What Mental Illness Is (Hint: It's not the same as racism)

The man who brutally murdered nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, has confessed to the shootings and stated that he hoped to start a race war.

One would think such a clear statement (one wonders how it could be made any clearer) would force us to confront that there are at least some people for whom racism persists. Kids who grew up in mixed race environments like this one, and went to racially diverse schools, who rather than learning tolerance and love from that experience developed a brand of racism that is more than the seemingly latent sort that is more prevalent in our nation than we would like to admit.

Some say those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. And yet this man knew enough about history to know that the flag of Rhodesia remains a symbol of racism and racially-motivated violence (violence that yes, went both ways—RACE WAR is an apropos label for what happened there, it seems). After all, how much do you know about Rhodesia? Today, that nation is Zimbabwe, a place I will be travelling to in just a few weeks. If you’d like to learn more, the Wikipedia page on Rhodesia is pretty detailed (and long) but will give you an idea. It lacks the stories of the people who lived it and who continue to live with its consequences today in Zimbabwe. He knew a little, but not enough.

What I wanted to speak to today, though, is the grievous attempt to dismiss all or part of his actions as mental illness rather than racism. I suspect some of this is motivated by our desire to ignore or not admit the continued power that racism has in our society. That even if it doesn’t take such brutal forms in our own lives or communities, it retains power. I serve a church in Berkeley County, West Virginia. The experience of African Americans here differs significantly even from that of African Americans in the next county over, let alone our nearest urban centers, Washington, DC and Baltimore. The defining social issues here, if you asked folks, would first be related to the drug problem—specifically white people and heroin. And yet, the feeling that for us racism is not a big issue does not negate that it is for our country, or, even, that it is for us but we don’t see it because being white ourselves, perhaps, we have the privilege of not thinking about it or being convinced those who do are blowing things out of proportion. We have the privilege of discounting their stories.

Here are some realities about mental illness:

•  Mental illnesses are different, and each person experiences a particular type of mental illness differently. My experience is mostly with bi-polar depression, an illness my father lived with for at least 23 years till his death. My brother Dan, who committed suicide last year, may also have had it. Dan had episodes of depression and some believe that many persons with depression are bi-polar, but have very minor manic phases. Dad’s (eventually at least) weren’t minor.
• Mental illnesses have varying degrees of severity and most people with mental illnesses will go through cycles, whether receiving treatment or not. When you think of cycling, you think of bi-polar disorder, but depression, etc., many other mental illnesses, will come and go at least on some level. These cycles can be tied to major events, or basic changes in simple things like sleep patterns, eating habits, weight gain or loss, etc. Most medications for mental illnesses need to be adjusted over time, especially with body changes including weight changes (this is of course true for many types of maintenance meds people might need).
• There are no guaranteed treatments for any mental illness. This goes to the previous point, that all people are different. In the case of bio-polar disorder, treatment generally entails a combination of medication (at least two types, to control the highs and lows), psychotherapy, and life-style controls. Some people are not helped much by medication at all. I have heard of some people with bi-polar disorder who are largely unresponsive to medication but hugely helped by a rigid schedule and routine.
• Some mental illness is chronic and some is acute. This means some people will go through a period of time, generally in the case of depression, when they are in need of psychotherapy and medication, and depending on their doctor’s care, may be able to ease off their meds. This is not, however, an admission that they are cured. Like someone who has overcome cancer, they will need to be more vigilant than others to stay healthy, and to return to a more structured treatment plan as they and their doctors determine. Most people we’re talking about when we speak of mental illness leading to violence are those with chronic mental illnesses. These persons will need to be vigilant about attending to self-care, medications and any other treatment plans for their rest of their lives. For some, even minor deviations can lead to massive problems.
• People with mental illnesses are usually responsible for their actions, on some level. First of all, we’ve got to admit that “responsibility” is a subjective thing. Just because someone accused of a crime has been diagnosed as having a mental illness (or more than one, it’s common for mental illnesses to hang together—isn’t that awesome) does not make them even not responsible by the standards of our criminal justice system. The decision here is informed by experts in the field, and even here different experts may have a different opinion. I learned this from Law & Order, but it’s true. Second, people with mental illnesses, because their illnesses even untreated, cycle, will often have periods of greater mental/emotional capacity. During these periods, they can chose to make decisions that lead to healing or those that do not. A person on medication who is stable but who decides to stop taking it is, in the eyes of many, at least responsible for that decision. Being a subjective statement, many will vary on where they believe the bar of responsibility is. Having lived with at least two persons, I have always struggled with this. I really battled, and still do, to see through the fog of Dad and Dan’s illnesses to see who they really were when well, when not sick. I do believe Dan is responsible for his decision to take his own life. He was sick, but he made many decisions not only that night, but when well, that made him sicker. And I believe he was aware of the consequences of many of those choices though he may have chosen to ignore them. I know there are times my father, early in his treatment, consciously and when well chose to vary from his treatment plan. When he then cycled, I believe he was responsible for that. Further, violence committed by the mentally ill is often not committed at the deepest part of their mental illness. Which leads me to…
• Mentally ill persons are, depending on their mental illness, often most dangerous to themselves and others when they are finally starting to get better. More people commit suicide as they’re starting to come out of deep depression than when in it. I believe this contributed to my brother’s suicide. Looking back, the time just before his suicide was time I was actually less concerned about him because he was doing better. Not, I believe, pretending to do better, but actually doing better. As my counselor told me, suicide requires energy that deeply depressed people generally lack. I have to admit I had thought suicide comes at a person’s lowest point. If lowest point is a point on a spectrum of severity of mental illness, that is usually not true.
• Most people with mental illnesses can lead happy and healthy lives once correctly diagnosed and receiving regular and effective treatment. Sounds easy, right? It can be (easier, at least), or it may take a lot of time and work. It took years before my father even began to be consistently stable. In those years, he would have long stretches where he was doing well, then something would tip the scales and all his treatment would need to be revisited and readjusted. It takes work, and it helps to have people around to support you—this can be difficult because sometimes the mentally ill person has hurt a lot of people by the time they get correctly diagnosed—but it is worth it. There is light after that darkness.
• The vast majority of mentally ill persons will never hurt others, and even, will not hurt themselves, especially if receiving adequate treatment. The sad truth is violence, racism, and murder do not require mental illness to motivate them. Mental illness MAY accompany these things, but even in those cases, mental illness does not excuse them. A person with severe mental illness, like someone with uncontrolled paranoid schizophrenia may lash out in a sort of crazed response to ideas that make sense only to them—but these actions are likely to lack the cohesiveness and forethought tied to racist violence.

The sad truth is that racism is what fueled and led to the murder of our nine brothers and sisters at Emanuel AME Church. Jon Stewart’s opening to The Daily Show last night (it’s a great clip and I recommend it) referred to racism as an open wound. It is. You may not feel it is your wound, but it is our wound. Because we don’t get to opt out of community with our brothers and sisters. Today we are called to work for healing that wound. To do so, we must first see it and name it. We must not call it something it is not or turn from it.

Being a mother has forced me to deal with wounds I might otherwise recoil and turn from. I have a physical reaction to someone else’s wound, directly proportional to the severity of it. If you have a wound, please don’t show it to me! But when I’m the one who needs to help heal it, I can’t do that. I can’t turn away because if I do, my child will not heal properly. Maybe not at all. The wound will get worse. Here we are, family, who need to help heal this wound. We cannot turn from it because if we do, it will get worse.

Today I invite you to face the wound, even if it doesn’t feel like your wound. Face it c it is our wound. Look for, consider, and by God’s grace discern what you can do to help begin the healing process.