Celebrities Creating Mental Illness Mythologies

Yesterday a beautiful actress's name was all over the news for having come out as bi-polar and went into the hospital for treatment. Her name is left out in hopes that leaving it out will not force removal of the entire post. That said, I wanted to make some points because I'm pretty PO'd. Every day the average slob with mental illness debates within his/herself whether to come out of the closet, tell family, friends, employers. We debate whether its safe to seek help openly, where will it show up on some employer's job investigation prior to hiring or whether its 'safe' to mention mental illness in the work place because of the social stigma. And I would like one person here to say that if you suddenly revealed the fact that indeed your behavior, whatever it may be, was because of mental illness, that whomever you told didnt take a side step and look at you with either an 'ah ha!' expression or suddenly not know what to say...after all, we cant see what's broke, so its hard to empathize with the pain. And most well persons have no concept of how the mentally ill 'see' the world, how narrow the tunnel is, how brutal interaction is, how cautious one sometimes or often feels in reaching out in the most mundane ways to others, how some of us fear misreading social cues, feel isolated, paranoid or depressed for reasons that seem without reason...except only that these feelings are a wardrobe we have worn for so long its indistinguishable for us, it IS us, all of it, the sum of it has consumed us and each day is a struggle to be a person inspite of being ill. Do you get my point? Those of us without public profiles, fame and loads of money, many of us too sick to work or afford insurance, who cant afford medications or go to a psychopharmacologist who will titrate meds every 2 weeks in search of the perfect med combo that will help mediate the ups and downs on the spectrum of depression. Our marriages collapse, relationships suffer, people get bored/tired/frustrated with us and many times finally just turn away. Depression IS contagious. I loved a man deeply, he asked me to marry him, it was a couple of years after I separated from my husband and the divorce paperwork was still in court. It was the first true proposal I ever had, I loved him and he loved me. There was nothing else when we walked in the street, I can only compare our going down the street as a biblical experience because the 'sea' parted, the world was there yet invisable, I never felt the earth under me...someone loved me. However, I was as yet undiagnosed with PTSD, very vulnerable emotionally having been seperated from my very young children and functioning because the only other option was either death, suicide or life on the street. I am like a functioning addict or alcoholic-I appear normal, work long and hard and crash harder and deeper. I have been diagnosed at various times as manic depressive, bi-polar rapid cycling, bi-polar 1, schizoid affective and finally the last shrink chuckled and said at best, chronic depression...but his diagnosis came 20 years after divorce, leaving the kids, losing my uterus/periods which were horrendous and ignored no matter how many doctors I asked to find out why I bled like a sick pig every month. In the end, this brilliant man, a photographer and gentle soul who seemed so strong one day turned to me and said 'You depress me! I want you to leave or I will leave you are depressing me.' Worse things have been said between couples, and worse things have been said to the mentally ill. Perhaps because this was a man I did love and trusted entirely, a rareity for me, that these words were no less than murder. He left, it turned out he had been having an affair and our emotional situation, lack of money, stress of long work hours all added up to finding fault with me. Depression was the excuse, and I dont mean that bitterly because it is the truth as painful as it was at the time, it was like a ball and chain we both carried. I spent years grieving, I was grieving even while being a mother,while being pregnant year after year, and to this day I cant tell you what or whom I grieve over. But melancholy or living under a black sun as it is sometimes referred to, is the only life I know. There is no magic to my situation, is there anything news worthy in your daily struggle with mental illness? If you made it out of bed and got things done around the house, or were able to volunteer, do chores, get errands done, take care of the kids, make dinner, find something to laugh about...that's a damn good day. So why each beautiful woman, and its usually someone stunning, a sex symbol everyone admires comes out and says she's ill and needs treatment you hear a Greek chorus singing in harmony of her good graces, her bravery and courage in talking about her pain and seeking treatment. And in Hollywood this is a badge of honor. Madness and the creative spirit is often a subject studied and written about. In the last decade or so, how many depressives have published memoirs describing the experiences in mental hosptials, the misunderstandings, the drug/alcohol abuse to ease their pain and confusion...until Dr. Drew showed up and cleared up all the confusion and made rehab a fashion statement. There is a huge gap, a dichotomy between what the media portrays as the myth of madness in the creative person and the mental illness of the average citizen. And we, for all the organizations such as NAMI and others that collect money, have conferences, publish papers and newletters, they need to address this because until this moment, what is fashionable for the rich and famous to have bi-polar is certainly not fashionable for Everyman suffering in silence, alone confused and unrepresented. Carl Jung, a one time protege of Freud, believed every person is a composite, a spirtitual recepticle of every experience, every myth, every story from time in memoriam. We are filled with memories we do not understand but often recognize in one another. It is this gift of rememberance of our ancestors histories that (supposedly) make us human and humane. While Freud believed we are most influenced by our infant experiences with each parent, mostly the mother, Jung felt too much emphasis an power was given by Freud, to the role of the mother on a child's development. Today, I think we understand both philosophies have retained some truth as we understand a child cannot grow in a healthy manner without being 'mothered' in infancy-mothered as in tended to, held, cared for when crying, wet, hungry etc. We have had brilliant doctors as the two above, Piaget who delved into child development, Bleuler who gave his life to understanding depression and its phases and expression, Alice Miller who first wrote about the nurturance of THe Gifted Child, her groundbreaking book on the subject and my beloved Thomas Szasz who said its all a sham, people with mental illness are in fact the healthy ones who can see the fraudulant fakery in modern society and simply cant keep up with it all-he believed schizophrenia was the result, a healthy