Crazy Does Not Equal of Poor Character or Weak-Willed

by Shaker DesertRose

[Trigger warning for brief mentions of sexual violence and more detailed mentions of self-injury.]

(Part Four of the series "Crazy Does Not Equal..." Part One, "Crazy Does Not Equal Violent," is here. Part Two, "Crazy Does Not Equal Stupid," is here. Part Three, "Crazy Does Not Equal a Joke," is here.)

Full Disclosure: I have schizoaffective disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. I have suffered from one form or another of mental illness for most of my life, mostly depression in one form or another, anxiety, and various manifestations of PTSD. I am 33 years old, a ciswoman, white and Cherokee, divorced, mother of one completely awesome daughter, owned by two adorable tabby cats, bisexual with polyamorous tendencies, a proud bleeding-heart liberal, an eclectic pagan, and completely out of my tree.

I've always been hesitant to be open with people about my mental condition. Mental illness is still hugely stigmatized, and I don't want to be treated as if I'm somehow less than other people because my brain and mind are funky. But I've come to the realization that mental illness will remain stigmatized unless people with mental illnesses are open about their conditions and show the world that we're not what society would have the world believe.

People with mental illnesses are often stereotyped as violent, or, in contrast, figures of fun, to be mocked for "abnormal" behaviors. And if we're not to be feared or made fun of, we're childish and incapable of making our own decisions. Failing that, we're weak-willed or of poor character, often therefore leading to the conclusion that we're responsible for our conditions and could be "normal" if we'd just decide to be. On top of all that, we're often considered lacking in intelligence, which can be part and parcel of the "childish and incapable of making our own decisions" or "weak-willed" or "of poor character" tropes.

Someone who is genuinely of poor character is deliberately cruel, lacks compassion, harms the weak, engages in other behavior that reflects a lack of empathy and ethics. There are people with mental illnesses who are of poor character, just as there are people who do not have mental illness who are of poor character. But poor character does not go hand in hand with a psychiatric diagnosis. Nor does being weak-willed, which is often conflated with poor character at the intersection of mental illness.

People with depression often hear things like, "Cheer up" or "Look on the bright side" or "Why are you so negative?" or worse yet, "Count your blessings." I don't know about anybody else who's struggled with depression, but all of the above drive me crazier than I already am. If, in a depressive episode, I could cheer up or be more positive, don't you bloody well think I would? Nobody chooses to be depressed. Nobody wants to feel like that. Depression feels like pure hell, and if we could just cheer the fuck up, we would. It's just not that fucking easy.

People with PTSD hear similar things. "Why do you have to dwell on the past so much?" drives me right up a wall. I don't want to have flashbacks of being sexually abused (as a child) and raped (as an adult). I don't want to relive terrible, horrific events in my life when the thoughts come unbidden.

Frequently the implication is that people with mental illness who have the temerity to show evidence of that illness are acting out for attention. But I know how to get attention. It's called talking. I talk to my family. I talk to my friends. I talk to my therapist. They all pay attention to me when I'm talking. I blog. People read my blog (and my guest posts at Shakesville) and make comments. That's attention.

But nonetheless persists the trope that people with mental illnesses (and I've just mentioned the two with which I have the most personal experience) are weak-willed and/or "doing it for attention," neither of which says much for a person's character. Nor does it reflect an understanding of the strength of will it takes to get through life with a mental illness, how hard the day-to-day can be. And believe me, the attention you get when your mental illness symptoms are out of control is not the kind of attention people want. Nobody likes to be watched constantly, or committed to a psychiatric ward, or drugged or restrained, all of which have happened to me. Nobody would do that to themselves on purpose, not even someone who is seriously mentally ill.

To clarify, I have put myself in psychiatric wards before, because I could feel things getting out of control and I knew I needed help to regain control. But being involuntarily committed is a world of suck.

I used to self-injure, which is one of the most likely outward expressions of mental illness to garner the accusation of acting out for attention. It's not. The attention you get when someone finds out you've been cutting or burning or whatever the hell is similarly not the kind of attention anyone wants. I hid my cuts. I tended to make shallow, small, but painful cuts that could be passed off as cat scratches if anyone saw. I picked at them to keep them from healing too soon, but I never let on what I was doing. I did it because the physical pain made the emotional pain easier to bear. It was cathartic. I haven't cut in over a year, and I don't see myself cutting any time in the foreseeable future, but I remember the relief of physical pain and bleeding. It just made the emotions easier to manage.

I've known quite a fair few self-injurers, and I don't think any of them does/did it for attention. They did it for the same reasons I did—to make the emotional pain easier to take, for the catharsis. People who self-injure are trying to cope with phenomenal loads of pain, often burdens they've borne for their entire lives or close to it. These are not weak people. These are not attention hounds. These are people dealing with huge problems, and they're doing the best they can.

People with mental illnesses are not weak. On a day-to-day basis, they are dealing with the day-to-day bullshit we all deal with, and with a whole lot more.. They may be dealing with what I like to call musical meds (when one's psychiatrists are trying everything under the sun and then some to find a medication cocktail that works). They may be dealing with symptoms that, like some kind of monster out of Greek mythology, try to drag them down every time they pick themselves up. They may be dealing with loads of pain from childhood or adolescence that would break someone who was weak.

Suicide, which has so recently and horribly been in the news, is also not reflective of a lack of strength of character or of will, but of someone overwhelmed and under-supported.

A weak will does not go hand in hand with a psychiatric diagnosis, nor does poor character. It takes strength to live with mental illness. I am a person with mental illness, I am strong, and I am not alone.