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There is no need to feel the stigma of mental illness. It can effect anyone, in any race, in any socioeconomic status. Man, woman, boy or girl. It can also come in the form of depression, physical or mental pain. We do not have to go it alone, and should seek the help of mental health counselors.

No Shame in Mental Illness

Ruthe:

The SAD part of all this, is that folks that need the help cannot get it. Yes, there are programs out there, but try to get into one and see how many "strings" come with that request.

The USA has to get to the point where HELP is available because it is NEEDED and not based on "income" or "race" or "location" and "type of mental issues"...

Ruthe,

Great article! Thank you for shedding light on a subject that people don't often want to discuss. Perhaps now we'll get away from feeling like mental illness is something to be hid -- like hiding from the truth will make it go away.

I have two trains of thought on this topic; one is that a big obstacle to people who need to have treatment for their mental disorder - is that many who are afflicted with mental illness cannot be objective by stepping outside themselves to see their own problem. Or, they are in denial of the problem. I know this firsthand. My other train of thought is that many times people or family around the individual with the mental illness do not want to approach their loved one for fear of falling out of favor/grace with them. They fear the loved one will excommunicate them from their life for suggesting such a thing. I have witnessed this. Although we have come a long way, still and all I have seen where people do not want to 'go there' with a family member who is exhibiting signs of mental disorder. There is still much to learn and research in this vein in order to help our loved ones.

I have written about mental illness on another site. In doing heavy research and working with groups who are striving to restore dignity to people with mental illness, I have learned much. The stigma of this condition has prevented so much understanding and compassion for the ones who suffer.

Comparing the treatment of patients in the past with what is available today, and proper education to understand shows a tremendous improvement in treatments.

I cannot forget one little boy who was a patient of Pennhurst State Hospital in 1968 because he was considered "delinquent and uneducated".

Children were admitted to this institute if they were Strabismus (A visual defect in which one eye cannot focus with the other on an object because of imbalance of the eye muscles), had other defective sight or hearing problems, were mute (or even semi-mute), had imperfect speech, were paralytic, epileptic, blind, had an imperfect gait, imperfect comprehension, deformity of face, head, limbs and/or feet, micro cephalic (abnormally small head), or hydro cephalic (congenital condition in which an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the cerebral ventricles causes enlargement of the skull and compression of the brain, destroying much of the neural tissue). Even children who had "offensive habits" were admitted.

I find it so hard to comprehend that these conditions were considered sufficient reasons to shut children away from society.

In 1968 a shocking and ground-breaking report by NBC10 exposed the sad conditions and shameful care of patients at Pennhurst. Twenty-eight-hundred children were still in the institute, some had grown up there and were now adults -- abandoned as children, they still had no one to love them or help them. Hyperactive children and delinquent children were admitted and treated as insane, or idiots.

It is far different today. There are many state run programs in the US that offer valuable help in treatments for people of all ages.