In an email, a reader suggested I take up the subject of the murderous army psychiatrist in Texas. I had not paid much attention to the awful tragedy; I find it helps me little to follow such events. In fact, I get demoralized thinking about the wretched state of modern culture, where fallible humans can handle weapons capable of wiping out dozens of lives in just a few minutes. The first news reports, to the extent I could not avoid the headlines, seemed to indicate the guy ‘snapped’ because of impending deployment to Iraq. That would have made a more interesting and less inflammatory subject, but now there are suggestions he had ties to Muslim extremists. Predictably, that possibility has summoned the nastiness out of the rotting foundation of this country’s democracy. A senator from Illinois is blaming Barak Obama, because the President’s father was Muslim. His comment lacks honor, like much of what I hear today. Regardless of how one feels about the leader of this nation, accusing him of causing this nightmare is simply silly and opportunist. But this is not a political blog, thank God. Since it’s so sparsely read, I imagine I can get away with the fractious sentiment I just inserted. But I’ll say no more along those lines.
That a psychiatrist committed such an act, and that there is at least a suggestion he did it because of mental stress, is interesting to me for other reasons. In general, people do not expect well-educated, successful, established doctors to lose their grip. I was once insane (technically, ‘psychotic’.) And I was once a physician. Unless you count depression as delusional, I was never out of touch with reality and practicing medicine at the same time. The point, however, is that lots of training and responsibility are no insurance against insanity. (Whether this particular psychiatrist lost contact with reality, or committed insane acts with full awareness of the humanity of those he was killing, is immaterial to my point. Either way, he quit acting in a rational fashion—and I would hold that to be true even if he killed because of extremism.) Mental illness, unlike humanity, does not discriminate. All races, classes, occupations, genders, and ages can be struck by it. Yes, the psychiatrically disordered as a group have less-than-average income and living standards, but poverty is more often an effect than a cause of psychiatric conditions.
Not very long ago, I tried to become a psychiatrist (I also applied to PhD and master’s programs in psychology;) this was back when I still sought a ‘secure’ career. Now I am only interested in writing, and can be free in what I reveal about myself. But when I was still interested in working as a clinician, being open was a risk. And I was too open in my applications. Foolishly, I thought having a life history saturated with family and personal mental health problems made me a better candidate. I thought the admissions committees would recognize my increased empathy toward patients, and better understanding of their situations. Instead, I was told I showed ‘lack of boundaries,’ and demonstrated ‘too much self-disclosure,’ to be a successful applicant. Personally, I think this was code that told me they did not want to knowingly accept someone with a history of psychosis, however remote and circumscribed it was. At the time, I felt furious. Friends encouraged me to launch anti-discrimination lawsuits. Obviously, the programs did not want to accept a psychiatry resident who might go on to, for instance, fire upon dozens of people at an army base. My belief is that they could have looked at the utter absence of violence in my story, and seen that a childlike conviction that God walked beside me was fundamentally different from being lost in a homicidal obsession. Or that a single event many years ago, one prompted by an antidepressant drug, did not put me in the mass-murderer category.
There is such fear of mental illness, however, that no one wants to take responsibility for making such distinctions. It’s easier to just be cautious and say ‘NO.’ I encountered the same roadblock at Big Brothers, Big Sisters. After a long vetting process, including interviews and fingerprinting, the director of our local chapter told me they could not accept me because of my psychosis history. I don’t think the guy even knew the precise meaning of the word, ‘psychosis;’ it was just too scary and seemingly too risky for him to accept. I thought the way I’ve overcome a stormy upbringing, broken family, history of child abuse, and so on, would help me be a good mentor to a troubled youth. But by being honest, and admitting my psychiatric problems, I ruined my chances.
I understand better than before why many African-Americans are burdened with chronic anger. It is maddening and humiliating to have people judge you on the basis of category rather than capability. To have skin that is brownish rather than pinkish, and so be out of the running regardless of who you really are, must be an excruciating experience. Fortunately, overt racism is no longer tolerated. But the historical memory, and covert discrimination, will continue to harm for a long time.
There is little societal proscription against discrimination on the basis of mental illness. There are laws, but people ignore them. Few seem to think twice before making jokes about ‘crazies.’ A few days ago I was drifting (there was almost no wind) in a sailboat under the Golden Gate Bridge. The group I was with had been put together through an online social network. I did not know any of them. Naturally, at some point people asked me what I ‘do’ for a living. The answer is complicated, but mainly I write. Not for a living, but as an occupation and with a tiny prayer of someday making money. The next question, ‘what do you write about,’ brought us to the topic of mental illness. With my usual lack of boundaries (vide supra,) I told people that my interest in the subject started around the time my mother killed herself.
An hour later, when we approached the Golden Gate Bridge, someone brought up the fact that plans are in place to put a net underneath to curtail the frequent suicides (which average two a month.) One enlightened sailor retorted, “Aw, just let ‘em all jump!”
I was too shocked to respond at first. Was he being deliberately cruel to me, after what I said about my mom? Or was he just ignorant and rude? By the time I organized a response, the conversation had moved on. I tried to bring it up again, but someone changed the subject before I got too far. So I gave up, and came home feeling very different from ‘normal’ people.
I started this post with the intention of writing about how despair and mental illness can strike anyone. I ended up talking about discrimination. Both are important subjects, but I find writing about them in this direct way less engaging than my more emotionally immediate pieces. The best solution to ignorance and prejudice is to enlighten others by putting human and close-to-home faces on psychiatric conditions. That is the direction I am hoping to go with my writing. Not addressing discrimination in exposition, like I just did, but by helping others glimpse the inner landscape of mental distress. My hope is that I can help people who, like me, battle psychic demons. I also pray that I can move people who think they are ‘normal,’ and harbor hostile attitudes about mental illness, to adopt a more compassionate stance.
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