I actually can’t believe that I am writing about Oscar Pistorius and his trial. I have been avoiding any reports on it because the way people have been treating it as entertainment is enough to enrage me. Unfortunately it’s been nearly impossible as everywhere you go it’s on TV, radio, front pages of magazines and newspapers, twitter, facebook and in every conversation. If you’re not South African, you can read all about the trial online if you want to. However, this post is not about the actual trial. It’s about him going for psychiatric observation and people’s reaction to it. And basically me ranting over how stupid people can be.
Some background: About a month ago Oscar went for psychiatric observation to determine whether he suffers from a mental illness, specifically GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and whether or no he could distinguish right from wrong. The report came in and it was determined that Oscar did not suffer from mental illness at the time. However, what most people neglect to add when they talk about this around the water cooler is that after the incidence he suffers from PTSD and is of committing suicide.
Let me just state up front that I am not condoning murder. What he did was WRONG, no matter how you look at it. What gets to me is how people are now saying, “Ja so he’s not mad hey! chuckle chuckle chuckle” and “apparently he’s going to kill himself now, chuckle chuckle chuckle.” I know I am over sensitive when it comes to issues surrounding mental health. I find these kind of statements incredibly upsetting and insensitive. I suffer from mental illness after all and the only one allowed to call me mad, is ME. Suicide is serious. PTSD is serious. Murder is serious. Human suffering, even when broadcast onto international television, is REAL. What these statements demonstrate is that the masses, your average person, still thinks that mental illness is not real. That it is a joke and something reserved for the crazies in institutions who have to wear straitjackets and have to be locked in padded rooms. They see it as something removed from themselves, while they are surrounded by people suffering from mental illness every day.
On the one hand I feel like I need to speak up when I hear things like this being said, but on the other hand, what is the point of fighting a losing battle, at work, with people who are too set in their ways to change their minds and of then opening myself up to being talked about in the same way? It just blows my mind that people can still be so ignorant in this day and age. I sometimes feel like I’m just screaming this silent scream over and over again.
Any thoughts on how to tackle this problem?
Bipolar: Flying too close to the sun 