All too often, when issues that make us feel uncomfortable arise, we tend to put our heads in the sand and hope that someone else will deal with it. This has helped to allow the occurencesof the "NIMBY" or Not in My BackYard syndrome, where we may state that we want to provide support to the homeless, the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, or any other disenfranchised minority, but we want those services to be provided out of our line of sight. Sure, when asked we would say we wanted the mentally ill to be cared for, to be treated humanely, to receive appropriate treatment, have adequate housing and access to medications- we just don't want to have to LOOk at them.
I remember a conversation I had with a casual aquaintance who was upset after learning that there were several County-operated group homes for the mentally ill in our neighborhood. Her viewpoint was that as the mother of several young children, her concerns for their safety meant that she was forced to be opposed to the existence of these facilities on the same street where her toddlers rode their tricycles. First, I pointed out what seemed to me to be obvious- these group homes were staffed by mental health professionals, and the mentally ill clients who resided there were receiving treatment on a continuous basis. (As opposed to the hundreds of thousands of individuals with mental illness who live in communities across the country and are without treatment.)
When that failed to change her opinion, I asked her how many people she knew who had been treated for any type of mental illness, and her response was, an unbelievable to me, "none". No family, no great-aunt with the vapors, no coworkers with depression? No one? "Nope, not a soul".When I told her how flabbergasted I was at that, that I found it impossible to imagine having lived an entire life without ever coming into contact with someone who suffered from a mental illness, she shrugged her shoulders and said "well, they just aren't our kind of people".
I find that hard to believe, and suspect that any relatives with mental illness had just been left out of any discussions about the family, or that the uncle who had depression and was unable to work was just never talked about. Every family, somewhere along the line, has at least one member who suffers from some sort of mental illness.
The mentally ill do not ask for their illness, they do not decide that they'd rather hear voices than attend college, they do not pray for depression that will incapacitate them so that they don't have to live a full life. Unlike cigarette smokers who risk serious health concerns such as cancer and heart disease, the mentally ill have done nothing to cause their illness. And in-between acute episodes, with appropriate treatment, many Americans who suffer from mental illness are accomplished and contributing members of society. The kind of people you WANT in your neighborhood.
Before you decide that you want "those people" housed elsewhere, or to have limited services, restricted disability benefits, and reduced access to appropriate treatment, think long and hard about your own family, the people you care about. If, God forbid, your delightful child should develop a mental illness, would you want her hidden away? Or would you want her to have the potential to have the best life she possibly could.
By supporting NAMI; the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the DBSA; the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, and a vast array of other similar organizations struggling to increase awareness and decrease stigma, you may be changing the outcome of not only the lives of the members your community that you don't know, but also that of your own loved ones. Join up, speak out, and show acceptance. Advocacy for the mentally ill should be a concern for all of us.
