What happened recently in Virginia has been hashed over so many times that I have little original to say about the tragedy but I will tell one story to heighten awareness regarding those who silently suffer from a mental illness. It is clear the young man who killed those people and then himself was mentally ill. This doesn't bring back the dead or get him posthumous help.
But I will reflect to you all what a patient of mine once commented when another mentally ill individual made the headlines years ago. She felt that every time an outrageous act is attributed to mental illness, it becomes all that much harder to focus on the fact that most mentally ill individuals never harm a soul, don't do scary things and don't act "crazy." There are no news headlines about how someone with a mental illness holds a job, raises a family and donates money to the charity of his/her choice. Occasionally a celebrity "comes out" about his or her Bipolar Disorder, Depression or OCD, or Oprah parades a few folks on her show, but it is never enough to make my patient feel that she doesn't have to apologize to the world for her illness.
Enough said.
See Diary of a Goldfish for more.
8 comments:
great points & well-said. so many suffer silently.
Indeed. Enough said.
Fabulous post! You are spot-on!
Thanks for speaking up about this. Nice to meet another ally of pwd :)
Very true, Sarala. Thank you for the reminder.
Oh, so true.
Great post.
I used to feel that I had to describe my own particular mental dysfunctional labels to all new friends. I always felt that it wouldn't be long before they would figure out there was something wrong with me, best to get it out in the open, right? As I got older, however, I realized that no one is truly 'normal', that many people were pottier than I was and they didn't even have comfortable little lables to fall back on. So, now I no longer feel the need to tell, and I no longer identify with others who are mentally afflicted. It's very freeing.
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