I am going to speak on a topic and tread through some waters very foreign to me, and yes, I already hear the voices, "Drop the mike! Ignorant points of view are the disease of humanity!" And I agree with this, but I am daring to question a challenging part of society that I am beginning to wonder, outside of experts and those with deeply personal experiences, if anyone really has a good understanding of this.
What I am speaking of is mental illness. Now, I do not have the knowledge to label what is and what is not considered mental illness, I tend to fall under the belief that any of us are one chemical imbalance away from mental instability, so defining who falls under this category is a very, very broad scale and more commonplace than we may realize. What I am referring to is a level of mental illness manifested in an individual, disabling them from functioning in society with the accepted "norms" or behaviors a civilized culture expects. Norms are relative however, and a person suffering to a degree of mental illness experiences a different set of norms than mentally healthy individuals. But therein lies the struggle. If their mind gives them a different capacity to accept norms than ours does, how does that work in a society that strictly operates on what is considered "acceptable" and "non-acceptable" behavior. These individuals experiencing extreme levels of mental illness don't fit in. Anywhere. Over the past fifteen years I have watched a friend go from social awkwardness to full-blown schizophrenia. I have been with him to clinics to get medications, nothing has worked. I have taken a tour of an advocacy center in our city with him, a place focused on mental health and community, but he never went back. And now, I have learned to accept the possibility that his mental state will never change, and could keep getting worse. Unfortunately, that is the reality for a lot of people, their mental illness may not ever go away, and it has a good chance of further developing. My friend walks the streets constantly, he talks to himself, he yells at himself, sometimes he carries a mirror and talks into it. He doesn't take care of his appearance and though he has a parents home to go home to, he prefers to sleep outside. Sometimes when I see him, he is cognisant and we can have an in-and-out conversation, half-way in his mind, half-way in my presence. Sometimes when I see him, he is fully engaged with the voices in his mind, and can not quiet them long enough to acknowledge my presence. I have learned to accept this, and based on what state of mind he is in when I see him, I meet him there. Sometimes we sit in silence for very long periods of time, sometimes we have spotty conversations, sometimes we laugh and talk pretty presently. One day I asked him to grab a bite to eat, thinking this was an easy concept. But I was shocked when the first place we went to stopped us at the door and pulled me aside telling me that I was allowed to come inside, but my friend wasn't. Apparently, he had "scared" some customers in the past. Turns out, there was word on the street in many local businesses to not allow him inside. To this day, I know one coffee shop that accepts him. The other day, as I sat by the river, this same friend walked by and sat down with me. After about fifteen minutes, some guys walked passed in a group and signaled to me and mouthed, "Are you okay?" I signaled back that I was okay and they walked on. Later, I went to talk to them. I told them that while, I appreciated their concern, I knew this person. They told me that they saw him and were concerned that he was making me feel uncomfortable. It seemed necessary to let them know that he is not a "Weird" person, he just struggles with mental illness. While I understood how an outsider could be cautious, it is so disheartening that my friend is viewed as someone who makes others feel uncomfortable not because of anything he has done to cause this, but because something mentally going on inside of him. But the inevitable frustration here is that civilization's "norms" disable mainstream society from integrating the norms of a person experiencing a mental disorder. At the end of the day, no matter how compassionate a person may be, if they own a business, their instinct is to make sure their customers are comfortable and satisfied, so someone yelling things out and talking to themselves would not work in that setting. Same with families, as loving and giving as parents may be, when they walk by a man struggling with something like schitzophrenia, their tendency is to pull their children away, for concern for their child's safety. So then who accepts these individuals? The sad part is, in a lot of cases, the absence of community, or long periods of isolation has contributed to an individual struggling with mental illnesses' problems to begin with. Then, as their behavior develops, it becomes unacceptable in society, and that community and human contact that can save them from their otherwise tormenting isolation, is not there. Sometimes with my friend, I feel such agony for his plight. Where is the hope? I wonder. I found him lying on the side of the river bank recently with a face swollen and bright red, his left eye was barely noticeable behind the puffy face. It appeared that he had been stung or was having an allergic reaction to something he was in contact with. About 20 feet away were on-site first responders for the often chaotic summer river crowd. No one had noticed, and in a state of mind like his, he didn't have the ability to advocate for himself and get the treatment he needed to be nursed back to help. In some cases, someone struggling with mental health has an advocate, someone to help their loved one get the treatment they need and assist them as they continue to function in society. In many cases, there is no one. And often, this leads to the "scary" individuals we find wandering the streets, as if they are homeless. I don't have any answers for a solution to this, perhaps this is why I write this. I am afraid it is something we go about our day barely noticing or thinking of and when we are faced with it, we are scared and feel uncomfortable. And the disconnect between the healthy and unhealthy minded people is further and further enhanced. Perhaps we just need to notice that these are real people. Many times, people become mentally unstable because of trauma they have experienced in their life, it wasn't like they were just born strange people, something in their life sparked an imbalance in their mind. Some of us have community to support us through struggles, otherwise we all know we are one step away from going down deeply unhealthy mental pathways in our own life. But what if these individuals we see wandering the streets, talking to themselves, looking aimless and rugged just didn't have anyone in their life to advocate for them during hard, traumatic times of life? So maybe our response shouldn't be fear and isolating people that seem strange or too "homely" to feel comfortable around. And maybe we shouldn't consider our "acceptable norms" the only way. Sometimes I feel hopeless when I see my friend, that nothing I can do will help him, all I know is that ignoring him is not the answer. And maybe I don't need to help him, maybe I just need to accept him. When he can't speak to me, the only thing I have to give is acknowledgement, saying hello, giving him a hug, and at least he will have experienced human eye-contact and touch at least once that day. That's got to count for something. So, as much as I don't understand why someone has to go through something so tormenting and many of us escape life without ever experiencing anything like this, the best thing I have learned to do is accept that it is there, and refuse to let fear of the unknown keep me from acknowledging human existence. Perhaps we can all start with at least acknowledging the human inside of even the strangest person we pass. I know enough about mental health statistics to know that this could truly be any of us.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorKatie Elizabeth: Writer, Wonderer, Wanderer. Archives
August 2020
Categories |