Casserole Illness

Occasionally I see something that questions why we don't treat mental illness like other illnesses. I agree that we should but realistically, I know the answer. As much as I'd like for people to be as comfortable talking about mental illness as they are about other illnesses I know they just aren't.

Just say the words schizophrenia, mental illness, bipolar disorder, etc. to someone and watch them start backing away.

But empathizing with their discomfort doesn't make the feeling of being alone on the journey any easier. While NAMI reminds me that we aren't the only ones having this experience, none of my close friends and acquaintances - people I see on a daily basis - know what it's like and they are, quite honestly, scared of it. Scared to talk about it. Scared to bring up the subject. I can't blame them - I'm scared of it, too sometimes. Actually, I'm scared of it most of the time.

Our son was hospitalized for a total of 12 weeks and not a soul offered a helping hand. We drove a total of 90 minutes every evening after work to visit him. During that time we had to eat out every night since there was no time to do anything else prior to going and it was so late and we were so tired when we got home that we couldn't have cared less about eating.

No one brought dinner in. No one offered to feed the cat or water the plants. I know that if we had been dealing with cancer or major surgery all those things (and more) would have been provided. But with an acute mental illness crisis people just don't know how to help. They don't know what to say. So they avoid it.

Mental illness isn’t a casserole illness.

These days, someone will ask "how's your son"? And every time I have this internal struggle. Do I tell them the details? The every day struggles? I don't think they can take it. So in an effort to protect them and myself I always say, "Oh, he has good days and bad days but we're doing OK".

I just don't know what else to tell them.