Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW)

Although it's passed for this year, the first week of October has been "Mental Illness Awareness Week" (MIAW) for 20 years now, though I just found out recently myself. It was established in 1990 by the U.S. Congress in recognition and encouragement of attempts to increase awareness and reduce the painful stigmata associated with the broad and pervasive plight of mental illness (and no, not Jesus' scars- "stigmata" is actually the plural form of "stigma"). So many of us have been hurt, deeply- and I think it might be time I actually do something about it. Nearly everyone I know (more absolutely, everyone that knows me), has been touched, anguished, abused, harassed, injured by mental illness, in some capacity, in some form or fashion. And if you don't think you have been, then that probably just means that you're not aware of it yet. Give it some time and get back to me. Or, better yet, albeit perhaps more difficult, take my word for it. It hurts, it devestates, it leaves a broad trail of destruction and suffering- it breaks lives and ruins relationships just as much as any other disease out there (much more than any other, I would assert). And it kills- I don't just mean that in a figurative or metaphorical sense, I mean it ends lives. I have seen that for myself. If you need further convincing, though, then message me privately, and we can discuss it on a more respective level.

Typically, ironically, even hypocritically, I am a very apathetic individual when it comes to "causes"- some would likely call me cynical. I have always thought it a weakness to need others, and naught but a crutch to support idealistic drives and trends that flare up and then burst, like market bubbles, giving rise to the next movement, the next attempt to educate (or shame) the public consciousness into action. However, I am realizing that we, as human beings, really do need each other. I still don't agree with some of the attempts that exist- have existed- and their attempts to garner the attention of us, the people; but I understand,finally, that we truly cannot live this life alone.

In that spirit, and in the name of this very real cause, think about how you can do something, whether it be researching, educating yourself, contributing your time or resources to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) or another similar organization, writing a letter to someone you know who has been hurt to tell them you care, talking to the people you know (or even don't know, if you're feeling particularly courageous), making a meal for a family that is having to deal with a relevant situation, writing about it in your own blog, or just including it in your prayers (and that deserves more than a mere "just"). Although, I'm not asking you to do any of that, specifically. I only ask that you begin to think, you begin to wonder, you begin to consider and search yourself, for anything, anything at all, that you can do. Not what you think your neighbor can do, or what your friends can do, or what the government needs to do, or what your community can do, but what you, yourself, can do (although it could absolutely extend and grow to something beyond yourself, and I pray that it does!). However, don't do it solely because I'm asking you to, nor because you know me or my situation, but because this is a real issue, staring us all in the face, that we, individually and collectively, have been too timid, too callous, and too ignorant to meet eyes with and confront.

I'm going to be doing this as well, so don't think I'm challenging everyone but myself. And it's going to be difficult (has been difficult), but I'm going to continue, because of my beliefs, because of my faith, because of my opinions and lot in this life. Because I've known the sadness, the hopelessness, the unfathomable years upon years of pain, the scars (seen and unseen) that will be with me forever. And it's a hell on earth that I wish upon no one, no matter who they are or what they've done. But the sad truth that no one wants to pay attention to is that some people have to live through that hell anyway, or die.

As I grow older, and as I see how mental illness destroys so many, and hurts so many more, I am only deepened in the personal conviction, in the belief, in the assertion, that has come to resonate in the deepest confines of my soul, thrumming to the tone of a cryptic curse, ancient-spoken:


This is our tragedy.


Maybe it's time to own it.

Heavy-Hearted Bryce

I recently came across some information on Bryce, the old state hospital in Tuscaloosa, AL, for the "insane," that blew my mind.

At just one of the four cemeteries, there is a historic statement on a plaque that reads as follows:


"This is the oldest of four historic cemeteries located on the
campus of Bryce Hospital, Alabama’s oldest mental health
facility. The first recorded burial dates to 1861. While only
a few graves are currently marked, it is estimated that
thousands of individuals are buried here. Bryce Hospital is
one of the most historic and architecturally significant public
institutions in the U.S. Established in 1852 at the height of
the psychiatric reform movement known as 'moral treatment,'
the hospital was among the first mental health facilities in
the country to employ architectural design and a pastoral
setting as essential components in the treatment of mental
illness. Through Wyatt v. Stickney, the landmark federal
lawsuit initiated in 1971, Bryce Hospital became the
center of the civil rights movement for people who
experience mental illness."


I went to this place. I had to see it for myself. I climbed the hill and found the plaque, and took a look around me. My heart broke as I imagined what it should look like. There should be thousands of headstones, each with a name, each with a memory, each with a lifetime beneath its morbid scrawl. It should look like Arlington or something, rows upon rows of sobering reminders of our mortality and the indifference with which Death takes each and every one of us.

