The news of Robin Williams’s suicide
sent me spinning. I recalled his interviews where he admitted his struggle with
substance abuse and depression. The two often go hand-in-hand because many
people with depression “self-medicate” with alcohol or drugs. I don’t want to
go into the biology of the brain when considering both addiction and
depression, but I do want to talk about the label “Mental Illness.”
Why do we treat individuals
suffering from brain chemistry disorders as though they are second class
citizens needing to feel shame for their differences? We section off mood and
psychotic disorders into an entirely separate category from the rest of our
bodies, and that differentiation impacts how our society views wellness. We
cling to a mindset that illnesses that affect the brain and personality are personal
weaknesses.
No one blames the patient who slowly
slips away with Alzheimer’s disease, nor ridicules the Parkinson sufferer for not
controlling his motions. Instead, we run marathons to find cures for these
diseases. And yet we treat patients with depression as though they’ve done something
wrong. They are somehow responsible for the malfunctioning within their brains.
If they really wanted to, they could “snap out of it” because they have good
lives—people who love them, care for them.
By labeling an entire range of
disorders as “Mental Illness”, we’ve fooled ourselves into a belief system that
these diseases aren’t as important to treat or cure. Every time a tragedy rips through a family—like
with a suicide; or a society—like with a mass killing, we pretend to care. For
a week or two our media bombards us with signs, symptoms and treatments. But
nothing really changes.
And so sadness envelops us the day
after another loss. I’ll read all kinds of articles about “Mental Illness” and
feel frustrated because the label itself carries its negative connotations. And
labels make a difference to that fourteen-year-old girl starving herself to
shed another five pounds, to that seventeen-year-old who cuts herself just to “feel
something.” Labels make a difference to that mother who cannot bond with her
baby, to that alcoholic grandfather who must drink just to function.
Copyright 2014 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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