Breaking

I’ve just been online and read up on Jason Russell’s (of Kony 2012 fame) bare-ass rampage through San Diego earlier today. I’m glad he’s getting help as he’s clearly not well, but at the same time incredibly narked that the official statement cites “exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition” as the cause of Russell’s bizarre behaviour. 

Call me an armchair psychologist if you like, but isn’t this evidence of a man who’s lost his mind? To me, this sidestep smacks of implicit ‘sensitivity’ around mental illness, which frankly I find equivalent to stigma. Heaven forbid anyone mention a psychotic break in the media, we might end up having to admit it’s commoner than we’d like to think. Rich people are hospitalised for exhaustion or addiction, the rest of us are left to simply go crazy. With such a high profile case, I find this more than disappointing – more like disturbing.

Ok, so being a bit Aspie I have trouble with some forms of implicit processing, and left to think about things for too long, tend to get the rules wrong sometimes. So I ask you instead – in failing to announce an obvious mental health issue in a plain and frank way, do you also read the insinuation that there’s shame in a section? That somehow, exhaustion is a ‘purer’ illness, or somehow simply pitiable and easy to understand, rather than disgusting and fear-invoking? By refusing to put this information forwards, are we furthering marginalisation and fear of mental illness? Shouldn’t the phrase ‘sh*t happens’ be equally applicable, understandable and human for both diagnoses? Why the euphemistic approach? Why hide from the truth? Is it really that ugly?

Please do post back if you have an angle on this, I’d like to hear whether this made anyone else feel uncomfortable, indignant, or a little bit patronised – or whether I’m missing something.