Harassment Hits Close to Home For Mentally Ill

There is an old English saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me.”

That saying does not seem to apply to persons who are mentally ill, suggests a study conducted in Scotland and reported in the December British Journal of Psychiatry.

University of Glasgow investigators interviewed 330 Scots—half of whom had serious mental health problems and half of whom did not—about experiences they had had with harassment. Harassment was defined as being mocked, bullied, physically threatened, or even physically assaulted.

Forty-four percent of the control group had been harassed at some point, compared with 60 percent of the group with mental illness—a highly significant difference statistically. What’s more, while only half of the 44 percent said that the provocation had had a negative impact on their mental health, nearly all of the 60 percent reported having felt a negative impact, especially when the harassment was directed at their mental states.

For instance, one mentally ill woman said that as a result of people pestering her, “I ended up in hospital virtually every month, and my condition became worse.” Said another, “I actually sat in front of the TV one night with a rolling pin and a knife because I was worried they would get in and try and hurt me.”

Also, while the mentally healthy group was found to experience most of their badgering in the workplace, the mentally ill group was found to experience most of theirs in the community by teens and neighbors. Sometimes the subjects with mental illness were even verbally abused by their own family members, the researchers discovered. This finding surprised them. Said one mentally ill man in Dundee, Scotland, “I had ECT treatment for depression, and members of my family, especially my sister, think it’s funny. She calls me ‘Sparky.’ I find it very hurtful, and I’ve tried to talk with her about it, but she keeps on doing it anyway.”

Subjects were asked what they thought would stop harassment. The consensus among both groups was that education to make the public aware of how much maliciousness hurts people, especially those who are already in a fragile mental state, would do the most good.

An abstract of the study, “Prevalence and Experience of Harassment of People With Mental Health Problems Living in the Community,” is posted online at http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/183/6/526. ▪

The British Journal of Psychiatry 2003 186 526