"I am a crazy person" button. Mental Illness Awareness.
This blog post is intended to address the stigma, prejudice, and discrimination which persons with mental illness face in everyday life.
In my own personal experience: I have personally experienced at various times a lack of understanding of my feelings from family, friends, co-workers, and even church pastors.
I was hospitalized at a local psych hospital about 20 years ago, and I asked my pastor to visit and to add me to the church’s prayer list. He refused to do so, saying it would set a precedent, and that most people “like me” would not want the congregation to know they were in the hospital. The pastor’s reaction to my request created a new source of shame for me, so I soon found a new church home.
I believe this is not an unusual case scenario of what the stigma of mental illness can produce.
The worst case scenario of stigma leading to catastrophe for persons with disabilities was the German Third Reich under Adolph Hitler. The first minority groups to be sent to the slaughterhouses were those of persons with severe disabilities including mental illnesses.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum presented “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” which provoked reflection on the continuing attraction of biological utopias that promote the possibility of human perfection. From the early twentieth-century international eugenics movements to present-day dreams of eliminating inherited disabilities through genetic manipulation, the issues remain timely.” Source: The Key Update, May 2004, by the National Mental Health Consumer Clearinghouse.
Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision,
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense." from "The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics," September 2003.
How could such a crime against humanity have occurred? How did Adolph Hitler and his staff create the climate for such horrendous acts? The answer is mostly through manipulation of public opinion through propaganda. While the prejudice against Jews was already a problem, the Eugencis movement which originated in the US also created an environment of fear and hostility towards those with disabilities.
Do we have similar manipulation of opinion in the U. S. and other countries today? I would say the best answer is "yes" and "no."
"Characters in prime time television portrayed as having a mental illness are depicted as the most dangerous of all demographic groups: 60 percent were shown to be involved in crime or violence" (Mental Health American, 1999).
Today both stereotyping and creating violence hyping headlines are common in most newsrooms.
"The vast majority of news stories on mental illness either focus on other negative characteristics related to people with the disorder (e.g., unpredictability and unsociability) or on medical treatments. Notably absent are positive stories that highlight recovery of many persons with even the most serious of mental illnesses" (Dr. Otto Wahl, et al., 2002).
On the other hand, a promising program that addresses these problems with the media is the Voice Awards program by SAMHSA, an agency of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. The Voice Awards program honors consumer/peer leaders in recovery from mental and/or substance use disorders who play a vital role in raising awareness and understanding of behavioral health issues.
These leaders share their stories of resilience and recovery to reduce prejudice and discrimination associated with behavioral health conditions throughout the nation.
To achieve an equality of opportunity to jobs and housing, among other life goals, for persons with mental illness, it will take even more programs like the Voice Awards and much more use of targeted media and advertising campaigns. It is imperative that we convince the general population that those of us diagnosed with a mental illness are not all violent and therefore pose a threat to society.