We are the people who were once called mad, and are now called mentally ill. Now we are
learning to cast off the shame and stigma, and to affirm ourselves in public view.
When things go terribly wrong and our worst nightmares come real, it's easy to blame the world
and to assume that some dark power or some evil people have targeted us for harm which we do
not deserve. How hard it is, on the other hand, to accept the fact that there's something wrong
with us ~ that no matter how innocent we feel, and how victimized by our afflictions, there is no
one in the outside world whom we can blame, not God nor the devil nor anyone living or dead ~
not even life itself.
This is always a breakthrough in healing, to take responsibility for oneself. Certainly everyone
has been harmed by others, and dealt with unjustly by fate. But the only path to the high ground,
and to wholeness, is to accept responsibility anyway ~ even to take the blame for crimes
committed by other people, or at least for their karmic flaws which caused us hurt. This is what
Christ did, and Krishna, and every high soul who ever lived. In the end we have no choice: to
heal ourselves we must save the world, or at least help the people whose paths we cross ~
whether they deserve it or not!
There are many individuals who fail to take this step, and the result is always tragic: ongoing,
unrelieved suffering, day in and day out, all the horrors of hell right here in the material world.
For indeed this is the most basic step, identical with the first of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous and its many spin-offs. In that variation, the humbling surrender and admission is: "I
am an alcoholic, and my life has become unmanageable." The premise is that the person's ego
has resisted this admission for a long time ~ their self-image is that of a hotshot respectable
person and achiever, certainly not a disreputable failure and lowlife who could be characterized
as (horrors!) an alcoholic.
The principle is that you have to cop to whatever reality and characterization you fear the most,
however brutal and unjust you think it to be. For mentally ill people there is a long lexicon of
insulting slurs and innuendoes, all of them incredibly insensitive, unfair, unfeeling, and ignorant.
Even individuals who would sooner die than commit a faux pas on the grounds of race, ethnicity,
gender, or sexual preference, will make mindless cracks without a second thought about people
who are (ahem) insane by the standards of conventional society.
It will do no good for the afflicted person to cast blame upon the heedless. The only cure is to
stand up bravely before an audience of similarly afflicted outcasts, those who DO understand,
and to boldly admit that: "I am crazy, nuts, psycho, schizo, cuckoo, bonkers, screwy, loony,
loonytunes, daffy, bugs, wacky, batty, fucked up in the head, not playing with a full deck,
deranged, demented, delusional, barmy, loco, off my nut, out of my mind, cracked, unhinged, and
addled. And (not surprisingly) my life has become unmanageable!"
It's important to include every slur in the confessional mantra, because only by copping to it does
it lose its power to harm. Whatever insult still causes you the least distress inside, this and only
this can be used to hurt you from the outside world. Only *we who are about to die* have no fear
of death, and only we who can laugh at our madness are immune to the stigma of mental illness.
It's not easy to get to this stage, and no recovery is ever complete and final (to cite another AA
principle); but once a person begins to develop a positive and self-affirming identity which
acknowledges their affliction or challenge, then I feel that they're ready for a further leap. At this
stage it may actually be counterproductive to define one's condition as an "illness" ~ it may no
longer be conducive to continued healing and recovery.
There was a movement awhile back amongst physically disabled people to refer to themselves as
"differently abled", in order to remove the last nuance of stigma from their condition. This usage
was criticized in some quarters as a little too pollyanna or politically correct ~ obviously a person
in a wheelchair is less able in this respect than a person who can walk, no matter what other
talents and abilities they may have. This is less obvious, however, when it comes to mental
disability, and perhaps the criticism does not apply at all. A case can be made that many types of
mental-emotional difficulties spring from psyches which are potentially above average, and that if
the afflicted individuals master their challenges they can become not just normal but
extraordinary people. And the point is that they would still be different, even if they were no
longer afflicted.
With all this in mind, I would like to introduce a new designation for our kind of people. It's true
that we may seem peculiar, and behave in strange ways; sometimes our words and actions may be
downright inexplicable, at least in normal terms. But perhaps this is because we see and hear
and feel more than normal people. Perhaps there is a hidden meaning or a higher design or a
sublime secret sense to everything we think and say and do. Perhaps we are not mentally ill after
all ~ perhaps we are DIFFERENTLY PSYCHED.