I know a woman who suffers from bipolar disorder. She is indistinguishable from anyone else
when she is on her medication, except for the fact that she is one of the most
brilliant people I’ve ever met, steeped in creativity. She is what everyday people call an
“outside-the-box” thinker, able to see things from a slightly different perspective. Of course, this makes her an excellent
problem solver, a great teacher, a phenomenal creative writer.
And a target.
Gifted as she is, she is afraid to tell anyone of her
condition, other than close friends, for fear of getting “the look.” You know that look; people who suffer from
any kind of mental illness get it all the time and, in fact, are used to it, if
not all together comfortable with it. It
can be so disapproving that people who are beset with mental health disorders— bipolar,
anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, post traumatic stress— and of course, chronic
depression, are even apprehensive telling non-treating physicians about certain
telltale medications they are taking, for fear of being labeled, even by the
medical community.
I also know a man— a teacher, coincidentally— who suffered
quietly under the yoke of mental illness for many years. He had chronic depression, among other
issues. He suffered quietly because of the stigma associated with suffering
otherwise had he actually admitted he had such a problem. Remember, how someone perceives something is
the basis of their reality, whether anyone else perceives it that way or
not. He finally took his own life last
spring.
The stigma associated with mental illness needs to go the
way of calling someone who is developmentally disabled a “retard,” or someone
who is physically disabled a “cripple.”
Usually, I am the first in line to scoff at people’s efforts
to be politically correct (PC), as it seems more like keeping up with fads and
trends rather than following sensible logic. Thanks to some serious effort by
caregivers, educators, and the public in general, words like retard, stupid,
dumb, idiot, feeble, moron, and simple, to describe someone who is
developmentally disabled, have become politically incorrect. As a result, the conditions associated with being
developmentally disabled have received more positive attention over the past
couple of decades.
It takes a gargantuan effort to change the way a society
thinks and speaks. Most of it is
cultural, and imbued into the very laws we now use to enforce the rights of
those in need. For example, right up
until 2007, California law said, “…idiots were one of six types of people who
are not capable of committing crimes.” The word idiot was subsequently amended to read, “…persons who are mentally
incapacitated...”
The same efforts went into changing our semantics for the words
we used to use identify people with physical limitations and disabilities: handicapped,
invalid, deformed, cripple, gimp, lame.
People today are not called by these idioms; rather, they are physically disabled, or PD, for the
super savvy PC crowd.
Again, the results of this clean up of our semantics has included,
among other things, laws that now require specific accommodations for those
with physical disabilities. The “Americans
with Disabilities Act” became law in 1991, providing comprehensive civil rights
protection for people with disabilities.
The developmentally disabled, mentally deficient,
intellectually incapacitated, or physically disabled person is that way because
of congenital defects, or the result of an accident or a disease. Generally speaking, the overwhelming majority
of people who fall into this category have not chosen to fall into this category.
Here is the [my] $64,000 question then: why is it still ok to use words like
disturbed, nuts, confused, psycho, spastic, crazy, mad, insane, loony, mental,
schizo, thick, weird, freak, odd, problem, screw loose, demented, toys in the
attic, whacky, and twisted, when describing someone who has a psychological or
psychiatric deficiency, or mental illness?
Why does society in general still think that it’s acceptable at best,
and funny at worst?
While it is tempting to compartmentalize diseases— and
science does— putting them in predetermined categories for the sake of
efficient classification (such as physical, mental, emotional), we have to
remember that all systems are
connected; all systems affect the
other systems.
Did you know that the major difference between the onsets of
an apparent physical disease such as cancer and an apparent mental disease such
depression is that the chemical triggers that lead to cancer cause rogue cell
growth, whereas the same chemical triggers that cause depression cause a
precipitous dip in the brain’s serotonin levels? Point is, both
imbalances are caused by the chemistry in our bodies— yet one is treated as a
disease, the other is treated as a pariah.
Neither condition
is chosen by the victim.
Approximately 1 in 10 adults in the United Stated is
considered “depressed.” That is a
staggering 25 million people. According to save.org, a suicide watchdog group
on the Internet, 15% of those who are diagnosed
clinically depressed, or about 40,000 people, die by suicide. Since the “success rate” of an attempted
suicide is somewhere around 1 in 25, that means that around a million people try
and “fail” to take their own lives.
Why is such a stigma affixed to mental illness in the United
States? Why is it still ok to say, “He’s
nuts,” while tapping the forehead poignantly?
The answer might lie in gender roles.
More women will be diagnosed with some form of mental illness than will
men, to the tune of 40%. Is this because
men in our society are expected to be “strong?”
