Dealing with stigmatization can be difficult. The society can stigmatize one for different reasons. It could be due to your past mistakes; it could also be due to an illness, and you begin to suffer isolation from people. The feeling can be quite devastating. It hurts more because you have no control over it. Like, it's hard to go into people's minds to change how they think about you.
There was a time my first child had a seizure in school, and since that day, he began to face stigma. If you have seen someone under a seizure attack, you would understand better what I am saying. The experience was emotional, and I wouldn't want to go deeper into all he went through, but the most important thing was that we came out strong through the challenge and good enough; he never had the experience again in school.
I didn't allow it to affect his social life, his academic progress to a large extent, and even how some teachers viewed his potential. In fact, I requested that the school change his class to another arm when I saw that his current teacher wanted to make him feel so isolated from others. I guess the teacher didn't like the way the school owner confronted her for her behavior, and she resigned willingly without anyone telling her to take her leave. As a parent, it was difficult to watch some people stigmatize my child, but I accepted the situation, educated some people close to him about his health challenge, kept supporting him, and focused on improving his health, believing God for his plans over his life and not any sort of label from people.
Aside from that, my cousin sister faced stigma due to her past. She gradually lost her self-worth and often felt so ashamed of her life. Currently, she is in her late 40s , yet no marriage. Not even a serious suitor. The last suitor that came the other year never showed up again after the first visit. The stigma on her is real and raw. It happened that she was always caught stealing. You can't stay with her for hours without her looking for something to steal from you, or did she visit your house without anything to steal?. It got to a point when she used a chewing stick to unlock my dad's room and stole his money. I can't forget that incident in a hurry. I was still a child then, but many times, I still remembered how I caught her stealing from my mom, either her money or her products for sale.
Obviously, there was something acting on her, because even when she was willing to stop stealing, she couldn't do so on her own. As a child, she confided in me then, but sadly, I had no solution to her problems. She became a mockery to the whole community. Everyone knows her as that lady that can't stay without stealing. In the church, people run away from wherever she is seated. At social gatherings, my cousin is found isolated.
Somehow, she later encountered one spirit-filled Rev. Father, and suddenly, such a stealing act stopped! She could feel peace within her inner spirit. As I grew to adulthood, she was still in my father's house, and I watched her wallow in sadness. The last time I encouraged her, I told her to first forgive herself, accept herself, and show herself compassion, believing to heal totally from the stigma.
Overall, her healing is still a work in progress. Nothing tangible so far, maybe until she sees a husband to marry before she will completely accept to move past what people say about her, but she has started thinking positively of herself a bit, adding self-worth to her life again while our family has been encouraging her and not judging her, believing that someday, she will heal from the effects of the stigma.
This post is in response to the #hivelearners community contest on the topic titled, Effects of stigma
Image 1 & 3 was created using Meta AI while image 2 was taken from canva