People with mental disabilities are frequently discriminated against.
This is something I want to come back to later, but need some time to think on to make sure it's coherent. I will say that as late as last year, I experienced discrimination soley on the basis that I had a mental problem.
As early as...elementary school, I remember being 'different'. I saw things differently. I processed things differently. To borrow video games, "I do what I want. You have problem?!" People viewed me as...sort of an anomaly. Parents would make sure their kids wouldn't get too close to me - I was 'dangerous.'
In middle school, teachers viewed me with a mix of pity and disdain. I had learned (through trial and error) to 'act' normal. I still didn't -get- what I was at this time. All I knew was that once a week I'd talk to this guy that they called a "psy-ko-iatrist" and I'd take pills and that.
In High School, I slowly became cognizant of both what was going on with me, and just how much around me everyone hated it. School tried to have me arrested, and resisted every single step of the way to try and help me - if you're mentally disabled, school districts are required by law to provide services for you. They refused to do this to the very end, when we sic'd the board on them and threatened to eliminate all of their funding if they did not cut
this shit out right now.
To the very end, the teenagers in high school picked up on the drama swirling around me, no matter how hard we tried to hide it, and thus I got picked on for being 'different.' Remind me sometime to tell the 'Frog Prince' story. It's a wonderful story of an elitist bitch trying her damndest to keep me away from her clique and in the end...failing.
Society on the whole, I've found, still thinks of mental disabilties that way. We're
special. We're feared. They think we'll snap at any time. 99% of everyone thinks we're all like the Columbine shooter, or any of the other crazy people with guns. That at any moment, we're going to go crazy and kill people.
I make no attempt to hide that I've been in a mental hospital - I'm proof it works. I needed it. I also have no problem with short bus jokes or anything like that. I laugh at them, and will amusingly point out "You know, padded rooms are awesome", because I was in one, twice. At Verizon, I pointed this out to a group of people chewing the fat. Most of them were genuinely interested. Later that week, the boss approached me, and said that a few of the people there were scared of me, and had asked to sit away from me because of that.
Whenever they report a criminal who does some heinous act, they always love to throw the buzzword "unstable" around. It's still in people's minds. If you have mental problems, you're a
danger. You're
a freak. People don't want to look at you, or say how they don't want their children near them. I've seen it, and heard it, been 10ft away from a large group of 30+ year olds saying that they'd beat one of
them with a bat if they ever got anywhere near their children or them.
Is it any wonder I may have clinical depression?
