Through the arched window

Because nothing says Christmas like mental health problems

I came across an article on mental health which I found interesting today. The piece was in the free Toronto paper Eye Weekly by John Sewell, an ex-mayor of Toronto, and dealt with a session on mental health he had chaired at George Brown College. The thrust of the article was that mental health problems should be acknowledged and dealt with in a more open way than they currently are in our society. I definitely felt the truth in that statement, as several people close to me have mental health problems, and there does seem to be a stigma attached, even in these relatively enlightened times.

I will let two of the speakers from the day make my point more eloquently than I could hope to.

John Sewell wrote about the speech made my James Bartleman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

Bartleman then turned to what he really had come to say. He said he wanted everyone to know that he suffered from depression. I was astounded. It was the first time I had heard such a prominent person be so open about a problem of mental illness... He said he was able to function because he took the necessary drugs. He said he wanted to lend his voice to the message that mental illness shouldn't be treated as a big thing, certainly no differently than any other kind of illness.

Roméo Dallaire made a speech with similar themes, the manageabilty and need for respectability of mental health problems.

He talked about the stress of being in situations of conflict and killing. He noted how we feel sympathy for a soldier who is physically wounded, but have little compassion for the soldiers, as he put it, at the back of the legion hall hiding their inner torment in drink.

"Mental illness was not honourable in the armed forces," he said. "We have not shifted our culture to say that the mentally ill are honourable and that they deserve care and treatment." In fact, Dallaire was released from the Canadian armed forces because of his mental breakdown after Rwanda.

Concluding his talk, he held a package of pills in the air. He said he had tried to commit suicide because of the horrors he had experienced in Rwanda... But, he said, after a failed suicide, he decided his life has value working to advance human rights. He said his pills keep him on an even track. "I am no different than someone with diabetes," he said. "Respect and not just tolerance is needed to bring people like me onto the team."

Bartleman and Dallaire are the type of people we, as a society, should want more of on the team and I think we would do well to listen to this message.

posted by Patrick ASD @ 1:23 PM