"What do you mean, not right in the head? she asked.
"Well, he just doesn't behave like, um, normal people," he answered.
"I guess at times his behaviour may seem a bit odd to some of us, but perhaps to him it is normal? she answered.
Here is a scary word, well two actually: Mental illness.
According to some stats, one in four people will experience some form of mental illness/disorder in their lives.
So what is it? Like many illnesses such a gallstones, cancer, diabetes, etc., mental illness is a medical condition, and those who have mental disorders struggle to cope with everyday life because of their symptoms just like a diabetic, or epileptic may struggle with theirs.
The most common mental illnesses are anxiety and depressive disorders.
Most of us go through times when we feel stressed out, tensed to the max, down in the dumps, anxious for the future, our kids, friends, loved ones and so on, that is just part of being a human, but when the feelings become so strong that they overwhelm us and we can no longer function properly i.e., we find ourselves unable to cope, then something more serious may be going on.
Depression is not the same as feeling a bit sad occasionally, anxiety disorder is not the same as being a bit worried, PTSD(post traumatic stress disorder) is not the same as having bad memories, bi-polar disorder is not the same as having good and bad days, schizophrenia is not the same as feeling paranoid about your boss finding out about you skiving.
Mental illness is neither a sign or caused by personal weakness; the causes can be genetic, biological, social or environmental in origin, in other words it is not a character flaw.
People with a mental illness can get better with the appropriate treatment and live productive and satisfying lives.
Just like a diabetic can learn to manage his/her illness with proper medication, so can people with a mental illness.
However, in many societies, there is a stigma attached to mental illness. Someone with a broken leg for instance, often receives more sympathy than someone with a "broken" mind.
Why does mental illness scare so many of us?
May I suggest that we are scared of it because there is still so much to learn about it, not to mention overcoming the stereotyping that often goes along with the term, and although we are getting better at understanding and dealing with it, much about it still hovers in the "unknown".
Hollywood may have to change their portrayal of people with mental illnesses to help us lose the very scary image of people with mental health disorders they have immortalised on the big screen.
(Halloween, American Horror story: Asylum, Silence of the Lambs, et cetera.)
On the positive side:
Some suggest that Winston Churchill, Vincent van Gogh, Ludwig van Beethoven, suffered with bi-polar disorder, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Edward Munch, suffered with depression, but we all know about their great contributions inspite of their illnesses.
Most of us humans desire certainty and control, predictability and stability, and people suffering with mental illnesses at times may defy all the above, and this may scare us because we don't know how to deal with it. My son suffers with bi-polar disorder and there has been many times when I have felt absolutely clueless as to how to help or understand him. How does one splint a "broken" mind?
My conclusion: education, knowledge and understanding. Toss blame and denial, and go with being supportive, understanding and patient.
“Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behaviour that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good.”
(Theodore Kaczynski)
"The perilous highs, and desperate lows, and extravagant flurries of mood are not always symptoms of a broken mind, but signs of a beating heart." (Terri Cheney)
Perhaps it time for us to drag the stigma attached to mental illness out of the shadow and have an "enlightened" look at it?
Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/society_quotes.html#yX3WUBsOzG0zrXSl.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/society_quotes.html#yX3WUBsOzG0zrXSl.99
Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/society_quotes.html#yX3WUBsOzG0zrXSl.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/society_quotes.html#yX3WUBsOzG0zrXSl.99
Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/society_quotes.html#yX3WUBsOzG0zrXSl.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/society_quotes.html#yX3WUBsOzG0zrXSl.99
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