught to question ourselves in that way, of that stigma on us. I know when I've talked to people, it feels like … they carry this weight of shame.”

In the spring, the conversation will transition to talking about the workings of the human brain and the role it plays in addiction.

For more insight into what Season 2 has in store, scroll down to listen to this mini-episode or read the transcript.

Listen to the podcast on YouTube:

Meagen Rosenthal: I'm Meagen Rosenthal.
Alexis Lee: I'm Alexis Lee. This is the Mayo Lab Podcast. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to season two of the Mayo Lab Podcast. I am Alexis Lee. I am joined with my co-host.
Meagan Rosenthal: Meagen Rosenthal.
Alexis Lee: We are so excited to be back for season two of the Mayo Lab Podcast. This season we have two different topics we're going to talk about. The first one is stigma. We just want to talk to you guys about how we got to this topic, what happened throughout the summer leading up to this conversation, and how we landed on stigma. Meagen, if you just want to give a little insight into that.
Meagan Rosenthal: Sure. Yeah. Well, at the end of season one, we were reflecting back on all of the really amazing topics that we covered and things that we delved into, and the difficult conversations, hard conversations that we started. We realized we've got a really great foundation, but then we came to this moment of, "But so what?" We have all this really great stuff happening. We know that there are these issues, but what do folks start doing about it? That's really the evolution that we're going to see here in season two. We're going to be talking a little bit more about topics like stigma, but then also delving into them in greater detail to help understand, what do we do about it? It's one thing to know we have a problem, but it's a totally different thing to actually do something about that problem and the levels of what we can do about that problem.
Alexis Lee: Right. I think it was interesting. Me and Meagen and some of our other team members were doing research. We found that articles everywhere were talking about the issues, what's going wrong, what's going on, kind of thing. But none of them really told you, "Hey, here's some tools of how you could actually have conversations," or "Here's how you could change the dynamics. Here's how you could do things in your house." So we had a little light bulb moment in the office, and we were like, "Oh, this is it.
Meagan Rosenthal: Right.
Alexis Lee: "This is it."
Meagan Rosenthal: Exactly. People like to talk about things that are going wrong. It's human nature. But then that gets old real fast because we're still experiencing all of those things happening within our families, within our communities, with ourselves, even. We need some tools, practical, tangible, step-by-step things that we can do to make our own lives better, make the lives of our families better, and make our communities better by extension. The other benefit of this, or the side piece of this, is we have really amazing, smart researchers, academics, people in our communities, people in nonprofit organizations, all of these different kinds of things, doing this really great work, giving us these tools, but oftentimes we don't know how to find them, or the good stuff is buried in a really opaque, bad language.
Alexis Lee: A place only you're going to know how to find as a researcher.
Meagan Rosenthal: Yeah. Because, as researchers, we're really good at talking to other researchers. We're not necessarily really great at talking to people outside of the research community. So we're going to bring on some really cool guests that have expertise in these areas. They're going to talk us through what's going on. How do we think about it? How do we start doing some of the things in our own lives? I'm super, super excited about that prospect.
Alexis Lee: Yes. Yes. We are starting with stigma this season. Then we will have a brain part in the spring, which we won't spend too much time talking about because that will have its own section. But stigma, we just wanted to dive in today a little bit to what is stigma. Two definitions that we pulled were, one is from the Oxford Languages, and stigma is defined as a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. Then Merriam-Webster defines it as a set of negative or unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something, or a mark of shame or discredit.
An interesting word that Merriam-Webster also used was stain. It had a colon, stain. I just thought that was fascinating that they added that because it made sense to me when I heard it. I was like, "When I think of stigma and how it's resonated in my life or how I've maybe judged others, it is almost like I think that there's this stain on them that will never go away." That's not making them feel better. That's not helping me. That's not being productive, but it's just fascinating. I've marinated on stain all weekend, almost, I feel like.
