Published in Mental Health News
“Stigma is broadly defined as a collection of adverse and unfair beliefs. The stigma around mental health most often leads to the inaccurate and hurtful objectification of people as dangerous and incompetent. The shame and isolation associated with stigma prevent people from seeking the help necessary to live healthy and full lives.” Bring Change 2 Mind. http://bringchange2mind.org/learn/what-is-stigma/
This new face of mental illness is no longer just the homeless, unwashed individuals we see and try not to see. It is no longer the distant relatives spoken about in whispers of shame. It is no longer those spending a lifetime hidden away in institutions. Just a few generations past, families rarely discussed mental illness. Maybe whispers behind closed doors and especially behind the closed, cold institutions where treatment was short-sighted, cruel and incomplete or incompetent.
The new faces are on food pantry lines, using food stamps and are alone in a small apartments doing their best trying to exist. They are parents trying to keep their lives in a semblance of rationality with children growing, spouses working, bills to be paid. They are students of all ages facing the horrors of bullying, peer pressure and the loneliness of a college campus. They are your coworkers struggling to put their two feet on the floor when the alarm rings, awakening them to the depths of depression. They are your companions on that crowed bus or train holding back that panic attack. And they are the person in the next cubicle fearful of that next mistake bringing an anxiety attack. These are the success stories we have today.
This new face of mental illness is in a slow evolutionary development. Those of my generation, born in the late 1950’s, if fortunate received care when crisis arose – with care continuing as an outpatient with better medications, stronger therapeutic methods (CDT, DBT), and receiving greater respect. Today, I am proud to see – even with all its faults, misdiagnosis, sometimes poor guidance counseling – early intervention programs for the youngest of sufferers. Therapies – physical, speech, non-pharmaceutical to medications whose complexities are only now being understood.
We are out there in all walks of life. Hidden, fearful of the secret exposed yet needing, wanting to trust and let friendships grow in a society where immaturity out numbers maturity, where fear overrides common sense, and a culture where the profit margin overrules the positive human traits of loyalty and a workers pride.
The Eight Degrees of Charity. “The highest degree is to aid a poor man by giving him a gift or a loan or by forming a partnership with him, or by providing work for him in order to make him more self-supporting and without need of welfare assistance.” Maimonides
There is a city in Belgium – Geel that could be an example to every community in this country. It has a unique history relating to the martyred fate of Catholic St. Dymphna, fleeing a marriage to her father. It is a short, true tale whose faith led to the unique way the mentally ill are treated. Here families open their doors and lives, inviting the well managed mentally ill individual to join their family, becoming a permanent member, living, working, doing chores like any biological member. Here is a success based on centuries of tradition and faith. Our nation, based on Judeo-Christian values has enormous difficulties with even the idea of group homes. We just don’t trust the system – and there are good reasons.
Our society continues to increase its knowledge about mental illness, but the pace is too slow. We are ascending a mountain of despair, making progress in areas of medical research, social acceptance, early intervention and continuing education. We work, have relationships and some started families. That is our success, but there are still too many voices of ignorance and folly, too many quality jobs that can be filled by us and too many financial constraints (think insurance providers) that make this ascension difficult.
Success depends upon the view of the beholder, their loved ones and confidants. It does not entail one as being accomplished at all facets of life. Successful lives can focus on careers, emotional stability and/or family issues, not just the dollar value of what our society dictates and measures.
Cultural success also depends on how we view progress and comparisons to the past, to other cultures, to our faith and our beliefs in the tenets of our God’s will. It depends on how we quantify statistics – taking and grouping human lives into numbers without losing sight that each number represents a person, someone’s child, someone’s parent, a soul, a child of God.
Today, can a Senator Eagleton ever be re-elected to office or a Churchill, or a Lincoln – all of whom suffered from depression? And do we still see addiction as a weakness, a character flaw or as an illness? And when will we learn to properly incarcerate those with mental health issues from the criminal population in our over taxed prison systems.
“When we get together with all of our neighbors, what do we do? Do we build a house, raise a barn, glean the corn, bale the hay, march in parade, listen to patriotic speeches, play music, compete in games of skill or speed or strength, sing songs, honor the dead, or fall to our knees in prayer? Do we in fact do anything with our neighbors?” How to Identify a Healthy Culture, By Anthony Esolen, June 1, 2015 Crisis Magazine.
The new face of mental illness may have changed but the world looks and sees nothing different. They look without really seeing. God chose the weak, the frail. Our culture only seeks strength.
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Glenn Slaby Blog