Amanda Bynes has entered rehab after leaving an L.A. hospital where she was being treated for mental illness. For months leading up to this obvious... painfully obvious diagnosis she was the laughing stock of so many people. What aggravates me is that people jumped on the bandwagon of apathy and ugliness toward this human being who was suffering from something she would not be able to get a handle on on her own. This is the reality of our society, where people who have these mental illnesses are not seen as people suffering but people to mock. Living with mental illness is so difficult and painful, not just for the person suffering from it but loved ones as well. 99% of people who mock or make fun of people with mental illness do not understand that yes, we do see what we are doing. Yes, we understand how crazy we act sometimes. No, no, no we cannot control it. There are people out there who whole heartedly believe that Amanda could control exactly what she was doing. No, she couldn't, obviously! She may have seen what she was doing and wanted so badly to stop how she was behaving, but when you are in the throws of an episode, it isn't so easy to just turn off the actions.
A lot of people with mental illness turn to drugs and alcohol to try and drown out the voices, the behavior, the actions, and thoughts that burn the mind. I was a heavy drinker and drug abuser in my youth because all I wanted was to stop the voices that pounded in my mind 24/7. Instead of looking at Amanda and saying to yourself, "bitch be crazy." Ask yourself, what if that were me? Mental illness does not discriminate. It does not care what your religious preferences are. It doesn't care the plans you made for the future. When it appears, it will try to destroy you. It taps into every reserve you have just to hold it together DAILY. It's exhausting. It is literally physically exhausting to live with mental illness. Anyone can recover from physical exhaustion with enough bed rest. But for those who live with and suffer from mental illness, that exhaustion never leaves because we spend our entire day just trying to hold ourselves in one piece to keep house, to work, to spend time with our loved ones, to be ok. We go to bed and can't sleep because our minds do not stop. And that only exacerbates the symptoms. It's a cycle vicious in nature and rarely are these things ever alleviated.
I remember a movie Diana Ross did so many years ago about mental illness. She played a woman who was pretty much out of control until she found a doctor who could help her and did help her. She got medication and treatment and was able to function again. One day she went to the corner store for a sandwich and a soft drink and on her way in she saw a homeless woman standing outside tending her cart with obvious OCD tendencies and she was talking to herself. While she was checking out the cashier made a comment about the woman standing outside. He was cruel and not at all empathetic. On her way back to her car she stopped by the woman and gave her her sandwich. That small gesture may have seemed small to anyone watching the movie who did not have mental illness, but that kind of kindness is rare for those of us who suffer from it. That is why I have a YouTube channel and a blog, to educate people about mental illness and why it is NOT funny.
I'm not sure when apathy became cool but it's sad and pathetic. We live in a cookie cutter society where one person looks exactly like the next and they say the same things and believe the same things and not one person can think for themselves. How sad is that? If people stopped for a second and took their faces out of the phones and saw the world for the reality it is, their minds would implode. Yes, reality sucks sometimes, but its honest.
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