"MAD" is a cruel and derogatory term, used by the layman to define a person with a Mental Disease. "Crazy, loony, bats in the belfry", are also very defaming and inhuman. Yet they are used time and again. I have a Bipolar Disorder. I have had my share of this adjective.
It is not my fault that my mind plays tricks on me. I have gone through long periods of acute and meaningless depression. There was no reason for it. Yet I felt as if my world had come to an end. I thought that I would be unable to even raise my arm. I attempted suicide many times because I hated myself. One day i would be fine, the next day i would plunge into excruciating pain which i thought would last forever.
It didn't, but I was left weak and trembling, convinced that I was feeble and a coward.
"I have no will power," I told my psychiatrist. I suffered from a terrible inferiority complex till I was diagnosed a Bipolar patient.
Even in this enlightened age, a mental disease, though controllable is taboo. People are afraid to talk about it. They would rather go through months and years of intense torture, rather than speak about it. What a shame?!
You can't find employment if you have a mental illness which has become public. You are told by your doctors, not to mention it in your workplace. If it becomes apparent, your employer will not think twice before firing you. You may have been doing a good job, but that is not even considered. At least it was not with me.
Tell me, will an employee get fired simply because he has high blood pressure or diabetes? No of course not. Then why this discrimination? A mentally afflicted person, may have his disease under control, but he would still be afraid and embarrassed to talk about it.
A mentally diseased person can be a nuisance. They can become violent or destructive. But the solution does not lie in denouncing them. It is a disease, and it can be treated. Rejection can only make it worse. Take a mental patient to a doctor for God's sake.
Don't condemn a person because he is stark raving mad in your opinion. Your opinion really really doesn't count.
It is not my fault that my mind plays tricks on me. I have gone through long periods of acute and meaningless depression. There was no reason for it. Yet I felt as if my world had come to an end. I thought that I would be unable to even raise my arm. I attempted suicide many times because I hated myself. One day i would be fine, the next day i would plunge into excruciating pain which i thought would last forever.
It didn't, but I was left weak and trembling, convinced that I was feeble and a coward.
"I have no will power," I told my psychiatrist. I suffered from a terrible inferiority complex till I was diagnosed a Bipolar patient.
Even in this enlightened age, a mental disease, though controllable is taboo. People are afraid to talk about it. They would rather go through months and years of intense torture, rather than speak about it. What a shame?!
You can't find employment if you have a mental illness which has become public. You are told by your doctors, not to mention it in your workplace. If it becomes apparent, your employer will not think twice before firing you. You may have been doing a good job, but that is not even considered. At least it was not with me.
Tell me, will an employee get fired simply because he has high blood pressure or diabetes? No of course not. Then why this discrimination? A mentally afflicted person, may have his disease under control, but he would still be afraid and embarrassed to talk about it.
A mentally diseased person can be a nuisance. They can become violent or destructive. But the solution does not lie in denouncing them. It is a disease, and it can be treated. Rejection can only make it worse. Take a mental patient to a doctor for God's sake.
Don't condemn a person because he is stark raving mad in your opinion. Your opinion really really doesn't count.
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