Even Today, the Stigma of Mental Illness Won't Fade

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Be careful recognize that you have mental disabilities or these are easy example and Steps from Mental Disability to Jail.
Society, your neighbor, your friend, the public defender, the state prosecutor doesn’t care that you are sick or disable.
Sad is to see how many people with mental illness are treated badly by society. People with mental disabilities are treated like criminals and junkies. Some of these illnesses put human being in confinement and Jail because they are not able to cope with social reality. The lack of treatment, medications and medical insurance make most of them to get easy “drug” solutions to evade the painful reality.
Hundred of thousand of mentally ill 3rd hand citizens are in USA jails without treatment, abandon to their sick faith and no possibilities of mental or social rehabilitation.
Most mental illnesses are in cycle. Maybe it start early in your life maybe it start later.
In my case … on better to say my daughter was diagnostic bipolar II when she was 13 years old. Many up and downs many days in Mental Hospital because she was “involuntary emergency baker act” several times for several weeks. A day in a Mental Hospital for people without insurance is around $3400 (per day)
When she was 25 she was accused to steal a purse (she declared herself guilty to get Medical treatment and the prosecutor call her “junky” them she spend a year in jail). A year later she was founded inside a garage in a house with so much alcohol and drugs in her system that she s still doesn’t remember what happens. This time the Prosecutor asked to the court to put her away for life.
Need to mention:
1. that the 1st (purse deal) a friend in parole broke in to my daughters car can “recover” the evidence. That Parole’s friend is free of all charges.
2. The drug drunk case in the house. The prosecution (it was another police report) never investigate the issue that my daughter was playing billiard all night in a bar with the male roommate and late that night “suddenly” she becomes irrational and uncontrollable. Although she was irrational she pay her bill and left.
3. The prosecutor never read the Hospital record from the drug, drunk night at what it seems to be day drugs or amphetamines that were mixed in her drinks at the bar
Be careful don’t get mentally ill, don’t trust friends in parole, don’t trust roommates and don’t be ashamed to recognize that you are mentally disable.
My daughter will be in jail for 20 years and she is still thinking that she doesn’t need treatment, but sometimes she does need it ( these are the ups and downs of the mentally disable person)
NAMI “couldn’t” provide help because we could not afford a lawyer.
My wife is without work since 2009 soon we cannot pay for the apartment.

Juan of FL 9:58AM October 18, 2012

Stigma has to be written about. I blog from Israel about blame, shame and stigma and people listen because my family has been there. My son suffered from schizophrenia and is with us no more. I give talks , write articles and essays, blog, and my book, David's Story is in Amazon's Kindle Store. have just received a prize in the Israel Knesset for my volunteering work in this field.
Keep on blogging. every bit helps.
Jill Sadowsky

Jill Sadowsky of SC 12:46AM February 04, 2012

I had a psych professor at the U of Maryland say that you can talk to yourself as long as you don't answer yourself. Obviously, mental illness is drawn with a fine line. It is definitely not going to be the professionals that change the stigma, they make too much money off of it.

RRA of FL 12:18AM January 08, 2012

Sadly, I couldn't agree more. What's worse is families trying to get help for their loved ones are blamed for failing them and the mental illness their loved one is diagnosed with. This sadest scenario is the result of ignorant doctors, judges, district attorneys, patients rights advocates and failure of the mental health system in general. Patients rights advocates seem unaware that they help severely mentally ill die with their civil liberties around their necks; no different than a district attorney whose job is to prosecute whether defendant is guilty or not guilty. We need human beings not robots who fight for a cause that's killing people and destroying the very fabric of America Families. Many mental health directors and professionals seem more interested in rubbing elbows with politicians and the status quo for political gain and you got it; money and power. Mental health or behavioral directors along w/Patient Rights Advocates can be the biggest stumbling block in the stigma scenario and getting Assisted Outpatient Treatment. We're the only industrialized country who doesn't acknowledge those suffering w/severe mental illness needing intervention. It's an Insane policy in itself and makes no sense; we intervene for drug addicts, heart attack, stroke and cancer patients but no one intervenes on behalf of someone seriously mentally ill who is incapable of helping themselves and this is torturous and inhumane treatment. No one raises their hand for mental illness, it's a chemical imbalance, some much worse than others. What surprises me also is Amnesty International keeps fighting for people in other countries while our own people are being treated like criminals and being abused by the system and left to rot in jails or prisons without any treatment. When the brain is dead most are taken off of life support. Why? Because the brain controls life, emotion, movement etc. That's what makes the Stigma of mental illness so INSANE in itself. People are ignorant because of denial or refusal to educate themselves just as in the days of the civil right movement. Only these days the mentally ill have NO rights. What's needed are parents and families of loved ones suffering with this debilitating illness to storm the capitol (through judicial process) and NAMI needs to bombard television commercials with info and stats on mental illness. For example, Autism Foundation has a tv commercial in our faces continuously, (1 in 110) children develop autism. I'm sorry but (1 IN 4) families are affected by mental illness and many who start out w/autism can develop mental illness in their teenage years or down the road. America needs to know that mental illness can easily affect them or their families. Time for Change and it starts with compassion and each of us. It does take a village, or a county, or a city but it takes understanding and passion as well.

