Shattering the Stigma with Ishita Verma

Interviewer: Alexandra Kim (she/they), Wellness Writer for Potential Magazine

Interviewee: Ishita Verma (she/her), Founder of @shatteringthestigma_ on Instagram

Shattering the Stigma is a student led organization that works to educate the world on mental health and provide a platform for teens to share their stories. With one of their main focuses being on false portrayals of mental illness in the media, Shattering the Stigma ensures that young people and their families are exposed to factually correct information on psychology and mental health through various blog articles, interviews with mental healthcare professionals, and their own podcast. In turn, teens are then encouraged to submit their own stories with mental health and allow their voices to be amplified through Shattering the Stigma’s blog. Ishita Verma, the founder of this project, shared her wisdoms with us as we discussed current events, the importance of media safety, and the future of Shattering the Stigma.

Image by Audrey Byrne (@artiaudi on Instagram)

Tell us a little bit about yourself, and your role within this organization.

Hello! My name is Ishita Verma. I’m the founder and executive director of Shattering The Stigma! I started this project when I was a sophomore, and I’m currently a senior. I also plan on continuing this project into college.

What or who inspired you to start up Shattering the Stigma?

I was inspired to start Shattering The Stigma after noticing how often the media misrepresents mental health. More specifically, it was my outrage by the miseducation from 13 Reasons Why (a show based on a teenage suicide,) It appalled me how the show's misleading portrayals of depression and abuse prompted memes instead of meaningful discussions. Enraged, I wrote an article highlighting the inaccuracies and explaining the conditions scientifically. Though initially planning on sharing it only at school, I felt the information needed to be shared with a larger audience. Creating a website, I published the piece and began writing monthly about different portrayals, and since then the blog actually started attracting readers, and many even asked to contribute to the blog. From there, it’s just continued to grow.

We are currently in a time that has put quite the strain on many people’s mental health. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your approach to mental health awareness?

With quarantine, mental health has truly become ever so important. The need for mental health awareness and eliminating the stigma really inspires me and the team, and it really invigorates our efforts. Covid has given us a deeper understanding of just how important it is to foster these conversations and share accurate information. This shared passion creates an energy that reflects in our work, with each piece being our best collective efforts.

How do social issues and identity play a role in your mission of providing awareness about mental health, especially for young people that may be struggling deeply with their identity?

The stigmatization of mental health can truly be detrimental to self esteem and feeling confident in our identities. When we see the media misconstruing these conditions and portraying them negatively, it makes us feel bad about what we might have, and with this stigmatization, it makes people too reluctant to seek help when they might need it or even just talk about their conditions. In our work, we aim to share real facts and stories, so that people can not only see themselves in their journeys that they’re on, but also get accurate information about their conditions and not just the information from the media. Through our Sharing our Stories Blog, we hope that individuals can actually find themselves, find a reflection of themselves in the stories that we’re sharing and maybe even feel inspired to share their own.

I see that you guys have a blog called “Misconceptions in the Media Blog.” Can you tell me a little bit about that and why tackling the media is so important when discussing mental health in the youth?

In our Misconceptions In the Media blog, we really try to make sure that all the information we’re providing is factual, so that way people are getting the right understanding. We also aim to make sure that any myths that are being perpetuated, we discuss those and actually share the real information about this. Only by sharing this information [can we] take steps into furthering our knowledge and decreasing the stigma. Media is often a source of misconceptions. The goal of the media is to entertain rather than to inform. While this is the case, it’s actually unfortunate that a lot of the time, mental health is used as a platform or stepping stone to make a character seem more interesting or to add some spice to the plot line. When it’s portrayed irresponsibly like this, it can perpetuate misconceptions, wrongful information, negative stereotypes, and all this contributes to the stigmatization. It is so important that we don’t overdramatize or romanticize mental illness because it does shape perceptions. Oftentimes what we see can be what we believe, and for a lot of people who may not know a lot about mental health or have as much day to day basis exposure to it, they will believe these portrayals in the media. That’s why it’s very important that we understand the correct information about mental health, and that’s what we aim to do in our Misconceptions in the Media Blog. We take portrayals of mental health in the media, we dissect them, we delve into the conditions, we use scientific resources to actually provide explanations for those conditions, and we do so in an accessible way, so that way, someone like a student will be able to understand and actually better their understandings about mental health when reading our blog.

Tackling these mental health issues is not an easy job and can drain the mind and soul. How do you and your team members debrief? Do you have any self-care tips that help you when things get overwhelming?

We definitely agree it can be hard, and taking care of our own mind is very important. For our team, we try to maintain a system of contact, letting someone know the work is getting too overwhelming, especially since all our connections [are] online, honest communication is very important, and we always check in with each other just to make sure we’re all doing okay. And for some self-care tips, there is something different for everyone. I suggest you try various activities, see what works for you, what doesn’t. Some general tips would be: you can journal, shower, do something exercise, talk to a friend. It’s super important to realize that it’s unhealthy to force yourself to be productive all the time. Sometimes, you need to take time for yourself and just relax.

Tell me a little bit about your team members. How did you all meet and what bonded you guys as a group?

Our team is actually from all over the world, and one of my favorite parts is just hearing their stories especially since many of them come from parts of the world that I’ve never visited, and they have great experiences that could be very different from my own. I just love hearing about the different cultures, and I think through sharing these tidbits of our lives and energizing each other off our passion for mental health is how we really bond. I love how we’re all extremely dedicated to this cause, and I think that just helps bring us closer together as well.

What are some of your future goals for Shattering the Stigma?

Yeah, we have many goals for Shattering the Stigma, and I’m very excited for what lays ahead. It’s definitely been a learning curve since we first started, but I’m really excited to do the best we can going forward. Some plans? I definitely want to continue developing our ongoing projects, such as our podcast. We have some exciting episodes releasing in the next couple of weeks, and I’m super excited to get those out there. Our Misconceptions in the Media Blog, we’re continuing to post on a weekly schedule. We’re looking to maybe even expanding it to a biweekly schedule, and for [the] Sharing Our Stories Tab, we’re always on the lookout for more students who might want to express themselves in our tab, and actually we have some collaborations coming up where we will be working with other student organizations to share more stories on that blog. We are also going to create some new projects. We’re looking into developing our own app where it will feature our content, and we also want to work on doing more collaborations with student groups and organizations. We really love learning new things from other people and coming together to create a product that can inform an even larger audience.

Do you have any advice or words of encouragement you would like to tell the youth?

I think I would just say pursue what makes you happy. There’s this quote that says something along the lines of “you’re only confined by the walls you’ve built,” and I feel like this is totally true. Oftentimes, we hinder ourselves by our own fears, and I would encourage [the] youth to not be afraid to get out of their comfort zone to pursue something that they’re passionate about. Sometimes, we just have to believe in ourselves and take the risk. I know it’s scary knowing that it might not pay off, but I think in the end it does make us happier, and that’s our end goal of what we want.