I’ve Calmed Down a Bit So I Want to Say Something Without the Cussing
There are a lot of people in the world. And there are a lot of people in the world who are mentally ill. And typically we have been pushed to the margins. We’re used as props in movies. Our torture at the hands of institutions is used as a setting for cheap thrills in the theater. Sometimes we’re spectacles or inspirations. But never real people who can speak for ourselves. Your first attitudes about what a mentally ill person looks like, and what mentally ill people do, are most likely to be wrong because of this. Our voices have not been included. Unless we’re visibly crazy in ways we can’t hide, people don’t even know we’re there in the crowd. And when we dare to stand up and say, “Yes, actually, I’m here. I’m a part of your world,” people shout us down and call us fakers, so they can go back to thinking mentally ill people exist “ out there, somewhere, but not part of MY society. ” And sometimes yes, lots of us are in institutions. Lots of us disappear. We die o...