The following report appeared in a newspaper. Schizophrenia is a malady that can be treated. Have you ever heard anyone call any other serious illness … a malady?
There are people who believe that because mentally ill people have been dehumanized by language, it is not necessary to consider them or even believe that they have a brain disorder. . . and for that matter, wonder why they should they be provided with proper health care. Worse still, some of the worst offenders are those who work in the mental health system.
I interviewed a nursing aide in a psychiatric hospital and I am not proud of the fact that I led her to believe that I was doing research. She complied. (A small white lie?) She told me that she had once heard a doctor say; ‘I don’t have the time to examine him now; he’s a schizophrenic.’ He can wait.’ I have often written about my dislike of the word schizophrenic but it is worthy of repetition. It takes away the patient’s identity. I doubt whether you have ever heard of a person described as cancerous? Of course not.
On the other hand, I met a nurse who said; ‘The courage I have seen shown by some families with a mentally ill child never fails to astound me. The hurt and loss they experience knows no bounds. I believe that most of them remain in a perpetual state of grief throughout their lives because everything has been altered in a way that most people simply cannot understand unless they have experienced it themselves. We don’t have to understand it fully but we can become educated on the subject.
I abhor violence of any kind. Violence can occur when an ill person becomes psychotic and is not taking medication. One cannot administer meds forcefully, you know. In spite of all the talk of violence, people with a mental illness are less violent than those in the general population who are supposed to be ‘healthy.’
Please stop treating families of mentally ill people or those who abuse drugs and alcohol in a way that no other section of the population have to endure. Is it necessary for anyone to be treated without respect?
If I were the fairy princess in a children’s story, I would wave my magic wand and make everyone accept that every single person with a mental illness is human. The next thing would be to wave my wand over journalists worldwide to make them change their language when reporting about these unhappy people … our children. The third wave of my wand would be over researchers who are not moving fast enough to find a cure or a way to alleviate the suffering of mentally ill people and over governments who need to give more financial aid for their research. I doubt whether mental health has ever been a top priority.