Columns

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Some of the Hardships

Jack Bragen
Thursday October 13, 2016 - 03:52:00 PM

Being mentally ill, aside from the fact that many people treat you like a scapegoat due to their bigotry, aside from living with a disability that, for some of us, prevents working (and this causes poverty), and aside from us having a shorter lifespan in comparison to non-afflicted people, comprises a hard condition to live with. Simply living with the symptoms of a mental illness and the side effects of medication is difficult.  

My situation includes frequent changes in medication. I have a dilemma of taking a higher dose of some of my meds, which then sometimes causes me to experience miserable, unbearable side effects, versus taking lower dosages and having partial psychosis leak through.  

My daily medication is under my control. This is because there isn't anyone but me supervising how the meds are administered. I don't live in a group home; I rent an apartment. I am not on injections of antipsychotic medication because I've proven in the past couple of decades that I can take medication on my own. Many people in recovery live in a similar manner to me.  

Despite supervising myself, it is proper to consult with my doctor before making any changes to medications or dosages. He or she is the one writing the prescriptions, and if I anger or irritate him or her too much, I run the risk of not having a psychiatrist.  

Yet, I have some leeway.  

So how do I solve the dilemma of too much medication versus too little? The answer is that I don't. Things are hard in this respect, and may continue to be for the foreseeable future. I could try a newer medication, yet I am very hesitant to do that. I don't want to take something that has been on the market for less than ten years. I could be blindsided by unforeseen side effects, some of which could be irreversible.  

*** 

Society asks a lot from people with mental illness. In some instances these are just necessary adjustments, since mental illness requires treatment if we are to have a life.  

However, success in a career is unattainable for a number of us, because if prospective employers find out that we have a psychiatric disability, it is unlikely we will be hired. This is aside from doing the job (whatever the job is), which may not be possible without at least some amount of accommodation.  

SSDI and/or SSI may be provided, yet this is a very small amount of money to live on. Because of all this, I assert that most people with severe mental illness are expected to live in poverty.  

Society expects us to live as second-class citizens, which means for one thing that we must tolerate ostracism, and in some instances, we must tolerate being the butt of people's jokes--and some of those making derogatory jokes are the very treatment professionals who are supposed to be helping us.  

Many of those with mental illness must live with restrictions. The enforced poverty that I mentioned is one of those restrictions. Secondly, if we are unfortunate enough to live in outpatient institutionalization, we may be forced to endure restrictions imposed by whomever is in charge of our housing. This could be a curfew, or it could be a lack of other freedoms, which an everyday non-afflicted person would never be expected to tolerate.  

*** 

Society's attitude toward mentally ill persons is that we shouldn't live in their neighborhood. People think we are going to sell drugs to their daughters, steal their grandmothers' purses, and urinate on the street (this is the G-rated version).  

We are not as able to stand up for our rights as are African American people, Latino people, and the LGBTQ community. This is because we are impaired by our disabilities, and we are impaired by the effects of the medications used to treat these problems. Thus, there are not a lot of demonstrators with mental illness because we are up against a lot more.  

To begin with, our meds tend to knock a hole in our physical energy level, making it a lot harder to get out in the street and carry signs or bang on a drum. Secondly, many of us do not own a vehicle, making it more difficult to get transport to wherever it is people want to demonstrate (if they did). Third, it is harder for mentally ill people to organize, compared to people in other minority groups.  

Society has grown accustomed to the unacceptability of racism and misogyny. However, it isn't yet politically incorrect to hate mentally ill people. This is caused by a basic deficiency in most people's minds, in which people hate those they perceive as different, as "other," or perhaps as someone their group expects them to hate. This must change.