A PSYCHIATRIC JOURNEY - IN ESSAY FORM 2
peter.casey@tadaust.org.au|
A HURTFUL INDIFFERENCE As a group, those of us with a psychiatric disability are probably the most marginalized members of our community and as such we simply don’t show up on the radar once optimistically but incorrectly thought to protect us from the slings and arrows that are a part of life for most consumers. But the most heart-breaking and hurtful thing for the many consumers is that they are treated with complete indifference by a broad section of the community. It’s not as though we are treated with disdain. Or that we are overtly feared. Or even that we are second class citizens who should reside in a second class environment. We are deliberately ignored and our existence is conveniently denied. But what’s most hurtful for those consumers is to be treated with complete and cruel indifference or to have your very existence summarily denied to the point that you begin to doubt it yourself. There’s certainly a case to be made that we truly are the invisible people who happen to reside at one of lifes major junctures where acceptance and rejection manage to co-exist in an uneasy truce. And if that’s not enough we are all too often given to understand that we don’t actually exist, that we are a figment of our own imagination or merely the product of some metaphysical accident which automatically precludes us from taking our equitable position within the community. And much to the discomfiture of some of the members of our community those of us with psych disabilities do exist. We are real. More real perhaps than some of those who live in the rarified atmosphere of a basically compassionate community but who refuse to apply the due consideration to consumers. And not only that but we have a right to access all those positives freely available to the point that they are taken for granted by those unencumbered by a psych disability. As a group or as a demographic, if this isn’t a misuse of the word, we are not asking for any more than “normal” people happily anticipate as their birthright. A popular catchword often employed by those with psych disabilities is recognition. This word takes on a life of it’s own when applied to consumers. Without this essential ingredient, this need for freely given and freely accepted recognition, public indifference could soon become the default setting for consumers. We all of us can hope for an affirmative recognition but realistically we must expect less from a cruel community that continues to deny us our very existence. |
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