One thing I really adore about Tom King’s Batman (This is from I Am Gotham with David Finch) is that he takes the Moore/Miller “Isn’t Batman craaaaaazyyyyyy” approach and then flips it on its head, showing the repetition and the obsession, the unhealthy coping mechanisms, and then asks the simple question, why are they unhealthy? They kept him alive, kept him together, helped him become a better person, didn’t they? It takes the mentally ill aspect of Batman’s character and separates it, utterly, from the “Sociopathic villain” perception it seemed to go hand in hand with, explaining that, yes, Batman can be mentally ill, and yes, Batman can still then be an inherently, unambiguously good person
This drama is tragically and beautifully written. We rarely see the deglamorized reality of Mental Illness and the stigmas that come with it. I would highly suggest this drama to everyone! You don’t even have to be a drama fan to appreciate this amazingly well written story.
In some east Asian countries, mental illness carries even more of a stigma then it does in the UK and the US, which makes this film so much more important.
Ok I cried this drama needs so much more attention
The two male leads both suffer from mental illnesses
The male lead has very severe schizophrenia
He also has PTSD and can only sleep in his bathtub
His friend (the second male) has Tourette’s which is consistently portrayed
They DO NOT HOLD BACK on the ableist statements and remarks posed to the characters at all
Nearing the end of the drama the male lead completely loses his grasp on reality with a severe relapse
Neither character gets miraculously 100% cured (both are indicated to still take medication)
They make peace with their illnesses and it’s a happy ending
The drama’s writers were also recently given a plaque for their efforts in raising awareness for this, and it breaks the stereotype of the conventional ‘perfect family’ K-drama. Seriously, go watch this.
Demand more positive representation of mental illness
Destroy the stigma that surrounds mental illness
Don’t let more kids struggle all their life not knowing what is wrong with them
Don’t let mental illnesses go unrecognized and untreated
Destroy this environment that favors neurotypical able people
Let me tell you some things.
I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.
First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?
Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?
End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?
You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?
And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)
In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!
Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?
“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.
the universe did not converge in the series of improbable events that ended in your existence on this flying rock in the middle of space so that you could discredit the identity of teenage bisexual girls
This statement would be perfect if it didn’t discredit the identity of every other being on this flying rock.
this just in: i can in fact encourage people to support bi teenage girls, who experience some of the lowest levels of social support from their friends and family and some of the highest prevalence rates of mood and anxiety disorders and suicidality without discrediting everyone else’s identity, similar to how i can say ‘save the whales’ and not mean ‘and let everything else die.’
Are medical professionals biased against the mentally ill?
THE first time it was an ear, nose and throat doctor. I had an emergency visit for an ear infection, which was causing a level of pain I hadn’t experienced since giving birth. He looked at the list of drugs I was taking for my bipolar disorder and closed my chart.
“I don’t feel comfortable prescribing anything,” he said. “Not with everything else you’re on.” He said it was probably safe to take Tylenol and politely but firmly indicated it was time for me to go. The next day my eardrum ruptured and I was left with minor but permanent hearing loss.
Another time I was lying on the examining table when a gastroenterologist I was seeing for the first time looked at my list of drugs and shook her finger in my face. “You better get yourself together psychologically,” she said, “or your stomach is never going to get any better.”
If you met me, you’d never know I was mentally ill. In fact, I’ve gone through most of my adult life without anyone ever knowing — except when I’ve had to reveal it to a doctor. And that revelation changes everything. It wipes clean the rest of my résumé, my education, my accomplishments, reduces me to a diagnosis.
I was surprised when, after one of these run-ins, my psychopharmacologist said this sort of behavior was all too common. At least 14 studies have shown that patients with a serious mental illness receive worse medical care than “normal” people. Last year the World Health Organization called the stigma and discrimination endured by people with mental health conditions “a hidden human rights emergency.”
I never knew it until I started poking around, but this particular kind of discriminatory doctoring has a name. It’s called “diagnostic overshadowing.”
According to a review of studies done by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London, it happens a lot. As a result, people with a serious mental illness — including bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder — end up with wrong diagnoses and are under-treated.
That is a problem, because if you are given one of these diagnoses you probably also suffer from one or more chronic physical conditions: though no one quite knows why, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome and mitral valve prolapse often go hand in hand with bipolar disorder.
Less mysterious is the weight gain associated with most of the drugs used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which can easily snowball into diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease. The drugs can also sedate you into a state of zombiedom, which can make going to the gym — or even getting off your couch — virtually impossible.
It’s little wonder that many people with a serious mental illness don’t seek medical attention when they need it. As a result, many of us end up in emergency rooms — where doctors, confronted with an endless stream of drug addicts who come to their door looking for an easy fix — are often all too willing to equate mental illness with drug-seeking behavior and refuse to prescribe pain medication.
I should know: a few years ago I had a persistent migraine, and after weeks trying to get an appointment with any of the handful of headache specialists in New York City, I broke down and went to the E.R. My husband filled out paperwork and gave the nurse my list of drugs. The doctors finally agreed to give me something stronger than what my psychopharmacologist could prescribe for the pain and hooked me up to an IV.
I lay there for hours wearing sunglasses to block out the fluorescent light, waiting for the pain relievers to kick in. But the headache continued. “They gave you saline and electrolytes,” my psychopharmacologist said later. “Welcome to being bipolar.”
