Mental Illness and Political Affiliation

Posted on December 4, 2006 in Bipolar Disorder Campaign 2004 Civic Responsibility Conservatives Liberals & Progressives Psycho-bunk

I’m not so sure that the severity of mental illness causes one to vote Republican (cf Katherine Kramer and the New Haven Advocate), but I do believe that one’s attitude towards one’s illness affects one’s condition and says something about one’s views. Or so I believe I have observed in support groups.

Most people who attend support groups for bipolar disorder, for example, seem to support Democratic candidates. Just the other day, several of us talked about the war in Iraq and how messed up it was. Absent from the group were others who supported Bush: we have a few of these, but their number is decidedly small.

Likewise, when I was in partial (outpatient) therapy, it was the fundamentalists and similar right wing fanatics who had the highest rehospitalization rate. I remember one woman, for example, telling me that prayer had helped her through all four of the hospitalizations she’d had in the past five years.

I think that what this indicates is two things: first, liberal bipolars tend to be individuals who accept the reality of their illness. They take their meds, see their therapists, educate themselves on the illness, and accept it as a continuing condition of their life. Second that conservative bipolars tend to not take their meds or rely on any outside help or believe that their illness has any effect on their outlook. They exist in a state of denial.

This might tell us something about conservatives versus liberals. The Connecticut study reveals, for example:

“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.

Conservative politicians, I proffer, tend to oppose what might be called the Medical Model of Government: that Government exists to assist the people and ensure that the rich do not overwhelm the poor. Their declamations must include a healthy helping of blind optimism and cynicism about the ability of an unfocused approach to solve social problems.

The liberal lawmaker, like the liberal patient, admits the existence of ills. The causes of issues such as racism and economic inequality, for example, are not thought (a la Hitchens) as insurmountable, but as difficult and worth attempting to change. The liberal patient accepts that she has an illness that affects how she perceives life, the universe and everything. She does not oppose or defy those who treat her but, in the words of 12-steppers, “works the program”. The conservative sees medical professionals as enemies. She complains about mind control and dark conspiracies on the part of the psychiatric profession. Her focus is not on recovery but on keeping modern medicine from destroying her world view with unpleasant facts and clearer cognition.

A broader study might find that conservatives and liberals have about the same percentages of the mentally ill among them. What would differ, as I have contended above, is the recovery rate. As a model for facing reality, there are severe problems and pessimism inherent in the present conservative perspective that carry over into one’s management of one’s moods. If we cannot cure the symptoms, we can certainly work to ameliorate them. This is where the conservative gives up. As I have said here, the meds and the therapy have not cured me of my bipolar disorder, but they have made it easier to take. Who wants to live in a world of unmitigated brutality? Well, some do.