Cindy of CA 12:46PM January 06, 2012

I'm greatly concerned that society seems to want to change the term "mental illness" to behavoiral issues. This change in verbage could be so destructive to those of us who battle mental illness. It is not my choice or my behavior that is affected when the symptoms of major depression or PTSD loom in my life. It is a chemical imbalance that left untreated with medication, talk therapy and alot of self-awareness takes me to the darkest place of my mind. I don't choose to behave in a negative way when my depression rules my life, I choose to fight with every tool of survival I have gained. This simple battle goes against everything my brain is telling me to do. My brain is screaming just die! And yet I live!Don't just a behavior help me to treat this illness.

Melanie Brander of TN 9:36AM January 05, 2012

Yes, just watch CSI or NCIS or one of those fictional crime shows for a few hours- inevitably they will show someone with schizophrenia or who had a mother with schizophrenia and the killer has bipolar or schizophrenia... the story will tell how the people with these illnesses regularly go out and chop up people or something like that- the person with schizophrenia is portrayed as a person that is VERY likely to go out and kill people in a strange way and it seems almost every crime show portrays people with mental illness in this fashion. I'm sure that is the reason so many in our society also perceive people with these illnesses as that's the only time they hear about it or if there is, in reality, a violent crime and the perpetrator suffered from psychosis the journalists play that up big time. Rarely to never do you hear of successful people with schizophrenia in the newspapers- I am an avid reader and in fact, in my 52 years of life, I have never read a story of a successful person who had schizophrenia in the newspaper unless it is in a mental health magazine dealing specifically with that issue.

Rose Mascitelli of FL 3:38PM January 03, 2012

Thanks for publishing this story; it's important. I have PTSD, panic and anxiety disorders, and major depression. Even with those relatively well-known illnesses, there's a surprising amount of stigma. I can only imagine what it's like for those with the rarer mental illnesses. In addition to stigma, people need to be aware of the dangers of cuts in funding, both for care and research. Many of us don't respond well to current treatments, or can't access what we need.

Trina of KS 7:39AM December 31, 2011

First, we must be clear on what mental illness is, (something the article does not address) mental illness is the result of a chemical inbalance in the brain as medical and scientific research has uncovered. So far this has not been established with personality disorders such as a narcisstic personality. The raal stigma surrounding mental illness is it's association with weird and violent behavour, not the disoders themselves. To compare mental illness with cancer or other physical aliments does nothing to enlighten anyone. Having a mental illness is like being under the infulence of booze. Too many cocktails and one's personality is affected, drinking too much coffee can also cause weird behavour. Take these things away and one's old personality returns, however mental health tratment can not restore normal brain fuctioning in the same way, in fact it can't bring back normal brain fuctioning at all. Treatment but no cure.

jay of CA 11:30PM December 30, 2011

Exactly what I have been an advocate about, and keep stressing.
After loosing all my inlaws, and recently my job after they found out..I am convinced people are still uneducated on the subject.
The stigma increases when I explain my birthmother ended up for 34 years on the streets of Chicago, homeless, and schizophrenic.
NO I am not schizophrenic. But I DO have the disease that makes me have missing chemicals in my brain.
Bi-polar

Kris Metoyer of IL 7:23PM December 30, 2011

I often wonder if we conflate personality disorders (sociopathic, narcisstic, histrionic, etc.) and mental illnesses (bipolar, schizophrenia, depression). Can we blame schizophrenia or psychosis for a person like Jared Loughner's actions, or is his problem a deeper, more difficult one, like anti-social personality with narcissitic tendencies? I know the answer is complex, as is all madness in our world. I think that mentally ill people really don't get violent unless something else is going on in their minds or personas.

DMH of OH 2:31PM December 30, 2011