My partner and I like to watch scary movies. Inevitably, many of these movies involve asylums. It isn’t only scary movies. Asylums pop up in various genres of film and other media all over the world, misleading viewers about the truth and feeding the stigma.
The ignorance and denial surrounding mental illness is found not only in the media, but in the hardened hearts and minds of individuals in society who not only deny the existence of the illness, but associate the “crazy” and “dangerous” people in our midst with fear and misunderstanding.
People are afraid of the unknown. Many choose not to acknowledge the truth even when it is put right in their path. This fear and these lies about mental illness and the treatment of it are sending the message that “crazy” people exist.
It makes me physically sick to watch these movies when they involve asylums, and the way they portray people with real problems. When they show extreme forms of treatment, like ECT, I have to close my ears and shut my eyes. That is too real for me, and the movies cannot possibly do it justice. I can’t handle it, even now.
Writers are supposed to write about what they know, right? Writers, whether they write books, articles, or movie scripts should write about what they know, not about issues they pretend to know about. I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about mental illness, but I have seen and experienced my share of it. The pain lingers.
The ignorance in our society must be replaced with knowledge and understanding. If we continue to keep our silence, the fear and lies will continue to surround us.
It won’t be easy. Real change takes time. But we must bring out the truth. No one is “crazy.” That is a word used to cause more segregation.
We CAN lose the stigma; first by accepting our own truth and then by spreading the message that this is real, and no one is “normal.”
—SJB