I have been hospitalized five times due to my bipolar disorder. As disruptive as these unexpected episodes have been to my life, managing my day-to-day instability can be even harder. Having this diagnosis has helped me better understand the ways I am different from others and accept that my neurodivergence means I sometimes have trouble regulating my emotions, communicating well, and functioning to fit social norms.

Because I am open with my condition as part of my advocacy work, there are times it can be easier for me to raise my hand and let people know when I need help in the form of reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act or just informal patience, acceptance, and courtesy.¹ After all, I’m not concealing my condition. Yet I have also experienced times where people notice my disorder label or symptoms and avoid me due to stigmatizing assumptions that I might be dangerous, unreliable, or socially undesirable — or their frustrations with the ways my special needs during more challenging times may make me seem difficult, high conflict, or toxic.²

It’s nobody’s fault that we live in a society that often forgets that the people who strike us as difficult may be privately managing a serious mental health condition, like mine, or coping with hidden traumas such as workplace harassment or any number of things. The pressure to appear professional has silenced many people experiencing prejudice or sexual violence³ and the societal stigmas toward mental illnesses lead many to make the understandable choice to conceal their disorders so they don’t have to worry about people distrusting them at work, questioning their parenting in a custody case, or not inviting them to parties.⁴

Though it is often very rational for people with mental health problems to hide that they have them or deny their symptoms for fear of backlash, it means that our social consciousness takes longer to evolve and adjust because stories like mine are not being told often enough.⁵ It also means more people are accidentally perpetrating mental illness discrimination every day without ever meaning to do so – and more people with illnesses like mine feel pressure to pretend they do not have them at all.

Luckily, things are changing. The stigma associated with mental illness is decreasing. The American Bar Association passed a resolution urging state bars to stop using mental illness screening questions as part of the character and fitness section of their applications.⁶ More people know their rights; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported an uptick in psychiatric disability cases, meaning more people are speaking up.⁷ Through the Mental Health Safe Project, I have been working with many legal institutions to reduce inadvertently discriminatory guidance by teaching lawyers to engage in appropriate inquiries, screening, and disparate treatment.⁸ Moreover, I’ve partnered with National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) chapters and mental health advocates around the country, hosting workshops that have taught more than a thousand people living with mental illnesses how to use tools to set boundaries, ask for reasonable accommodations, respond to discrimination, and discuss trauma.

It is wonderful that people with mental health problems are speaking up more in the face of stigma so everyone can learn to stop rejecting people who seem aberrant, and we can all start finding more ways to be welcoming across the spectrum of mental health. There are also ways anyone can learn to become empowering and supportive of people with varying mental health needs while preventing instances of accidental discrimination. Here are a few projects I have worked on that created free resources for that purpose:

• BiasResistantCourts.org: Funded by the American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution Foundation and a project of the City University of New York Dispute Resolution Center and MH Mediate, the website provides free user-friendly resources that teach 12 key skills to help people be trauma informed, accessible, and resistant to discrimination.
• Responding to Poor Performance Without Discriminating: A quick guide that teaches law firms how to give feedback to underperforming employees without inadvertently saying something that could become part of a discrimination claim. I created it as part of my work with Mindquity. It is available with a short free training video at www.mindquity.com/freeresources.
• Speak Up: Conflict Resolution Skills for Self-Advocacy: A Mental Health Safe Project program that provides free guidance to NAMI chapters and others so people with mental health problems have tools for communicating and responding to bias. It is available at www.mhsafe.org/about.

Also note that the State Bar of Michigan Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program provides a number of valuable resources. If you are experiencing challenges or looking to maximize your overall well-being, call their confidential help line at (800) 996-5522 or email them at contactLJAP@michbar.org.

Mental health stigma is nobody’s fault — it is an age-old problem amplified by a widespread culture that often sensationalizes, demonizes, and disparages mental health problems without exploring it further. In my view, the way forward is for all of us to learn skills for empowerment and communicate with one another to change our cultural norms instead of blaming or canceling each other. I have made great friends by connecting with people who initially labeled me as difficult or high conflict or aberrant in other ways, and I live my life hoping and waiting for more of those moments.

The tools mentioned in this article can help lawyers and law firms similarly turn moments of embarrassment, friction, and escalation into opportunities for growth. That is what we must do so people no longer have to live in fear of being discredited or shunned because of their mental health differences.