Meagan Rosenthal: Well, I think I'm with you. I think this, as a word, it makes a lot of sense because we know, intellectually, stigma exists. We can all talk about this idea that people in certain groups, people with certain experiences, people in certain places, have stigma attached to them. But we don't really talk about the implications of it, the implications for that person, the implications for our community, for families, for all of those different things. We just acknowledge it's there. It's like this oogly boogly. It's there, but we don't talk about it, which I think is really in line with the work that we started hearing in the podcast last season. We're talking about hard things. Stigma is a hard thing. It permeates so many different aspects of our day-to-day lives that we don't really necessarily give it a lot of credit for, and acknowledging that these are why we might be doing certain things in our lives. So I think for the continuation of the podcast in the subsequent seasons, stigma just makes sense, to me at least, anyway, as a place to start.
Alexis Lee: Yeah. Yeah. I think in culture, society, conversations, I've just heard, I feel like people normally associate stigma maybe with mental health or addiction and alcoholism, or just people who have been to prison and that kind of thing. They think stigma just lives with those people. But the reality is stigma is a part of all of us. I was a student athlete. There's a stigma attached to that for a lot of people. Fraternity and sorority life, there's probably stigma attached to that for most people, especially in this town. Everything we do in every part of our life, we all have a stigma attached to us in some way, shape, or form.
Meagan Rosenthal: Right. I think that that recognition is the key to this. This stigma, for whatever part of your life exists, it changes how we engage with other people. It changes how we engage with our families. It changes how people engage with us. If you, as a student athlete, people meet you and think, "Oh, well, Alexis is going to be in a certain kind of way because she was a student athlete," or you engage in certain kinds of behaviors because you were a student athlete, versus somebody like me who was not a student athlete, then there's expectations around how I am and what I am like. If you step back as an individual, those really just don't make any sense. You would never assume those things about yourself, as a person thinking about it. But those are the weights that we carry when we exist in this world.
Meagan Rosenthal: Yeah. As an individual who has the stigma on them, I think you almost feel like you have to become it sometimes. You have to lean into that or think, "Well, if other people think that, it must be true." It's almost like we're not taught to question ourselves in that way, of that stigma on us. I know when I've talked to people, it feels like there's just like ... They do. They carry this weight of shame when they speak out what maybe they're struggling with or whatever, or they're afraid to because of the stigma attached to it, that they're weak, they're not strong or smart enough, whatever it is. There's just this loss of engagement or excitement, or even wanting to do things beyond the stigma. It feels like there's just this barrier that they feel like they have to be ... I can't do that because I'm X, Y, Z.
Meagan Rosenthal: Right. I think the other piece of that, too, that you've touched on a little bit there, is this idea that the stigma closes your gap, the group of people you can exist around, because then you start seeking out people who have those same experiences as you do, rather than expanding your community, expanding the group of people in the circle that you engage with, because it's easier. It's human nature. It's easier to engage with other people who are like you and have those same experiences as you have had. The unfortunate consequence of that is that we lose the opportunity to learn about different kinds of people, to learn about different kinds of experiences and put faces to those experiences.
I think one of the things that really struck me as we've delved into this, as I've delved into this world, is it's really hard to maintain those thoughts and feelings about a stigmatized group of people, whether it be people who are suffering from alcohol or drug addiction or what have you, when you meet a real life person in the middle of it. You put that face to that name, and you're suddenly like, "Oh, it's not those people. It's my friend. It's this person that I know. It's this person that I work with. It's a member of my family." Then it's suddenly not the same anymore. It's not them. It's us. It's we. I think that changes the dynamic in a really important way. Oftentimes, when we are in the midst of that stigmatization process, we lose that chance to learn those things about other people, and learn those things about ourselves.
Alexis Lee: Yeah. I know when I've spoken out about different things, and I've said on this podcast before, I'm sober. I'm in recovery. I know when I talk about that to people outside of it, I sometimes get that judgment or that shame or that whatever. But I also have learned that a lot of times it's really never about me. It's always about maybe something that's going on within them. They're not ready to talk about it or see it or accept it yet. It's hard. It's hard to have that conversation with yourself and saying, "Am I judging someone? Am I conceiving them as something else because they have this mark of stain on them?"
