Columns

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: What is Normal?

Jack Bragen
Friday January 29, 2016 - 12:46:00 PM

I had never heard the word "normalcy" until George H. W. Bush spoke it when running against Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton played saxophone, and admitted to smoking marijuana, but said, "I did not inhale."

When mentally ill, you are not considered "normal."

What is that? Is normal when the NRA uses intimidation on members of Congress so that weapons of mass destruction, namely assault-type firearms, will be in the hands of anyone and everyone who wants them? Is normal obliterating the functioning government of Iraq, believing that its citizens would accept a U.S. "installed" government? Is normal living in a neighborhood where it isn't safe to go out at night, or during daylight hours, or at any time, and where it isn't safe even to remain in one's own roach-infested home?

Is it "normal" to shun people because of them having a psychiatric disability, one that at times affects behavior?  

Society in the past twenty years has really changed. We live in an atmosphere of surveillance, suspicion, paranoia, and life imitating both fiction and the delusions of schizophrenic people. Beliefs that once were considered paranoid delusional are now widely accepted by most people as facts of life. The line between fact and fantasy has blurred.  

Someone who suffers from cancer isn't thought of as "abnormal." Often such a person is considered "brave" and receives all manner of sympathy and "get well" wishes. However, someone with a psychiatric illness, which they didn't cause, is considered depraved, "an animal," crazy, and a lesser form of human.  

Mental illness affects behavior. People are intolerant of those whose behavior doesn't meet the expected "norms."  

Persons informed about mental illness point to lack of insight into one's condition, considered one of the symptoms that many people experience who are schizophrenic. But what about the lack of insight of people who are uninformed about mental illness, and who believe people with mental illness are "crazy" or "a psychotic." Society doesn't have enough tolerance toward persons with psychiatric diagnoses.  

Are people with mental illness "abnormal"? This is yet another way of propagating hate.  

Many people love to have a good scapegoat. I experienced that when I was in a car accident the day that followed my father's ashes being dumped just past the Golden Gate Bridge. I was distracted by my intense grief and by my wife talking on her cellphone. Citizens who showed up at the scene of the accident, to help, concluded that I was texting. The driver of the other vehicle wanted to start a fistfight with me.  

What is normal? Is normal being a bodybuilder who takes steroids and builds up muscle to the extent that of not looking human? Do we really need to have a great "six pack of abs"? Is it normal to own a billion dollars while others can't afford to feed themselves? 

I have news for you; people with mental illness are normal people with a commonly occurring neurobiological condition. Most mentally ill people are good, considerate individuals. We deserve a fair shake in life, a chance at the pursuit of happiness, promised by our Constitution. When employers discriminate against us, when social circles exclude us, when we are criminalized and presumed to be up to no good, it hurts us.  

In the old days, people pinned buttons on their shirts that had slogans, such as the "win buttons" of President Gerald Ford, which stood for "Whip Inflation Now." A different organization entirely, a self-help group of mental health consumers, had a button that said, "Why be normal?" Too many people are too concerned with not appearing as though they lack any defects or differences. However, we do not all have to be the same. 

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Here is a reminder that my new release, a memoir titled: "Schizophrenia: My 35-Year Battle" is now available on Amazon.