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| Ragged Edge EXTRA!
READ Better Justice Through Chemistry: Does the new Court standard really protect our rights? READ The Lack of Survivor Representation in U. S. Mental Health Policy READ Drugging Dr. Sell |
People with psychiatric disabilities: An Oppressed People By Jack Bragen The prejudice that people with psychiatric disabilities are forced to face go beyond levels of hardship that our mainstream population would believe possible. Yet "mentally ill" people do not receive sympathy and admiration, but are looked upon with disdain, prejudice and condescension. We are deprived of the fundamental resource that nearly all people take for granted: the mind.
For many persons with a psychiatric disability, the treatments given to them which are supposedly intended to make them get well turn out to be almost as disabling as the original disorder. They impair one's ability to perform at a job, because they sharply limit the energy level of one's entral nervous system -- this is just the first in a list of perhaps dozens of possible bad effects of medications. The second great problem is the so-called "helping professionals." They can be a great source of of degradatory and stigma messages. While helping professionals are glad to help themselves to onešs Medicare payments, many do not believe in the worth and potential of their clientele. (In some hospitals, "treatment" consists of tying a person up in restraints, often with the person stark naked.) It's no wonder people with mental illnesses reject the "treatment" offered them whenever they can. Yet the clients' rights movements run by psychiatric survivors often promote rejecting medication or other treatment. The problem though is that, without treatment, mental illnesses do get worse. We are belittled by family members: "why canšt you do as well as your brother?" We are told we are failures; we are "not trying hard enough." Telling a person with a psychicatric disability to "get over it" is akin to expecting your laptop computer to replace its own Pentium chip. Mentally ill people are frowned upon, discriminated against, stereotyped, and abused -- simply because it is harder for us to defend ourselves. We are a convenient group to pick on. Yet we must somehow produce insight, where insight didnšt exist before, about the fact that we are ill. We need to be able to function in society despite a chaotic mind. We need need to teach the self what is real and whatšs unreal, to deal with phobias, depression, lack of social skill, the side effects of the medications Stating these things does not dojustice to the magnitude of the obstacles. Those of us who experience even a fifty percent recovery are some of the strongest, most persistent of human beings. Many who are able to return to the mainstream stay in the closet: you have met people who have a mental disability, but you would never suspect. Persons with psychiatric disabilities are perceived by our culture as sick or depraved, or even perhaps as less than human, much the way people of color were once perceived five or more decades ago. Stereotyped as violent people who commit horrible crimes, most of us are non-violent, and are more often victims of violent crime than its perpetrator. We are the last minority in our country, a scapegoat, blamed for having a disease that we cannot control. We are not the luckiest of people, but we are some of the bravest. Posted Sept. 22, 2003 Jack Bragen is a freelance writer who has been dealing with schizophrenia since 1982. He lives in the East Bay area of California. WHAT DO YOU THINK of what you've just read? Click to tell us.
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