To not admit to a weakness that in a man could be perceived as more of a
character flaw?
It’s hard to diagnose and subsequently treat a person if
they don’t tell anyone they’re suffering.
It’s ironic, in that this gender reversal is similar/opposite to the
recently revealed studies that show that a woman complaining of chest pains is
less likely to receive the urgency of care than a man does with the same
complaints. In today’s world where both the male and the female have to work,
both sexes now face almost identical stressors that would have been unheard of
even thirty years ago.
In Conclusion, today we have huge campaigns urging us to get
regular mammograms to avoid breast cancer, prostate exams to avoid prostate
cancer, colonoscopies to avoid colon cancer.
We’re bombarded with commercials telling us what’s good for us, what’s
bad for us, what has antioxidants, whole fiber, low fat. What to eat, drink, wear, drive.
When was the last time you heard something about mental
health screenings? When was the last
time you saw a movie or heard a song or read a book that didn’t use disturbed, nuts, confused, psycho, spastic, crazy, mad,
insane, loony, mental, schizo, thick, weird, freak, odd, problem, screw loose,
demented, toys in the attic, whacky, or twisted in a derogatory way about
someone suffering from mental illness?
It’s not ok to
call someone “crazy.” It’s not ok to use the term “nuts” when not
referring to a legume.
© Ray Cattie
2 comments:
The Stigma of Mental Health: Redux
March 30, 2014 at 9:17pm
This essay was originally published on August 18, 2013. I am putting it out there again because of the recent article from the “Delco Daily Times” about the one year anniversary of Paige Aiello, a 22 year-old student from NJ who took her own life last year. It's also for 19 year-old Madison Holleran, a U of P student who jumped to her death in January, Elvis Hatcher, another U of P student who hanged himself, and all of the other people— young and old— who have despaired.
The Stigmata of Mental Health: III
April 12, 2014 at 12:32pm
On Wednesday, April 9, 2014, Fox (through the local Philadelphia affiliate “MyFoxPhilly.com”) posted a story about Sandra Suarez, a 41year-old woman who, in a manic episode of an obviously under-medicated bi-polar disorder, stripped and (among other things) went on a rampage, totaling the inside of a McDonalds in Pinellas County, Florida. She then resisted arrest— violently, according to the police.
Upon posting bail and being released, Ms. Suarez said she had little to no recollection of the incident, also a classic symptom of a manic episode of bi-polar disorder. The Columbian woman lives with her two children and her mother, and now says she may retreat back to Columbia over the stigma this could cause her kids. The video, of course, went viral.
Folks, what Ms. Suarez went through is the very definition of what happens when someone suffering from bi-polar disorder is in the grips of a manic episode. Sometimes it’s not a result of skipped medication; sometimes the medication just doesn't work.
Just ask someone with cancer, another disease that strikes without invitation.
The posts that were attached to the article are symptomatic and representative of the state of mental health in this country. Again, it's not ok to call someone “nutty,” “crazy,” “loony,” or any of the other insensitive terms the compassion-challenged use to refer to something that they obviously do not understand.
Remember, there but for the grace of God go you. But then again, that would imply compassion, and compassion is an unfortunate casualty of this semantic war.
Ultimately, Fox should have actually taken the post down, as the majority of responses included an “lol,” a “lmao,” or some other type of laugh. They were not laughing at the circumstances, they were laughing at the woman herself, like a bully who has just pulled the pants off a kid on stage at an assembly in front of the entire school.
Such charmingly ignorant responses as:
“Ahahahaaaaa!! Whack jobs... Gotta love em,” by Marianne Hafer, who then goes on to further quantify her ignorance with, “That's like schizophrenic. I know bi polar ppl and they don't act like that.”
“Hideous nutty beast!” by Greg Ivanovs.
“One word.....CRAZY!” by Loretta Sicilia.
It’s not a case of First Amendment rights; it’s a case of compassion. You have the “right” to call
someone in a wheelchair a “cripple.” You also have the “right” to call someone who is mentally challenged a “retard.” But for the most part you don’t, because the members of those groups are recognized as having rights that compassion says supersedes your rights to slur them. We need to advocate for mental health every day, with everything we do and say. It’s not that hard— just be aware of when you use words that might be offensive.
And remember, we are all complicated, chemical computers— wetware, if you will, to a computer’s software. Computers go haywire all the time. We do as well— all of us.
There but for the grace of God go I.
Full story link here:
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/25203575/2014/04/09/videotaped-fast-food-rampage
Post a Comment