Taboo

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in four adults – approximately 57.7 million Americans – suffer from mental illness in any given year. It also states that only one-third of those suffering receive treatment. Mental Illness: Facts and Numbers

In 400 B.C. mentally ill people were treated scientifically and taken care of at home by their families. The Middle Ages brought the belief in demons as the logical explanation for mental abnormality. Exorcism was the course of treatment.

Over the next 1500 years, people with mental illness were progressively shunted into the dark, dropped in mental institutions, mistreated, and ignored by society. In the last 100 years, mentally ill people have taken up the ranks of the homeless and imprisoned, while the mental institutions are overrun, overworked, and understaffed. Timeline: Treatments for Mental Illness

Beyond the statistics and realities of what we do with people who suffer from mental illness, there is the underlying issue of how we react to mental illness in our society. For hundreds of years we have rejected what is different from us, what we do not understand: different races, cultures, religions, lifestyles, sexual orientation. Instead of focusing on our similarities, we have divided each other based on any differences we see, assume, or even simply suspect.

My husband and I just recently bought a house in a new neighborhood. My husband goes out to visit with anyone he sees. I avoid my neighbors because I have a hard time imagining what we could possibly have in common. I am afraid of rejection, of not being understand, of finding no common ground. I limit my chances for making new friends, new connections, learning new things by cutting myself off from these potential relationships.

Even though I know what I’m missing out on, I still keep to myself because opening up to new people is too risky. There are many people who don’t understand or know what to say when I tell them that I have a mental illness. Mental Illness is misunderstood because it is taboo and as a result remains shrouded in confusion, misinformation, and missing facts.

I have helped perpetuate the problem by remaining silent. Fear is always what stops us from revealing ourselves. Well, I will speak through my fear because opening up about myself is the only tool I have to help overcome the mental illness taboo.

Listen up. I will not hide in the darkness any more.

Single Post Navigation

← Older Entry

Newer Entry →