but you don't seem crazy!

Transparency is a double edged sword. Once a person comes out as having a mental health “challenge” or “difference” or “illness,” there is no going back. There is no hiding behind descriptions like eccentric or quirky. People will judge you and place you in a box that limits you to your diagnosis. Even if never spoken aloud, there are some who will always think “Well, you know, she’s a schizophrenic.”  So that is a very real risk we take when we acknowledge publicly our challenges with a disorder of the brain. And to be sure there is a double standard because no one ever says “Well, you know he’s a diabetic or he has irritable bowel syndrome and that’s why he thinks that way.”

People have told me that I am unique for someone with a diagnosis of mental illness. I didn’t hear this until I started going public with it. For a long time only my family and a few close friends knew. But then I decided to become a peer specialist and the cat was out of the bag. So, why am I unique? Well, clinicians have labeled me “high functioning” versus “low functioning.”  I’m not okay with those terms. They are divisive like the terms “educated Black woman” or “urbanite.” Why can’t we just be people? Maybe it’s because of the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the media, but many picture people with schizophrenia as living under bridges, poorly groomed and talking to themselves. People who live with mental illness live in a variety of circumstances. We are not the convenient two dimensional characters you see in movies and televisions shows. We are not all violent and a threat to society. We do not all need to be locked away or warehoused. We are just people.

This stereotyping doesn’t just occur outside of the peer community. There is in fact an internalized stigma within the peer community that is rarely discussed. The response I get from the peers I work with when I disclose is priceless. When I first meet them, I tell that that I am a peer specialist and the role peer specialists can play in the recovery of an individual. I tell them that I too have a diagnosis. That’s when their ears perk up and they want to know what I’ve got. When I tell them, the first thing they say is “But you don’t look crazy.” Believe it or not this is a good thing because I have just challenged their stereotype of what it means to have a mental illness. I have just challenged their image of what a person with schizophrenia should act like. I have broken down a wall. It’s doubly awesome if the person has schizophrenia too, because my disclosure plants a seed in them for what is possible.

Apparently I am also unique because I am transparent. Not everyone goes around disclosing their diagnosis. In my cultural community we have a tradition of not “claiming” adversity or in this case a diagnosis. And I don’t claim schizophrenia, but I respect and acknowledge its place in my life. After all, I’ve tried ignoring it and that got me hospitalized, jobless and almost homeless. So, now I have a healthy respect for it and give it the attention it needs so that it does not stop me from living a life of my choosing.

I just don’t feel the need to hide this part of my life from anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t walk around with a t-shirt on that says look at me I’m mentally ill. However, I will disclose at the drop of a hat if necessary. What I mean is, there are times when my disclosure is not about me getting something off my chest, it’s about educating someone; it’s about fighting stigma. When I meet people in any area of my life and s sideways comment about people with mental illness comes up, I have been known to say “As a person with schizophrenia, that hasn’t been my experience.” The whole dynamic of the conversation changes from ignorant gossiping to embarrassment to meaningful dialogues. To be sure it’s awkward, its painful, its uncomfortable, but it’s necessary if we are going to change the way we think and communicate about mental illness.

This process of educating people is not new to me. It reminds me of my time in college in western New York in the late 1980’s. I went to a small state college in a small college town that was very unfriendly to African Americans. It was culture shock for me. I was naïve and thought that racism was something that happened before I was born. I learned pretty quickly that it was alive and well in the hearts and minds of my white brothers and sisters. So, I found myself having to help them unlearn some heinous untruths about me and my people. It was (and is) awkward, painful, embarrassing, and uncomfortable-but necessary for meaningful dialogue.

These dialogues about mental illness (and race) are not easy. They are not for the faint of heart. These conversations are for those of us who refuse to live in the shadows; for those of us who believe we have the right to thrive in this world just like everyone else. Don’t let the media fool you, don’t be discouraged by the way we are portrayed in the news. We really are trailblazers. Every time we get up and live our lives out loud we are destroying stereotypes and burying stigmas.