Mental health has been a minefield for me. When things first started going downhill 13 years ago, I went to the GP, got anti-depressants, and then warned work I wasn't going to be able to work 13 hours a day any more. I spoke to my partner (now DH) about it at the time, but that was it. Some weeks later, I tried for the first time to kill myself, got unfairly dismissed from work for getting signed off sick for two weeks as a result, and the whole thing got worse.
Part of what made it worse was that DH needed support and, while I understood that and was fine with him talking to his parents in confidence about the situation, it all got blabbed to his very large extended family, and facing them when they knew the intimate details and gawked at me like some kind of freak show was awful. It took years for one of his cousins in particular to treat me like a normal human being again instead of acting like she was hoping for me to kick off and give her something to gossip about. It really did take years of saying nothing to them whatsoever about any kind of mental health issue for me to be treated as a fully functioning human being again. And the sense of betrayal I felt towards DH for being exposed to that really didn't help matters.
As it is, the mental health issues continued over the period in question, and I have had numerous battles trying to get appropriate treatment. Throughout this, I have been happy to talk to DH, Mum and my little bro, and occasionally Dad if he asked me a direct question, but that's it. I'll occasionally talk to friends or strangers about my experience if it is clear it will help them come to terms with their own mental health issues and feel less isolated, but I don't exactly go up to people and say 'Hi, I'm Energumene and I'm a nut job with a long-standing history of depression' because that would kill the conversation.
The absolute low in this was when I ended up with a NHS psychotherapist who enjoyed our sessions so much he apparently thought I was a stand-up trying out new material. I'm not all that unusual in using dark humour to help me face things, but he clearly didn't see his tears of laughter as inappropriate: I wasn't there to be his entertainment each week. I was there to get well, and should have been entitled to the same dignity and respect in my treatment as - say - a patient with a broken arm or heart trouble.
This same therapist also took an almost pornographic interest in the details of my being raped, and I reached the point where he became a part of the problem, rather than a means to helping me find the solution. I ended up needing a MIND advocate to help me convince the local Trust that I needed more suitable help and that I had valid concerns about my treatment that needed to be addressed: it's unfortunate, but I've found that the doctors treating people with mental health issues are often the first to forget that these patients are simply ill, rather than stupid or untruthful or simply not entitled to consideration of their right to be treated as a full human being.
I was very lucky that, as a result of the lobbying I did with my advocate, we got the Trust to agree to me getting a second opinion from someone in a neighbouring area, who completely understood why I needed to move and worked to make sure I got help from her department instead. Thanks to her, I'm about to start on a new course of therapy - CBT this time - and can finally see that I may one day be able to consider my depression to be something from the past, rather than a daily obstacle.
If I were to have this time over again, I would still talk to my GP and DH. I would talk to Mum. I'm now self-employed, so unless I sack myself, I don't have to worry about losing my job again, which is something that did untold harm back in 1998, and I hope I would be more willing to embrace therapy far earlier in the process.
Are families more stigmatising? I've had both extremes in mine. My own family, if we consider Mum and my brother, have been lovely, because all they want is for me to be happy and have been a godsend throughout. My father, on the other hand, seemed to feel tainted by association with someone who was prepared to admit her mental health problems. I can still remember having to 'voluntarily' spend a week on a psych ward that was just 10 minutes' drive from his office. He visited me once, stayed 10 minutes, and was practically running as he left. And he didn't have such a full social schedule that he couldn't afford the time. He simply couldn't cope, whether that was because he was ashamed of me, afraid of my illness, felt inadequate, or indeed felt I reflected badly on him and he couldn't afford to be seen in such a place. I'll never know the truth, because he's never given me an answer, and I doubt he ever will. I do wonder whether he thinks insanity is contagious, even though 'all' I suffered from was depression.
I have had to handle mental heath problems among family and friends, and these days I do tackle them directly, because I'm not afraid to expose my own past if it will help someone else. There needs to be something positive that comes out of this, and I think it's appropriate that such an awful experience should benefit someone.