Words and Stigma

Posted on January 10, 2006 in Stigma Words

Mixed feelings about the ending of my confrontation with Randy Paul. Very mixed. I know Randy to be a kind man, but like so many others out there he slips up when it comes to watching his language about mental illness. He’s not the first progressive/liberal blogger I’ve challenged on this and the result is often the same. Either no apology or denial or something ambiguous that really doesn’t show understanding about why we find the statement offensive, why protests of intention are not good enough. He did better than most (remember Lindsay Beyerstein’s repeated attempts to make me wrong and her right?). If Randy never does it again, that would be enough. But the best apology he could have made would have been to delete the article in question.

It’s a time to drop things for now. I suffer from bipolar disorder and a flame war would be too costly for my wellbeing.

BipolarPrincess said that “we are less than human” in the eyes of many. While I don’t think that this is exactly true, I do believe that other people fear we are inhuman, invisible, and possibly contagious. They believe that to understand us means to become like us. I must paraphrase what bipolar psychologist Kay Jamison says: there is no way you can understand us unless you, yourself, have the specific mental illness. Only another bipolar can understand what Princess and I go through. Only another bipolar sees that maddening interplay between the rational and emotional minds that scatters us like arms of moisture scatter from the impact point of a waterballoon when we are in an episode. Princess herself represents the epitome of an outsider in her own family. I understand that. I understand her rage. Our intelligence and our dignity are continually being challenged and, worse, denied. This may make us a little sensitive at times, but the sensitivity is not water-based or polluted: it rises from the pure stone of experience.

Chief among those extrapersonal experiences is the language people have used to abuse us. All my bipolar friends know long lists of words that amount to the same thing: your mind is untrustworthy. Therefore I can ignore it. Bloggers use these same sets of words to attack others all the time. And, despite the denials, they mean the same thing: your mind is untrustworthy.

Our feelings of oppression from hearing these words make us invisible men and invisible women.

I can name many words which can be used to make better, more accurate points against the likes of Bush, Robertson, Auguste Pinochet, those who support them, and others like them. Words like cruel, thoughtless, ignorant, mean, arrogant, hard-hearted, selfish, nasty, insensitive, stubborn, sociopathic*, narcissistic*, paranoid**, misinformed, unreasonable, untrustworthy, irrational, thieving, pirating, violent, fascist, controlling, bullying, narrow, willful, willfully ignorant, hypocritical, abusive, lying, pandering, demagogic, elitist, antisocial, homophobic, genocidal, shrill, cronyist, dictatorial, evil, angry, unrighteous, immoral, manipulative, unrepentant, amoral, Satanic, unChristian, uncharitable, excessive, miserly, prejudiced, bigoted, and rude would suffice to make the point without suggesting — accidentally or purposefully — that the person suffered from an organic brain dysfunction. All of these can be applied to people who are “sane”, who have control of their thoughts. And there are more, many more.

I developed this list ~without~ resort to a thesaurus or a dictionary. Certainly others can apply themselves and develop their own lists. Certainly they can train themselves to think as they think, as they write, as they edit what they write. There’s no need to cast a word whose effects might scatter-bomb and do most of its damage to innocent parties.

Every day of my life, I have had to get along with people who don’t have my disease. What they forget is they also have to get along with me.

Notes:

* The terms sociopath and narcissist do not refer to organic brain disorders but to a class of disorders called “personality disorders”. Personality disorders reflect thought patterns which have been chosen by the subject. A sociopath, for example, decides that he is not subject to the same rules as everyone else; he decides that he wants to survive by manipulating other people and lying. A narcissist decides that he is the best thing since sliced bread and expects to be the center of attention. Prognosis for these syndromes is poorer than for schizophrenic, mood, and anxiety disorders because they require a willingness to change thought patterns which takes a lot of work. Many of these just drop out of treatment. The therapist, it appears to them, just takes too much away.

**Paranoia is a symptom. It can also be a way of thought which is adopted for its own sake. This is a borderline word for many of us who suffer from mental illness: personally, it does not offend me. I confess to having been paranoid. Yet, paranoia can also be chosen as a way of thinking. Many cops, intelligence operatives, and detectives adopt it. Some take it too far. They won’t let it go.

There is a paranoid personality disorder.

My advice for using the word is to be careful about using it when speaking to a known sufferer of mental illness. If you are on good terms with the person — if you’re recognized as a friend — you can say something like “This sounds a little paranoid to me. How are you feeling otherwise?” When speaking of thinking that invokes unnecessary fear, feel free to use it. That’s speaking for me. Others may differ.