I'm having some internal conflict.
I want to be sympathetic to people who are mentally ill. I know it's an illness. I've had that illness myself.
But, good god, mental illness is such a source of suffering for families, for others.
I suppose I could take a dodge akin to "Hate the sin, not the sinner" self-deception; I could hate the illness and not the sufferer. But seriously, does anyone really hate the "sin" and not the "sinner"? No. Nice try. Thanks for playing.
I do remember what it was like to be gone, and to have my guilt swell to fill the shell where I once was. I imagine my depressed male relatives, the drunks, filled their shells with anger and alcohol.
I need to get past that to finish this book. I don't know why it's begun to be an issue today. Perhaps it's a Mental Health month somewhere.
A couple of weeks ago, while I was thinking about someone I know who was refusing to explore treatment, I read two things on the same day and snipped these quotes out of them and... yeah, I have no idea.
"But the bigger issue here is the respect you lose for someone who elects not to take care of themselves"
vs.
“A measure of shame seems to accompany disability or illness." - “an innate shame in inconveniencing others for something that is neither your fault nor your desire.”
(To hate the sin and love the sinner I think you really really really *really* gotta love the sinner to begin with [like some people love their children or spouses] and keep working on that as well, or not hate the sin very much, or yeah, no dice. I have a hard time even loving people who are smoking in my vicinity outdoors, even *knowing* they have no idea they're making it hard for me to breathe in the short term and giving me a sinus headache for the longer term, it's outside, it's supposed to be fine to smoke, right, except I'm allergic to most cigarette smoke and it is *frustrating* to have your airways shrink and to know you're going to have another layer of headache? And yet! I know they aren't even doing it deliberately "to me"!) (I have a lot of Room For Growth.)
Anyway. Yeah. I think it makes a difference if people see the harm they're causing to others and *don't* seek to mitigate it, but it'd probably still be hard to cope with people who see the harm, are mitigating as hard as they possibly can, but are still hurting people you care about?
Posted by: KC | March 27, 2024 at 09:37 AM
KC - I think the thing is the illness is their “Normal” and if you want them to mitigate then you want them to be someone else.
Posted by: theQueen | March 27, 2024 at 08:41 PM
Ah. That is tricky, yes. But shouldn't be all that tricky when "myself" involves things that have a severe negative effect on others?
(of course, "severe negative effect" is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, but if it's "this is going to kill you" or "this has a decent chance of killing others" as per alcoholism... there's less wiggle room there.)
Posted by: KC | March 28, 2024 at 10:38 AM
KC - but often long-term mentally ill people (like since childhood) don't have the emotional maturity to care about others before themselves.
Posted by: theQueen | March 28, 2024 at 01:05 PM
Eh, given that two year olds manage to care about others before themselves sometimes, I'm not sure. (not often, but sometimes) Yes, sure, not requiring more of people than their capacities, and for some people in some directions those capacities are pretty slim, but... still. Even acknowledging that you're doing something which is causing problems for others can make those problems easier for those others to cope with!
Posted by: KC | March 28, 2024 at 04:32 PM
KC - Well, I'm thinking specifically of Dave, who was almost proud that he’d been told by a psychiatrist that he had no empathy. As if it made him special. Which is how a non-empathetic person would see it, I guess.
Posted by: theQueen | March 30, 2024 at 07:16 AM
Ah. Yes. That is a fairly specific type of broken, though, but also yes, very much not the type of broken that is especially likely to attempt to fix things/mitigate things so as to not harm other people.
Posted by: KC | March 30, 2024 at 11:12 AM