But there were three headstones.

Three.

The first headstone I went to said nothing. It was broken, all text or lettering worn away with time and weather. The second grave-marker said only, "Jesus, Lover Of My Soul Was Her Favorite Song From The Age Of Two." I didn't have the heart to go to the third.

While wandering the few acres that comprise the cemetery, I stumbled upon a fallen marker. I looked at it, and was able to pick out what it said, despite the rough-hewn stone and sloppy, child-like characters.

"2511"

Two-thousand-five-hundred-and-eleven.

I broke down as I saw that. So many people, with no names, no faces, no memories. Just people, former patients of Bryce Hospital- "crazy people." People that the majority didn't understand, so the majority locked them away. People like me. What if I had lived a hundred years ago? Would my personality disorder be considered "insane" enough for something like that? Like this? I guess I can just be glad that I don't have to find out.

I am unashamed to say that I wept for those people. People, not "nutcases," or "loonies," or "crazies," or "patients." People who had faces, names, dreams, and families, at one point, just like you and I. And then they were abandoned by everyone and everything they knew, committed all at once to a lifetime of loneliness behind padded bars, and a burial with only the gravediggers for a funeral. They were locked away because they were different, because they suffered, because they were tormented, and even after they died, nobody came for them.

There's so much to be said here. There's so much to be done here. And this was just one of the four cemeteries. I couldn't even go to the others. It was all too much. In these unmarked graves, I saw thousands of lifetimes of pain and anguish, and, for each, the indifference of the rest of the world, of their families or relatives, of the friends they never had and never would have.

And as I looked out over all of these resting places, I couldn't help but think,

This is our tragedy.

Psalm of Modernity [II]

Awake, my soul
Rise to meet the dawn
Rise to feel the Passion
Of an age long gone
And a people I’ve never met

Somehow, I long to see Your signs
In the curve of the tracing vine
As it climbs the trellis
I yearn to see some form of faith
In the waiting faces
At the benches in the park

I know the splendor is there to see
If only my soul could sense
Could feel – But
You seem to be everywhere
I am not.

Psalm of Modernity [I]

I believe
Said Isaiah

But what do we
Have to say to
The rest of the world

The masses shout
Life is nearly begun—

Nail our God to a tree
Crying
Yahweh
Forgive me

In the echo of iron
Trying iron
There lies a harmony
To which we shall sing

Hello
Here we are
Clinging
To this tattered robe
To a splintery throne
To vats of watered wine
To grafted stems
And heavy limbs
To thoughts we’ve left behind

And the words of those
We almost knew

The masses shout
Life is nearly begun—

We murmur in reply

It is almost done

It's the Little Things

I like to eat chicken taquitos with ranch.

I just got a new little sister, named Caelyn, adopted from China, a little over a month ago.

I've been writing a novel for years, but have to keep restarting it.

I love poetry.

I like to have lighthearted arguments with people.

There's a lot of little things about me that you might, or might not, know. Just as there are for every other human being out there. And you know what? It's those same little things that mean you know someone, those little factoids, hidden away behind the eyes. And everyone has them. Every time you meet somebody new, you find out some of their "little things." You get to know them.

If you love someone, then it is the little things that you love (or sometimes hate) about them.

God loves all of us.

Behind every vacant face at the grocery store, in the mind of every guy who talks in the movie theater, buried in the heart of every celebrity, deep inside each member of the family at Sunday lunch, there are these facts that, when taken all together, make each of us unique. They set us apart, more so than the subtle differences in our features, or the varieties in body weights.

My point is, if you never get to know someone, you never find out those things. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. So often we treat others, we treat strangers, as if they're just there. Not as if they are complex human beings, with a soul and a perspective, but as if they are just another unknown face in this tumultuous world. But God knows all those little things, already, about each and every one of us. And He loves each of us all the more for (and sometimes, despite) them. He created each of us, with immaculate care. Yet we act, a lot of the time, as if we and the ones we know are the only ones created by Him. But that's just absolutely untrue.

I've heard people say they love science because, through it, they learn about God's creation. They get to understand and appreciate the depth and intricacy of His grand and perfect designs. But you know what? Every time we get to know someone new, or learn something new about someone we know, we are learning about God's creation, and it's no less deep or intricate than gravity. Even more so, I would say.

Isn't that weird? With that in mind, shouldn't I not only put up with meeting new people, but enjoy it? Appreciate it and them for what they are? Non-Christians were made by God, you know. Homosexuals were made by God. Even the rude person behind the fast-food counter was made by Him.

And think about the implications of this in the way we should witness, in our often misguided motivations for doing so...

Yet I don't act that way.

I am the hypocrite.

Forgive me, Abba Yahweh, and help me to see the glory of your creation in all of those around me.