still thinking out loud …

when and why do people get to talk about mental health?

there seem to be certain circumstances that make it more acceptable or easy to talk about mental health. as i am writing this i am telling myself that i need to be careful not to sound too cranky. “the curmudgeonly old advocate” is not a role that i am very well suited for. but it’s tempting, people, it’s tempting …

the truth is, there seems to be an unconscious fear of contagion. “if i get too close to you, will i catch your depression/anxiety/schizophrenia?” in a very, very roundabout way, it’s understandable where this comes from. we are sensitive to others’ emotion. harvard researchers, for example, found that happiness can be contagious (thanks for the reminder, aaron). i’ll be looking up research on “contagiousness” of mental illness as well.

however, some, perhaps much, of this fear is irrational. you don’t get the cooties from hanging out with someone with anxiety or PTSD. my (as yet unresearched) theory is that the irrational fear stems from old, instinctual fears that arose during times when humanity did not have the science to detect that the majority of diseases arise from causes such as bacteria, malnutrition, unsanitary practices or chemical imbalances.

all this is to say that when there is this fear of contagion, you talk about mental illness at your own risk. this fear seems to be strongest in the presence of ignorance. you know the silence that sits in a room like a rock when someone has the guts to say something like, “i wasn’t here last week because my meds got adjusted and i had to go to the hospital for a few days”? this thick, heavy, dense silence typically comes from fear and ignorance. fear and ignorance that OCD is contagious, but also lack of knowledge of what to say. we, the ones who know about mental illness first-hand, aren’t the only ones who don’t know how to talk about it. those who don’t know have even less of a clue.

so when is it a good time to talk about mental illness? since fear seems to be the problem here, the answer may just be, “when it’s safe.” that means situations like

• when you’re in the presence of others with mental health issues (which is one of the major benefits of mental health camp)
• when mental illness is far away, when others have it (e.g. when psychiatrists talk amongst each other; that is, psychiatrists who either don’t have a diagnosis themselves or if they have it, they’re secretive quiet about it)
• to a lesser degree, when there is a “good reason” to have a mental health issue

yup, we’re coming back to the ignorance (and also to the cranky curmudgeon, apparently i can’t escape that role right now) because, you see, mental illness is apparently the kind of thing you only have a right to have (just for a short while, of course) if you have a “good reason”. a bit of postpartum depression is ok, about 3.5 weeks of depression caused by grief is ok, and if you’ve been raped or spent months in a crazy war, you’re also allowed to go off the rails for a little while. maybe.

someone i know is dealing with the acute, deep end of bipolar disorder right now. his family is pissed off; what is he doing going to the hospital when there are so many important things to do right now? and hasn’t he been to the hospital before and he still gets those silly crying jags, so clearly it doesn’t work? what a nuisance! mental health issues, like many other invisible illnesses, don’t seem to really exist for a lot of people, they are often treated like annoying idiosyncrasies.

boy, do i ever sound negative. let’s end with something a bit more uplifting. let’s think of a few more circumstances (the “why”) when it is at least somewhat safe to talk about mental health issues:

• when the topic is to erase stigma
• in art – literature, music, visual art, dance
• in research

any more ideas?