I just think as a community, like you said, being able to reach our arms around people and say, "Hey, tell me about your experience," because, also, they're not all the same. Not everyone gets to the same place by the same path. So I think also people assume that just one way you get down this road, when there's multiple ways to enter into it, if it is addiction, if it is mental health, if it is an eating disorder. You didn't just get there by waking up one day.
Meagan Rosenthal: No, no. I think that's the thing that we sometimes forget. People don't wake up and be like, "You know what? I'm going to do X, Y, Z to excess and then cause myself physical and emotional and mental harm, and I'm going to cause, by extension, my family and my community all of those different kinds of harm because it feels like a fun idea." That's not how any of this works. There's a series of events, a series of decisions that get us to that place, but nobody wakes up thinking, "You know what? I really, really, really feel like I want to screw up my life today. That's my goal." Nobody thinks like that. But again, we don't often stop and consider that when we're engaging with those other people who have, as you said, that stain on them.
Alexis Lee: Yeah. That's a nice little teaser for our brain part of the series that'll happen in the spring, because a lot of that happens in the brain. I mean, the brain's fascinating. I'll just leave it at that. But a lot of this is like, once you understand how all of this has transpired inside the brain that I can't control, you can't control, parents can't control, there's more grace that comes with that, to be able just to understand and say, "I get it. Maybe I don't or can't really understand your situation, but I get how the brain works. I get how maybe this has happened internally for you."
Meagan Rosenthal: Right. Right. I think the brain is this really magical instrument that we really don't have a great understanding of. You look into the medical literature around this. We're just still unpacking to this day. I mean, human beings have been around for a hot minute, and we're still unpacking to this day how all of those complex neurons interact with each other and what those pathways, how to create them, how to dismantle them, how to build new ones, and the impact that those things have on how we function every day. Then you add in the evolution of humanity over time. I mean, there's so many different complex layers to this. Then, of course, you add on top of that, we live in a culture with other people, and those other people impact how we do or don't do certain things. Then those reinforce or don't reinforce all of those different pathways for an individual person.
Anyway, we won't get totally into that because we're talking about stigma today, but I think it's really important that we begin to understand and unpack some of those factors that impact how we as human beings get to stigma, get to judging other people for things we may not understand or don't have a full appreciation for, and how that stigmatization process reinforces certain things and reinforces other things, and really impacts. I think, hopefully, all of you out there listening can appreciate and come to the perspective of stigma is a negative force on the lives of our families, ourselves, our communities. But there are, fortunately, ways that we can begin to address it. The first step is, as with everything, recognizing we have a problem. This is a problem that we don't want to reinforce in our communities.
Alexis Lee: Yeah.
Voiceover: You are listening to the Mayo Lab Podcast. For more information and resources, visit themayolab.com. Now back to the episode.
Alexis Lee: Here at the Mayo Lab Podcast, our tagline is, we want to start a different conversation. That's our goal. That's what we aspire to do every episode, every day of our lives in this work we're doing. So, at the end of every episode this season, we'll have three takeaway points for our listeners of how to challenge them to start a different conversation. The one will be for yourself, one will be for your family and your family unit, and then one will be for the communities you're in. So Meagen and I will leave each of you with. You're going to get bonus three this week because both of us are going to leave you with three ways to challenge, to start to have a different conversation. Meagen, what's your challenges?
Meagan Rosenthal: Oh, gosh. Okay. I think low-hanging fruit. Take a beat. Take a beat when you'd normally jump to some conclusion about somebody making a decision or a choice or an action that you're like, "Ooh, that's not what I would do." Take a beat before you get there. Take a beat and think about, "Is there something going on that I don't know about?" Remind yourself you don't know. You don't know everything, the ins and outs of even the people in your own family. So take that beat. Take that pause and be like, "Let's reassess before I jump to a conclusion. What might actually be going on here?"
For our family units, let me think about that one for a second. I think for me, extending the idea of grace, to have that conversation before you freak out. I think about this in my own house, too. My partner does something that I don't like. He ... Whatever ... doesn't take something out, doesn't whatever. Leaves a dish on the counter. Before I freak out and be like, "Why did you leave that open again?" Take a beat and be like, "Is there something else that he's thinking about or something that's going on that I don't know about? Or, more importantly, is it the end of the world that the cupboard door is open? Probably not. Probably not. It's probably fine. Just shut the door. No big deal."
