Last week, the Globe and Mail editors patted themselves on the back for their openness to mental illness. Too soon. We have had another attack by a young man with a mental illness.
It is a little early for the editors of the Globe and Mail to be showering themselves with hosannas regarding their openness to mental illness. They still have a long way to go before they congratulate themselves on the manner in which mainstream media are reflecting a “popular rebellion against” the silence and shame associated with the illness.
The Globe, like most of the media tiptoed around Amanda Todd’s mental illness. The story was and still remains focused on bullying-in person and on-line. Bullying is an act of cowardice. It did not kill Amanda, but it was the final stressor in a young girl’s losing battle with mental illness. There are still far too many who believe that if only Amanda had been stronger, she would have overcome the bullying. There is a problem accepting mental illness in our young people. They cannot or will not acknowledge that there was in Amanda an underlying mental illness that led to her death. Asking someone with a mental illness to be strong is the same as asking someone with epilepsy to think happy thoughts, walk on the sunny side of the street, and control their seizures. Both illnesses take place in the brain. Both illnesses require medical assistance. Mental illness gets short shrift.
Mental illness afflicts more than 20% of our population; seven million Canadians from all walks of life. It is estimated that mental illnesses cost the economy 33 billion dollars a year. About 3,600 people commit suicide in Canada each year. That’s about 10 suicides per day. For every suicide death, there are an estimated 20 to 25 attempts. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Canadians between the ages of 10 and 24. Three hundred and thirty-five thousand citizens have schizophrenia and 400,000 live with bipolar disorder. To put this into perspective, 65,000 Canadians are living with HIV/AIDS.
The fear that reporting suicide could lead to copycat group suicides is demeaning and condescending to those of us who live well with mental illness. To believe that mentally healthy people would commit suicide because they read about it is to conflate mental illness with gross stupidity. It is interesting, though that although the Globe agrees that one should not glorify suicide for fear of group suicide, it does not stop the Globe from reporting every horrible moment in an event precipitated by a someone in the middle of a mental health crisis that results in the death of a spouse, or child, or random killing in a theatre, or decapitating a stranger on a bus. We are never sheltered from those reports. No fear of group random murder/suicide. Just increased fear of those with mental illness.
Knowing more about those with mental illness is important. They are more than the illness that took them. But if we are going to remove the stigma, shame and silence of mental illness that prevents so many of our young people from accessing what little care there is, then we must show the same sympathy, empathy and compassion for those who in the middle of a psychotic break commit terrible acts for they are no more responsible for their actions than those who take their own lives. Many of these people are in the prime of their lives 18-24. Do their lives not deserve to be more than the crime? Do their families not deserve our empathy? Or do we save our pity for only some mental illnesses as if others could be controlled by strength of will.
If the media is serious about ending the silence around mental illness then they need to demand affordable, accessible mental health care from our governments. In my town 45 minutes outside Toronto, you can wait 8-12 months for an appointment with a psychiatrist who provides drug and talk therapy. Too many family physicians learn about drugs for the mentally ill from their drug reps and they have been known to prescribe the wrong drugs-which can lead to suicide in too many of our young people. Talk therapy has shown changes in brain chemicals, much like drug therapy. Yet, in Ontario, talk therapy is not covered by government health insurance. So we wait, and many give up hope, and others experience a psychotic break.
Hold back on the hosannas. In 30 years we have brought HIV/AIDS under control, wonderful new drugs have been developed for cancer and both illnesses no longer carry a stigma. Mental illness has been with us since the beginning of time. There are those who say that the Prophets were mentally ill-they heard voices! Yet the stigma remains. It isn’t cool to be mentally ill. Perhaps we’ll know that the shame of mental illness is gone, the silence broken when celebrities wear bracelets identifying themselves with us.
