Kaleidoscope

Mental Illness has been a part of the Human experience and has evolved right along with us from era to era. Perhaps, in the beginning it was not recognized what with trying not to be dinner while managing to throw something edible onto the fire pit. Then when Clairvoyants were all the rage maybe they were just Schizophrenics with Dissociative Disorder trying to make a buck while chaotic paint splatters, repetitive multi-colored images and rambling run on sentences made some artists party favors along with making Bi-Polar synonymous with Bi-Sexual Mental Illnes was in vogue. For a time the only institutions being built faster than prisons were ones to sequester the Mentally Ill, treatment varied form none to hopefully not shorting out the power grid. Some societies vilify the Mentally Ill as rampaging marauders stampeding into town and all the women and children should be hidden away, on the other hand some societies don’t want even the whisper of possible discrimination toward the Mentally Ill that some of them literally get away with murder. Mental Illness is a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation, if you do tell people then you risk being treated like a pariah in some circumstances and if you don’t tell people you could come across as the weirdo who should be given a wide berth. Revealing that you have a Mental Illness is very much like coming out of the closet, there is judgment fear and uncertainty on all sides there is a shift in perception about everything from everyone involved. Mental Illness and Addiction go hand in hand of course there are exceptions but like the Lunar and Solar Eclipses “rare” is the operative word here. Mental Illness is personal for me because I am Bi-Polar and I was not properly diagnosed until my late thirties, what those of us in camp Mentally Ill need is compassion from those who don’t fully understand professional help sometimes medication but mostly love just like everyone else. Mental Illness is not always rainbows and sunshine nor is it always gloom and doom personally, I do the best I can all the time but most of the time it is what it is.