Reactions, Take 3!
I just got back from a conference with young adults, convincing me that young adults (at least church of the brethren ones) understand mental illness better than the average populace. And that further convinces me that all this hard work on eradicating stigma is doing some good.I spent the weekend trying to explain what I do to the people around me, expecting to get the same old reactions: "are you afraid they're going to kill you?" or "do you have to give them baths?" or "I had a friend who worked with retarded people once" or... You all know how it goes.
Instead, they mostly understood and didn't even need me to explain that mental illness is different than mental disability. I did find myself constantly telling people, though, that some of the most intelligent and creative (not to mention brave and kind and authentic) people I've ever met have been guests at the farm, something that some of them didn't quite get and still looked at me with sympathy (the "it takes a special person" bit that makes me feel like gagging).
I usually tell the story of one woman here who hears voices about 20 times a day berating her and laughing at her; I tell how she works at a diner and takes math classes at a college and is one of the most compassionate and generous people I've ever met; I tell how still, though, people who don't know her sometimes look at her weird because she laughs to herself as a way of fending off the voices; I tell of how brave she is in living her life inspite of all of this... And then I say that every guest at the farm has a story with a similar theme.
And sometimes people get it. And sometimes they don't. At which point, I tell them that friends of staff at the farm can visit for free and that to really get it they should come visit.
I love this place and am awed by its people. And I think that shows. And I pray that that is enough to change some hearts...
I think it's misunderstood because it's ignored / denied; ignored / denied because it's feared; feared because it sometimes hits too close to home. My mom once said "It's scary that they all look just like us" (as though she expected mental illness to manifest itself in three noses or a green tail), and I think that underneath that for her was a fear that, if life can do something so hard to people who are otherwise just living like everyone else, that perhaps life can do something like that to her. For her, and I suspect for others, it's a fear of not having a quick explanation or an easy label / box to contain (and push away) something that is painful and scary. When in fact, pushing it away only makes it more scary and connecting with it and with the people who struggle with it underscores our common humanity and allows us all to be better at sharing each others' burdens.
K... so I ended up getting sappy... but it's definitely been a theme of my weekend as I, once again, tried to explain what I do to people who don't always understand. So thanks, KT, for bringing it up. Blessings to you all as you try to explain the unexplainable -- may you find the "right" words, may your hearers have ears and heart with which to hear, and may your life and love undergird your message.
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