I’m mentally ill. 

Let that sink in for a moment.  Pay attention to your reaction to that sentence.  Did it scare you a little?  Did you flash on images of Norman Bates or perhaps a school shooter?  Did you find yourself wondering if you should be listening to this show?  Do you regret that we’re friends?  (Most of the 50 or so people who listen are friends of mine.  If we’ve never met, thank you for listening!  I hope you don’t stop because of what I’ve just told you.)

I’m copying and pasting something a Facebook Friend of mine had on her page:

Geisinger just canceled my Psych appointment in July and made it for August.  THIS IS EXACTLY WHATS WRONG WITH MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT!! you wonder why people go ballistic and shoot people?  THIS.  THIS.  THIS.  I’m in a happy mood and I’m not gonna shoot anyone ever, but Geisinger taking on new patients while neglecting the ones that have been with them for THIRTY YEARS is BULLSHIT!!!

Obtaining mental health care is not easy.  And much of it is simply a set of cliches intended to help us deal with a world that is, itself, somewhat diseased.  We are supposed to spend our lives working, most of the time for someone else, (it’s roughly 2/3 of us, but it depends on whose statistics you’re reading) and being mostly miserable.  We’ve been taught we need to “earn a living” and those who don’t are bad people who deserve nothing from us.  We are expected to live a life within certain carefully prescribed boundaries, and to the extent we don’t we are “bad,” and undeserving. This, by itself, sets up the beginning of mental illness for many people.  Being happy is, we are told, to be bad.  If we make choices of which others don’t approve, we are, as I was told rather frequently last year, “scum of the Earth.”  If we hear often enough that we are bad, we are likely to begin to believe it.  Once we believe we are bad, we are likely to behave accordingly. 

Much of mental health care is an effort to get us to adapt to a world that we never asked to join.  H.G. Wells wrote about this in “The Valley of The Blind.”

 “I can see,” he said.

“See?” said Correa.

“Yes; see,” said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against Pedro’s pail.

“His senses are still imperfect,” said the third blind man.  “He stumbles, and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand.”

“As you will,” said Nunez, and was led along laughing.

It seemed they knew nothing of sight.

Well, all in good time he would teach them…

He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight.  “Look you here, you people,” he said.  “There are things you do not understand in me.”

Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with faces downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his best to tell them what it was to see.  Among his hearers was a girl, with eyelids less red and sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy she was hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade.  He spoke of the beauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise, and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently became condemnatory.  They told him there were indeed no mountains at all, but that the end of the rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end of the world; thence sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the dew and the avalanches fell; and when he maintained stoutly the world had neither end nor roof such as they supposed, they said his thoughts were wicked.  So far as he could describe sky and clouds and stars to them it seemed to them a hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of the smooth roof to things in which they believed–it was an article of faith with them that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch.  He saw that in some manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter altogether, and tried to show them the practical value of sight. 

He is, of course, unsuccessful.  He is, to The Valley of The Blind, mentally ill.  They truly want to help him, but he is unwilling to give up his sight, his vision of a better, more beautiful world.  He leaves to attempt to live on his own.

He tried also to find food among the pine trees, to be comfortable under pine boughs while the frost fell at night, and– with less confidence–to catch a llama by artifice in order to try to kill it–perhaps by hammering it with a stone–and so finally, perhaps, to eat some of it. But the llamas had a doubt of him and regarded him with distrustful brown eyes and spat when he drew near.  Fear came on him the second day and fits of shivering.  Finally he crawled down to the wall of the Country of the Blind and tried to make his terms.  He crawled along by the stream, shouting, until two blind men came out to the gate and talked to him.

“I was mad,” he said.  “But I was only newly made.”

They said that was better.

He told them he was wiser now, and repented of all he had done.

Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill now, and they took that as a favourable sign.

They asked him if he still thought he could see.”

“No,” he said.  “That was folly.  The word means nothing.  Less than nothing!”

Click to access Wells.pdf

And so it is that we ensure the mental health of those who dream of a better and more beautiful world.  We force them to accept our vision of reality if they want our help.  You may be like the rest of us, or you may shiver unprotected in the cold and starve.

What if we tried something different?  What if we tried to reshape our world into one where sight, or the idea that life doesn’t have to be the endless misery of hard, unfulfilling work, is acceptable?  What if we said, “We can automate most of our labor now.  We have the resources to feed and house and care for everyone on the planet without the need for them to waste the few minutes they get to be alive in exhausting and pointless pursuits.”? 

What if we allowed people to be different from most of us?  What if we decided that a person’s value has less to do with how much money they have and more to do with what they can do for others?  What if being a parent was the most important job anyone could have? 

If we’re going to say, “It’s a Mental Health Problem,” perhaps we could start by trying to improve the mental health of the world.  Perhaps we could accept differences instead of deciding those who aren’t like the majority are bad, or sick, or undeserving, but are, instead, part of the beautiful diversity of the world? 

If it’s a Mental Health Problem, perhaps we could make Mental Healthcare more accessible.  Perhaps we could remove the stigma from the statement, “I’m mentally ill.”  Maybe we could recognize there is more than one view of the universe that is valid.  We could understand that the world, the culture, and our society continue to grow, to evolve, and to become something new all the time, and we could welcome anything that allows someone to find the lives they want. 

What do we do?  I have three recommendations:

1.  Redefine Mental Health to mean that which allows a person the greatest freedom to be who they want to be without hurting anyone else.
2. Ensure that everyone who needs mental health care can get it free of charge and free from stigma.
3. Recognize the future is about recognizing the beauty of diversity, and stop longing for an imaginary past in which we (whomever we are) were in control and everyone was “normal” (whatever normal means to you.)

Heraclitus told us “Change is the only constant in life.”  Let’s accept that and embrace it, and try to make sure the changes add to our freedom to be who we want to be in the little time we have to experience the untold wonders of the Universe. 

Let’s lead with Love.  Let’s recognize there is no Them; we are all Us.  Those who are different are also part of Us.  And they make Us all the more beautiful. 

I’m mentally ill.  I’m doing my best to survive in a world that is, itself, somewhat mentally ill.  I’ll try to heal both myself and the world.  I hope you’ll join me in that effort.