Mental Illness Isn't Funny

I think I've posted about this before but I'm posting about it again because I'm pissed.

I regularly come across things on Facebook, typically posted or shared by my friends on there (and I have about 60 friends on Facebook, I do not have a million friends that I don't even know; if I don't know them in "real life" they are people I've interacted with online, like in a Facebook group for people with service dogs), that are meant to be funny but are not because they are making fun of mental illness and/or people with  mental illness.  I am often surprised at the people that share these things and seem to find them funny.  Like one friend with a brother who is cognitively disabled.  Or another friend who is passionately outspoken about.  People I would have expected to be more sensitive.  People I would not have expected to laugh about mental illness.

Here is the latest example.  It went something like this.  Imagine you are in a mental hospital.  Use the first seven names on your friends list to fill in the blanks.  The first name is your roommate in the mental hospital.  The second name is the patient that is licking the windows.  The third name is the patient that is running around naked.  And so on.

For those of you that have never been in a mental hospital, I can assure you, they do not allow patients to run around naked.  I have been in quite a few mental hospitals and I have never seen a patient licking a window, either.

But this is supposed to be funny.  And it's just not.

What if, instead of a mental hospital, we made it an oncology ward?  The first person on your friend's list could be the person getting chemo in the bed next to you.  The second person on your friend's list could be the person waiting for a bone marrow transplant.  The third could be the person whose child just died of leukemia.  Oh, that's not funny?

Or, what if, instead of a mental hospital, we made it a black family reunion?  The first person could be the dope dealer that just got out of prison.  The second could be the mom with 12 kids who is on welfare.  Is that funny?

Of course those things wouldn't be funny.  But why do so many people, that would immediately recognize those things weren't funny, think it's funny to laugh at people with  mental illnesses?  Do people really not get how serious and painful and terrible mental illness can be?  Do people really not realize that people die from mental illness? 

I may have to start unfriending people.

I should add that one of the friends I mentioned earlier apologized when I called her on it.  Another did not.

In Another Time

I'm watching this show that is set back in the early 60's and it's depicting these horrible images of ECT and transorbital lobotomies and I am thinking how lucky I am, if I must have a mental illness, to live today, not 60 years ago. ECT is still used today, but it's done in a much more humane way.  I've had ECT.  Not sure I'd recommend it, I wouldn't do it again myself, but it's not like you see in the movies. And transorbital lobotomies, fortunately, have not been done in a very long time. It's scary to think of where I might be and what might have happened if I'd simply had the misfortune to be me in another time.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Did you know electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), what used to be referred to as "shock treatment," is still used today?

I think many people imagine it as a thing of the past.  It's much more humanely-done today than it was in the past.  Patients are fully sedated for the procedure, they aren't awake, they don't experience any pain, and they are given muscle relaxers so they don't actually convulse.  In the past, patients sometimes suffered broken bones or bit through their tongues, stuff like that, from convulsing so hard.

But it is still used today.

You can read about it here: Electroconvulsive Therapy

I underwent ECT in the spring of 2010.  It's one of the things I don't talk about much.  I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of it, but the idea seems to scare a lot of people.  And maybe I'm worried it makes me look really crazy.  I mean, it seems so extreme.  Only the really crazy people would have to have shock therapy, right?

Also, though, there's a lot I don't remember about that experience.  One of the side effects of ECT is memory loss.  I remember having it done, I remember the hospital, I remember the anesthesiologist and a couple of the nurses, I vaguely remember the doctor.  I had it done on an outpatient basis.  Mike drove me, we were there for a few hours, then he drove me home.  I wasn't allowed to eat anything in the morning before the procedure and we would stop for lunch on the way home.  I vaguely remember that.  I do remember being given crackers and diet soda in the recovery room when I woke up after the procedure.

I remember this woman that was always in the waiting room.  She drove a friend there for ECT and she would wait in the waiting room and she brought this big container of markers and a sketch pad and did these elaborate doodles while she waited.  Mike and I called her "the coloring lady."

I know I went three times a week for five or six weeks, although I didn't actually remember how many treatments I had altogether.  I had to ask Mike.  I also didn't remember whether I'd had unilateral or bilateral ECT, so I asked Mike about that, too.  He told me they started out with unilateral, which is what they usually do because it tends to cause less memory loss, but at some point switched to bilateral, because it wasn't working as well as we'd hoped it would.

I did have a lot of memory loss.  More than I'd been led to expect, more than I've been told is "normal."

I had ECT shortly after Cayenne was first diagnosed with, and treated for, cancer.  And I completely forgot that she'd even had cancer.  Many  months later, my sister said something to me about Cayenne's cancer.  And I was like, what?  And as she talked about it, I started to remember.  But I had totally forgotten it.

I read a lot of books during the time I was having ECT.  I would take a book to the hospital and read while I waited for my turn to have the procedure done.  Afterwards, though, I couldn't remember anything I'd read.  I had a whole shelf of books that I reread a few months later, after I'd finished the ECT, because although I knew I'd read them, I didn't remember the stories at all.

I forgot how to get to places that I'd been going for years.  For instance, I'd been seeing the same psychiatrist, in the same office, for six years.  I could not remember how to get to his office or what street it was on or anything.  I could not remember how to get to the grocery store.  I could not remember where things were in the grocery store, either.  It was very frustrating for me.

ECT did not have the drastic effect on my depression that I'd hoped for.  I think it helped a little, but certainly not a lot.  For a long time afterward, I felt it hadn't helped and maybe actually made things worse because of how debilitating the memory loss was for me. 

Now, though, looking back, I think in some ways it did help a little.  I was severely, severely depressed when I chose to have ECT.  I was suicidal.  It was a last resort for me.  And I had at least a little hope that it would help and that gave me something to hang on to.  I didn't kill myself because I thought maybe this treatment that I'd never tried before would help.  It gave me a reason not to kill myself yet.  And while it didn't get rid of the depression, certainly not entirely, I wasn't suicidal when I was done with it.

May Is Mental Health Month

So I'm told that May is Mental Health Month. Most of my readers probably already know I have a mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that I have a service dog named Isaac that helps me cope with that disability (not everyone with PTSD is disabled by it but I am).

What many people probably don't know is that I have another mental illness, dissociative identity disorder (DID), as well. I decided since it's Mental Health Month, sharing that might be a good thing.

I think talking about mental illness, and mental health, is the first step. The first step to a society in which there is much less stigma associated with mental illness, and much less discrimination, a society in which people that go to the ER for a mental illness-related problem are treated with the same dignity, compassion and respect as those that go to the ER for a physical health problem (which sure ain't the case now), a society in which people with mental illnesses aren't told to just "get over it" or called "selfish" or "weak," a society in which treatment for mental illness is much more available and affordable. None of that will ever happen if we don't even talk about it.

Why don't I post much, or talk much, about having  DID?  I guess mostly because, as open as I am about many things, I don't like to seem nuts anymore than anyone else does.  For those not familiar with DID, it used to be called multiple personality disorder.  Well, something similar was called multiple personality disorder, anyway.  When the name was changed, the diagnostic criteria was changed a bit, too.  But most people know very little about DID and some people don't even believe it's a real disorder and many people think it must mean someone is really, really crazy.  So I don't talk about it much.  But I probably should.

Anyone else want to share anything?  Please feel free to leave comments.