result against the insanity of the modern world. My point being, we have studied the development of the human mind and its emotions for centuries, we have come from tying patients down in beds for shock therapy, for ice baths to calm them, experimented with every conceivable medications developed specifically for mental illness and now are crossing over meds using epileptics for depression (check the class action suits on those drugs) using older MAO inhibitors for Fibromyalgia patients to induce sleep and calmness, and these drugs still retain the same stigma whether used for FM or depression. Its been studied, the rich and famous have exposed themselves and owned up to having mental illnesses, altho it always seems to be bi polar...for same odd reason. I guess that diagnosis has become well known or safe enough to say I Have It. But those of us who have taken lithium know the side effects and the drugs then needed to combat the side efffects if lithium does become part of a drug cocktail. Someone beautiful and in pain acts out, asks for help and help is there. There are now weekly programs on US television dedicated to people who have sought treatment for Mystery Diagnosis for years, doctor after doctor and were told, 'Its all in your head' using the label of mental illness as a garbage pail when a physical cause cannot be found. I tell you here and now, mental illness remains the last bastion of the human condition not taken seriously. We can turn on TV and see the inside of a psych ward and the mumbling, hand wringing, clapping, drooling, personal silences that make us turn away. It hits too close to home, could be any one of us and has been many of us. While fat people deal with public disgust there is now such an epidemic of eating disorders aside from obesity that stigma can no longer be applied to weight! The same with sexuality-you are who you are, there are no longer lines drawn to define male or female..dabble where you like as you like...the stigma is gone, we're now looking to legalize relationships that at one time could get you a jail term or death in some places in the world. The mentally ill are still stuck up in the attic, in group homes, tended by shamed relatives or less than caring 9-5 employees not talking at all or making harsh cruel remarks to group home mebers. I live one block from a group home, they residents are forbidden to speak or be spoken to and they can speak, but they live in terror, so I dont know what goes on behind those closed doors of that small brownstone. We know what needs doing, we have the research, we have the drugs in many cases, we usually have warning signs even before a patient himself may own up to feeling ill and asking for help, we know the importance of parenting, good caring intelligent teachers, we know every piece of the puzzle to help create a healthy functioning person even in today mad world- and yet mental illness remains the last door nailed shut, hidden behind and kept from the sunlight. So I frankly could give a flying fart which famous rich actress announces she's got BP because it dont mean squat to 99.9% of the rest of us. Its too late to claim a spot as a role model. We have an entire generation so mentally short circuited that shooting up classmates, planning massacres in schools is something pathologically considered as sport. Is it lack of health care or caring about health altogether? Maybe all this is unique to the United States-the gluttony, depression, psychotic behaviors that have no explanation, death and murder of one's children seen as the only alternative to greivous situations. How does a mother who had her first child at 15 and at age 25 her youngest is 11 months, tuck them all into a truck and announce to them "we are going to all die together" and then drive the truck into the river watching her toddlers choke and drown? Is it lack of options? Careless or uncaring observations of her mental state? How do we take the pain of people suffering so deeply, so cheaply? What remains invisible to the eye is often felt more deeply with the heart and so there really is NO excuse to watch other in pain and not ask, what can I do to help? Not one of us, not one has a family member of friend without mental illness. When was the last time you checked in and asked whether that person has cooked themselves a hot meal? Has a clean room or bed to sleep in? Has food in the fridge? Might need help getting to the doctor, do they have insurance? There are pharmacueticals trying to be helpful while becoming rich and offering many medications at low or no cost, this is their way of paying forward. So this thread is not a total loss of time, here are some foundations, organizations and drug assistance companies that either have medications they offer depending on your income or lack of income: Chronic Disease Fund 877-968-7233 They have a long list of diseases they provide medications for, some are closed due to demand, many are available. Health Well 800-675-8416 Income based, low income or no insurance PPA RX.com Income based if you take medications that are helping you and are straining to buy them each month, write a letter to the company manufacturer, not the generic knockoff, and tell them how your life was changed by their drug and ask for their help. Ask them to provide some assistance of not free medication, because its the difference between life and death for you. Its that simple, that daring and you have nothing to lose. you are giving them the opportunity to put a face to their drug, a human touch to their test tubes and calculations. I was given the aboive information because I'm nearing the end of my employers covering me and I take about 15 medications daily. 3 of my meds cost thousands each month-without some kind of assistance I wont have them much longer. The great news is we found meds that work, it too years of trying alot of meds, but maybe if some doctors had done their work and taken me seriously and run some tests that I didnt know to ask for back then, I would not be a disability recipient today and dependent on meds to function. None of us is off the hook, is my last soap box rant. Every person mentally ill or healthy as a horse that has a heart, ears and eyes knows someone that needs help. Might be small acts of kindness, but sometimes those kindnesses are the difference between life and ddath. Find someone who needs such an act and reach out, you will change his life and your own. It is only one act at a time that can bring mental illness and the mentally ill back into the fold of humanity, out of the closet, down from the attic and not regarded as a freak show. And aside from the liberal mamby pamby blithering above, let me add if you are ill and wont take your meds and are acting out causing yourself and others danger, you should be in a place and forced to take your meds until you understand without them, you will not be taken seriously or allowed to participate in society. You cant have it both ways and that goes for the entire spectrum of mental health issues including sexual abuse, anger management and certified and diagnosed mental illness.