Then, thinking about in our communities, I think my challenge, and this might be a bigger one than the other two, maybe, meet somebody new. Go out and do something that you wouldn't normally do. Go to a place you don't normally go to. Visit somebody you don't normally visit with. Start having those different conversations with an open heart, just to learn, just to learn about what somebody else is going through. Learn about a different space. Yeah. Let's leave it with that. Then, of course, tell us on social media. How'd you do? We want to know. We want to know. We'll be each other's accountability partners in this.
Alexis Lee: Yes. Yes. I love that. Love that. Okay. For yourself, what I would say is, I'll list some of the topics we have, but I would just dive into stigma a little more, what it is. Maybe take a little bit for yourself. There's some great YouTube videos and people that talk about this, books out there, but this year we're going to talk about addiction, alcoholism, recovery, mental health, anxiety, depression, eating disorder, counseling, asking for help, even. If any of those words didn't sit well, or you had some, "Oh, that word's that word," in that box like we were talking about, maybe do some digging for yourself, or just even sit with it and see how that feels for you.
For your families, one thing that I've started to do, and I've noticed myself, is if my family, and even some of my closer community that I consider them family a little bit, but if words or sentences come out of their mouth, or they say something that's maybe of prejudgment or in a way that's not as accurate, maybe, in the culture will say it, I'll always say, "Hey, let's change our verbiage. It's actually this."
One of the conversations I had with my friends is they had a coworker whose son was having to go to a mental institution. They didn't use that word. I said, "Hey, let's change our verbiage here. This is what it means. Here's how the other word maybe is damaging a little bit to that." So just change your word. Correct people in a loving way. Say, "Hey, let's talk about this word. Let's not use this word." Then, in communities, I really want to steal Meagen's. I love that. Meet someone new. Meet two people new.
Meagan Rosenthal: Oh, there we go.
Alexis Lee: Meet two people new, or go meet one new person, and go to one new location-
Meagan Rosenthal: Oh, there we go. There we go.
Alexis Lee: ... that you normally wouldn't go to.
Meagan Rosenthal: That's a double whammy. We're starting off strong this season.
Alexis Lee: I love that.
Meagan Rosenthal: Get cracking. Let's get some good work done.
Alexis Lee: Let's get going. Wow. We officially launch next week, next Tuesday. You'll have one on August 29th. We are so excited. But, as Meagen said, share with us on social media your thoughts, comments, what you think stigma looks like in your life, if that's something you're comfortable sharing. You can DM us on our Instagram platforms, Facebook Messenger, all the things.
Meagan Rosenthal: Yeah. Ask us questions about stigma, too. What questions do you have about the topics that Alexa just outlined? What are things that you've been thinking about? We're going to have some really wicked smart people on the season this year, so we're going to ask them. We'll ask them your questions. We might not have the answers, but we'll find people who do. That's part of what we do here at the Mayo Lab Podcast.
Alexis Lee: Yes, it is. Well, until next week, everyone, find a way to start a different conversation. We'll see you soon.
Meagan Rosenthal: Bye.
Voiceover: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Mayo Lab Podcast. The Mayo Lab Podcast is produced by Doctor Natasha Jeter, Doctor Meagen Rosenthal, Alexis Lee, Slade Lewis, and Hannah Finch. This podcast was recorded at Broadcast Studio in Oxford, Mississippi. The show was mixed and mastered by Clay Jones, and our original music was composed by Slade Lewis. The Mayo Lab Podcast is brought to you by the William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing. For more information on the Mayo Lab Podcast, head over to themayolab.com, and follow us on social media @themayolab. If you enjoyed listening to the Mayo Lab Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you're listening to this podcast. This podcast represents the opinions of Doctor Meagen Rosenthal, Alexis Lee, and their guests on the show. This podcast is not intended to be a substitute for the medical advice of a licensed counselor or a physician. The listener should consult with a mental health professional in any matters related to his or her health, or the health of a child.