Not So Quick to Judge

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am reading a book called Perfect Chaos. It is written by a mother and a daughter telling the daughter's journey with bipolar disorder. Reading this book has opened my eyes to what it feels like to be a mother with a daughter who has mental illness. Reading the daughter's story has also made me realize that I am not alone in this fight.

I wanted to talk about a few quotes that really spoke to me as I read yesterday.

"I recognized some of the patients as men and women whom I have passed on street corners, under freeway overpasses , in the city parks... The world of the nameless mentally ill and the life of my beautiful daughter were one and the same."
-Cinda Johnson, Perfect Chaos

Like the mother, Cinda, when I entered my first hospitalization in a major city (Syracuse), I realized how many of the other patients were homeless. I was so different than them, being a student, yet our worlds were very similar in that we all are battling mental illness. 

Psych units are definitely interesting places. I've been inpatient 9 times in psych units, two child and seven adult. I feel like I have seen everything. It's a different world. I had to get used to realizing that what I was experiencing was not normal. I remember talking to a girl about her hearing voices and hoping I never would hear voices. A few years later, I started to hear voices.

My new world was full of medications, hospital bills, inpatient stays and outright frustration. 

My first hospitalization ever was in a child psych unit and it was pretty calm, except for the occasional tantrum. I still remember watching a young child be "shot in the butt" after a psychotic breakdown.

I realized that I was entering a new world, full of confusion, terror and the unknown.

"Mental illness doesn't care if you are rich or poor, well connected or not, loved or deserted."
-Cinda Johnson, Perfect Chaos

This quote also struck me, because I think so many people think that all mentally ill people are homeless or they have other misconceptions about mentally ill people.

Mentally ill people are people. We didn't ask to be mentally ill. We didn't ask for our brains to go haywire. But our brains did and we have to deal with the repercussions. We have to fight every day against awful thoughts, hallucinations and psychosis.

It is not an easy fight but it's worth it.

If anything, I wish that people were not so quick to judge those who are mentally ill. We have enough to deal with without the stigmas.