The author presents the problematic issue of operating one’s status as a social category on the example of the mentally ill persons. The article indicated dualities, consisting of the simultaneous exclusion and gratification that appear upon conferring the status of a disabled person to a mentally ill person. Social workers work in the area of these limits as well as being forced to establish criteria of status which authorize to receive social support. Balancing between social security provided by such status and privileges resulting from it, which at the same time place restrains. Obtaining a given status is also associated with the stereotypification about the group to which solely the decision about the disease places a given person. These barriers, as indicated by the author, are the result of operating with the status within the institution in which marginalization progresses together with being granted the status of a disabled person.