T-Shirts for Mental Disorders?
Humorous? or Humorless? (click to open image in new window)
I came across this from my blogpal Staff Psychologist. He was highlighting the cutting edge that things like this do.
Is this a lighthearted attempt to help people learn to live with a significant illness or does it miss the mark entirely and smack with the whiff of stigma?
The original website is http://www.printmojo.com/Disordertees
I love good humor. But….. I don’t like these.
What do you think? Am I over-reacting?
April 23, 2006 | Filed Under Media and Hollywood, Society
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6 Responses to “T-Shirts for Mental Disorders?”
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I found these T-shirts to be in poor taste, and can imagine those who buy them may include people who don’t suffer from the disorder but thought the T-shirts make a funny statement.
I noticed that the T-shirts didn’t include depression or bipolar disorder (though I can see a BP shirt coming), maybe because funny taglines haven’t been thought of yet.
You made a good observation elsewhere that we wouldn’t dream of creating T-shirts that say “I’m not bold, I just have cancer.” Yet, we see these T-shirts for mental illness.
It goes to show that there are those in society that thinks certain aspects of mental illnesses are funny, and can be made fun of. While it’s healthy to laugh at oneself once in a while, I don’t think this is the spirit of these T-shirts.
One of the main goals in my professional career is to minimize stigma regarding mental illness. I just think a t-shirt like this narrows the perception of such disorders, and as such, continues to keep stimga alive and well.
I have a Bipolar T-Shirt shop with some humorous and some serious t-shirts about Bipolar Disorder and Depression. Sales are pretty good and I’ve done a survery and not one person said my t-shirts are promoting the stigma of either illness. I have Bipolar Disorder 1 and sometimes it takes a sense of humor for me to get thru it. Evidently there are others like me. I know my t-shirts are not for all of us but for those who want to express themselves the way I do, they are there.
Hi Cris,
I visited your T-shirt site, and I find your messages very different from the kind that Deb Serani referenced in her post.
The messages that you have on your T-shirts are humorous, but not in a way that does promote social stigma of the symptoms of mental illnesses.
In fact I think your T-shirts are very positive in many respects, by encouraging honesty about bipolar disorder and not feeling embarrassed or ashamed about living with a biochemical imbalance.
I have laughed at my own symptomatic manifestations and think that not always taking oneself so seriously is a good thing. I do think that there is a line between humor that lifts up people up and humor that brings people down. And I think the type of humor that does not encourage what you are encouraging with your T-shirts is in poor taste.
Dear Cris
I also went to visit your site. And I enjoyed your shirts. They are, like Dr. Jane said, humorous but not stigmatizing!!
I LOVE Crissy’s shirts. Just trying to decide which to get.