When I finally saw the specialist two weeks later (during which time my symptoms included numbness and muscle weakness), she accused me of being “a serious cocaine user” (I don’t touch the stuff) and of displaying symptoms of “la belle indifference,” a 19th-century term for a kind of hysteria in which the patient converts emotional symptoms into physical ones — i.e., it was all in my head.
Indeed, given my experience over the last two decades, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the statistics I found in the exhaustive report “Morbidity and Mortality in People with Serious Mental Illness,” a review of studies published in 2006 that provides an overview of recommendations and general call to arms by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. The take-away: people who suffer from a serious mental illness and use the public health care system die 25 years earlier than those without one.
True, suicide is a big factor, accounting for 30 to 40 percent of early deaths. But 60 percent die of preventable or treatable conditions. First on the list is, unsurprisingly, cardiovascular disease. Two studies showed that patients with both a mental illness and a cardiovascular condition received about half the number of follow-up interventions, like bypass surgery or cardiac catheterization, after having a heart attack than did the “normal” cardiac patients.
The report also contains a list of policy recommendations, including designating patients with serious mental illnesses as a high-priority population; coordinating and integrating mental and physical health care for such people; education for health care workers and patients; and a quality-improvement process that supports increased access to physical health care and ensures appropriate prevention, screening and treatment services.
Such changes, if implemented, might make a real difference. And after seven years of no change, signs of movement are popping up, particularly among academic programs aimed at increasing awareness of mental health issues. Several major medical schools now have programs in the medical humanities, an emerging field that draws on diverse disciplines including the visual arts, humanities, music and science to make medical students think differently about their patients. And Johns Hopkins offers a doctor of public health with a specialization in mental health.
Perhaps the most notable of these efforts — and so far the only one of its kind — is the narrative medicine program at Columbia University Medical Center, which starts with the premise that there is a disconnect between health care and patients and that health care workers need to start listening to what their patients are telling them, and not just looking at what’s written on their charts.
According to the program’s mission statement, “The effective practice of health care requires the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence is a model for humane and effective medical practice.”
We can only hope that humanizing programs like this one become a requirement for all health care workers. Maybe then “first, do no harm” will apply to everyone, even the mentally ill.
By JULIANN GAREY
Published: August 10, 2013
The author of the novel “Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See” and a co-editor of “Voices of Bipolar Disorder: The Healing Companion.”
Reblogging because this is the sort of thing that needs signal boosting the heck out of it. Probably many of the people who see this in my Tumblr are people who already know from first-hand experience as a patient. Probably most of the people who even know my Tumblr exists are not in a position to perpetuate this problem (because they aren’t doctors). But I figure if more people get info like this circulating, maybe eventually someone in a better position to reach more doctors with this kind of information and open serious dialogue about how to address the problem will come across this.
Until then, at least a better informed patient population can, I hope, be in a better position to advocate for themselves—if not always as individuals then perhaps as groups.
I’ve said my piece about my personal life and that holds true. I have zero interest in ever discussing my sex or love life publicly on other people’s terms. If you want answers about the particulars of a game developer’s private romantic entanglements, please ask yourself why you feel entitled to such a thing. As far as I’m concerned, the only people who have any business in knowing these things are the people they actually effect – and my current partner is aware.
Professionally, I feel like there are some things I can easily address though, now that things have begun to calm down.
Regarding the claim that I have exchanged sex for positive reviews. This has been investigated and debunked, and oh right, the review in question doesn’t even exist. Anything else written by Nathan in 2014, before we started dating, in which I am vaguely, tangentially mentioned at all has been the same tone and coverage as everyone else who covered it. There is no corruption issue here – if there was, you’d think there’d be some talk of massive AAA companies flying out and wining and dining games journalists rather than discussion of Phil Fish’s relationships. (warning: all of these links are screenshots and there’s a small sampling of the smorgasbord of fucked up shit in them) It’salmostlikethiswholescandalonlyblewupforreasonsotherthan“corruption”.
Regarding the claim that I doxxed and destroyed The Fine Young Capitalists, that is also incorrect. You can read that here in their own words. I know that when things kick up online it can be hard to sort out who did what, but aside from their own statement, there is zero evidence of this. What I did do was be critical of some of their policies on twitter, because as someone who has taught women game design and created programs to help them get started making their first games I get really passionate about this stuff. We have different approaches but share the same wish to get women involved with game development, and I wish them the best of luck in accomplishing that. Rebel Jam is not one of these programs and was totally unrelated to anything having to do with TFYC and came as a reaction to everything that was wrong about Game_Jam – but I will have some really exciting things to announce soon about it that I’ve been holding in for a while until paperwork clears and red tape is cut. Stay tuned.
Regarding the claim that I am the head of a massive conspiracy that is able to censor and shut down all major games press sites, 4chan, reddit, and god knows what else, I WISH that was true. God how cool would that be? A shadowy overlord of the internet, who is also kind of a cyborg? Shit that would be a good story. But that’s all it is – a story. Occam’s razor is still a thing. What is more likely, the pulp story of a lone woman manipulating the entire internet or that maybe, JUST MAYBE, other people can recognize this for the TMZ style bullshit it really is?
LemonGrenade 
