Article: My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward

[hunter]

24. The expectations of society, especially mean dysfunctional USA society, aggravates these conditions.

For a "mentally ill" person it can lead to some horrible complications whenever we tightly integrate these social expectations into our own sense of self.

In a gentle society, unlike ours, it seems to me that many sorts of mental illness wouldn't rapidly degrade into a crisis of suicide, psychiatric hospitalization, or homelessness. (Crisis frighteningly similar to the experiences of many homosexual people before our society began to accept homosexuality...)

I'm someone who revisits a very dark place if I don't take my meds. These meds have unpleasant side effects. Without meds my feral self usually exists in some state of homelessness and I'd rather not go there. But of course when I'm heading into that dark place the very first thing that flies out the window is my ability to judge my own mental state.

If a have any criticism of the article it's that the author is still imposing his own sense of order on a system that is essentially chaotic. As teachers, I suppose it's what we are trained to do; teachers explain things. Yet the interaction between ourselves, our loved ones, and our society are complex and often unpredictable. People get thrown off balance and fall.

Our society would be a much better place with stronger social safety nets and safe places to simply "be" for those who are experiencing stormy weather within their own minds, and for those who love and care for them.