Eleven years ago, at just 12 years old, Morgan Geiser stabbed a classmate under what she believed was the order of the internet creation ‘Slender Man.’ The survivor experienced near-fatal injuries. That same year, Morgan received her own diagnosis, “Child Onset Schizophrenia.”
Her journey has been public.
Just a month ago, Morgan ran away from her group home, prompting panic. Would she strike again? Was society safe?
As I followed the story and read the comments, I saw vicious remarks. Many people expressed thoughts not just about Morgan’s fate, but about how society should treat people living with serious mental illness, in general. The remarks were not kind, with many writing that we need to bring back institutions and lock people away forever.
I have come across other visceral reactions recently.
Just a few months ago, a news host recommended an intervention for homeless individuals living with serious mental illness: “Involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ’em.”
The reality: Only a very small percentage of people living with mental illness enact violence. The relationship between having a mental health condition and being a potentially dangerous person is not well-established. The stigma sits there with a growing number of people eyeing us with contempt.
As both a therapist who herself lives openly with mental health conditions, I feel less welcome.
Would my diagnosis appear like scarlet letters on my back? Do these commenters believe that I and people I love—who live with mental health conditions—should not be allowed access to the world, that we must be segregated so as not to contaminate the rest of society?
Living with a mental illness can be rough, but our conditions aren’t contagious.
Self-Care, Boundaries, and Psychosis
Bizarrely, this is an age where “mental health matters” and similar sayings are stamped all over social media and bumper stickers. The popularity of topics like self-care, boundaries, and therapy has skyrocketed in many areas of mental health. Yet, psychosis and other serious mental illnesses are rarely included in these campaigns.
We are othered, and those who struggle with housing or employment are especially so.
Hundreds to thousands of people freeze to death on America’s streets each year, many of whom are or could be diagnosed with a mental illness. Where is the outrage for their lives?
A double, almost contradictory judgment exists. On one side, they are seen as needing to be institutionalized for society’s safety. On the other side, their suffering is minimized to a point where people remark that they need to just “get a job.”
Many people living with serious mental illness have meaningful skills to contribute. Yet, discourse frames these individuals as simply lacking the ability to work, totally ignoring how social stigma affects employment outcomes for people living with mental illness (Brouwers, 2020).
If people feel so strongly that those who are unhoused should just get a job, why aren’t they hiring?
Even in healthcare, discrimination and bias are present and often unconscionable. People with mental health diagnoses tend to receive poorer care, as demonstrated by a study where primary care providers were provided a vignette of a patient with schizophrenia, found that many assumed the man would not adhere to care, making them less likely to refill a prescription or refer to a specialist (Corrigan and colleagues, 2014).
Further, while people with serious mental illnesses were known to be at heightened risk of mortality from COVID-19, they were often de-prioritized (Barcella and colleagues, 2021).
Unlike the flocks of individuals to comment when a single individual engages in an act of violence, when thousands of people diagnosed with a mental illness are harmed, the public response is crickets.
Closing
If we wish to promote mental health, we must embrace all of it. Individuals living with serious mental illnesses enrich our lives. Many are parents, teachers, friends, doctors, sons, daughters, and so on. We cannot tolerate this ongoing dehumanization. Mental health matters, and people with mental illness matter too.