Oh for decency's sake, failblog and Pharyngula!

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

Why the hell are we using our justified disgust with Christianity to be utter assholes to mentally ill persons?

No, ladies and gentlemen. This isn't funny. It's frigging immoral, imho. Do you think its easy for mentally ill persons to have relationships? Do you think its easy for them to find understanding persons, especially if they are able-bodied, who have the time and the understanding to stick with them through thick and thin? This is your abled-bodied privilege stinking up the place, yo. Not funny. In fact, EPIC FAIL.


DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS.

Comments

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

See, I read that, and I see a Christianist zealot who refuses to seek psychiatric care because it's of the devil. That or a "christian" community that discourages members from seeking care. "Self-controlled" is a screaming red flag, and the kind of people who would insist that mental illness should be "self-controlled" instead of treated by a professional deserve to be mocked.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Be that as it may, though, thats not what PZ is mocking. He is basically comparing the mental illness with Christianity.

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

Gotcha.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Not the people who are suffering it, especially a condition that distorts perceptions as badly as schizophrenia does. It's one thing to yell at somebody to go to the doctor when they've got the flu, and something else entirely to do so to someone with a mental illness. Society at large believes 1. that the flu is real, 2. that it's not a character flaw if you get it, and 3. even if being sick makes you unpleasant to be around, you still deserve compassion and medical treatment. None of these are true about schizophrenia.

The people and culture who are pouring that toxic nonsense into a mentally ill person's head, on the other hand, deserve all the opprobrium one can dish out.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

what you said.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I have to remind myself of what I said regularly, and my mental illness is an "acceptable" one that responds well to available treatments. It's the least I can do to stand up for people who have it worse.

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

Good point. I tend to project alot of my own guilt at not having gotten treatment myself, because I was part of a cult-like group and believed the rhetoric about mental illness being a sin, etc. etc. Much that went wrong in my life would have been very different if I had just gone to see a damn shrink instead of trying to "pray away" my illness.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Hurting yourself like that isn't wrong, per se. It's just tragic.

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

Also, since I can't edit, none of my disorders cause the same extent of distorted perception as schizophrenia. So while it's easy for me to say "Well, *I* should have been able to realize that I had a medical condition" that doesn't apply to someone with a different disorder than I have. I have to actively remind myself of that.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Schizophrenia is a bitch and a half, especially if you end up with paranoid-type and are convinced the doctors are trying to poison you. And fucking Reagan closed the mental institutions, so it's immensely difficult for schizophrenia patients to get the kind of long-term intense care necessary to stabilize them enough to phase over to self-care.

Not that the institutions were great, mind you, but they were better than being left to fend for yourself until you die or end up in our crime-against-humanity prison system.

ETA: I realize this is Amero-centric, but I don't know enough about other countries' mental health systems to speak to them.