Take care. I love you. Be well

Something has been bothering me, a lot, and I’ve gone back and forth on posting about it. Originally I was going to make a YouTube commentary, but couldn’t bring myself to do it without going off the deep end. Then I thought of Facebook, but knew I could get myself into all kinds of trouble there, and that’s the last thing I want.

This incident happened some months ago, when I saw a rare post from a Facebook friend whose posts never seemed to show up in my feed (and only about 10 per cent of my “friends” ever appear there. It's always the same old. The reason? Facebook assumes that, because they're in my feed a lot, it’s what I want, so gives me “more of the same”). 

In typical Facebook fashion, this is someone I know of, but don’t know personally, and with whom I have over a hundred Facebook friends in common. In part due to his platform as an edgy "alternative" arts journalist, he has been quite open about his lifelong struggles with mental illness, believing (and I truly agree with this) that this topic needs to be hauled out of the shadows where it never belonged in the first place. But something was very amiss with his post.

I went on his page to see what was going on. The posts were strange and kind of scary. He used the word “manic” several times, in a lot of different connotations (including some crude sexual references the likes of which I could not find anywhere else on his page). There were veiled and not-so-veiled references to self-destruction and violent death. This made me very uneasy, but far worse than that were the comments: the dozens of “LOLs” and “right ons” and even “awesomes”, as if his readers were finding all of it hugely entertaining.

In spite of or maybe because of the work he had done illuminating mental health issues, people apparently thought this was some kind of exuberant prank and were egging him on. Meantime, hints of suicide kept showing through. He mentioned looking down the seventeen stories of his apartment building and imagined “impaling myself on the maples below”. More LOL’s, more “right ons”, dozens of idiot emojis - and (worst of all) “Hey, we’ve all been there” (which we HAVEN’T. Nothing is more bogus and potentially dangerous as empty, false “empathy”, pretending to know what it feels like when you absolutely do NOT. It’s like saying you know about cancer from a mosquito bite.)

The posts escalated, becoming more florid and making less sense, along with photos that were increasingly alarming, until someone – a family member, I believe - posted with great urgency that anyone who had seen him should contact the family immediately. They didn’t know where he was.

Most of the comments by now expressed concern, but there were still a few dimwitted remarks (“Hey, it's all good! You’re Canada’s gonzo journalist, mate!”) People who compare someone to Hunter S. Thomson should be reminded of how his life ended, with a single gunshot wound to the head. 

When the family finally announced they had called the police, most were relieved, but others still went on and on about “oh, no, you didn’t call the COPS on him!” The trouble with unburying mental illness from its airless crypt is that you uproot a whole array of primitive, ignorant, even goddamn stupid attitudes that go with it, such as denial and misperception and totally inappropriate “seeing the funny side” when it really isn’t too damn funny at all. I'm not against it, but humor about such a subject only comes in retrospect. Perspective equals time plus distance. Can you make jokes about heart disease when you’re flat on your back and fighting for your life?

There was a brief update from his brother about how grateful he was to the police for getting him safely to the hospital. This seemed to shut up the idiot Greek chorus for a while. "Police" is such a knee-jerk term, especially to jerks who don't think. The police are trained to deal with people in all kinds of distress, for all kinds of reasons, and for the most part, they do their job very well. But people still use terms that reflect very dated, primitive thinking: "they dragged him off", "they threw him in a mental hospital", etc., when very likely no person was "thrown" at all. Some still use that most horrendous and dehumanizing of terms: "they put him away". It's one of those holdovers from another century (or two) that deserves to disappear.

I see two kinds of posts on FB about the “hot topic” of mental health (the term seemingly replacing “mental illness”, which assumed you could never be well): boilerplate posts as ready-made as a microwave dinner (“Most of you won’t even bother to read this far” and “copy and paste this message, DON’T share, just to show you care!”, emoji, emoji, emoji). I always have the vague uneasy feeling that someone is making money off these things. To alleviate that vague guilt that hangs around most of us these days, people WILL copy and paste the thing, hoping they've done their bit to "raise awareness" and can just get on with their day.

The other approach is much like the “cancer awareness” thing where it seems like a bunch of cheerleaders waving pink pom-poms. In this case, God only knows where your donations end up. I’m not saying we shouldn’t address the subject - quite the opposite. But let’s really talk, talk about things that are real and painful, not spout easy platitudes and rah-rah for the team. Believe it or not, there is a time when "being positive" is the last thing you need to do.

I think depression and PTSD have largely come out of the closet, which is a start, though celebrities still “admit” they suffered from depression years and years ago (NEVER recently – that’s still too great a risk). PTSD is associated with first responders, military heroes, sometimes cops, but that’s about it. If you were sexually abused as a child and can barely function, that’s not it, it has to be called something else. Due to media emphasis and a certain level of social discomfort, PTSD has been largely claimed by heroic figures running into burning buildings. People insist they’re even more heroic for the tremendously risky act of seeking help.

I won't say much about myself because it is too excruciating, except to say that when I "disclosed" to a literary agent that I have bipolar disorder, she emailed me back with two words: "You're brave." It struck me as a remark along the lines of, "I wish I had the nerve to wear that dress." The "brave" thing was weird, because I could have bipolar disorder and be the biggest chicken on the block. Having it doesn't automatically make you "brave". So I guess she thought I was brave to have the nerve to tell her such a thing. I was left with the feeling that I had done something that had made her profoundly uncomfortable.

I like to say, and often people don’t have a clue what I mean, that when it comes to mental illness, we haven’t had our Stonewall yet. Every day, people bandy about terms like “whack job” and “nut bar”, expressing casual contempt for people who, like my Facebook friend, COULD NOT HELP his behaviour, because that is the nature of the illness. The mentally ill are the very last group of people in our culture whom you can vilify, mock and dismiss with no penalties, because no one even notices you’re doing it. We all say those things, don’t we? Why is it such a problem? It doesn’t really mean anything. Why are you so damned oversensitive? 

I lost a beloved brother, the one confidante and support I had in a childhood lived in an emotional war zone, to the damaging effects of schizophrenia, back when all they could do for people was drug them senseless to keep them from “acting out”. And yes, sometimes we lost track of him, didn’t know where he was and had to call the police, and it was horrific. Then when the worst happened, my mother-in-law said to me in a terrible double-entendre, “at least now you know where he is.” 

Why does it have to get that bad? It doesn't. If the health care system were more complete, if there were enough beds, if people would drop their mockery and horror and act human, as human as they probably could be if they tried - but I digress. My point is, what you say reflects what you think. It displays your understanding or your ignorance, not just to your Facebook friends but to the world. 

Sometimes the less you say the better. Just keep it simple. Take care. I love you. Be well.

Mental Health: once more, I take an unpopular view.

This was found on a Facebook friend's page, and of course, at first I felt I had to read and accept it as something positive. But unlike all these dreadful people mentioned in the first sentence, I actually DID read it all the way through. And the more I read, the less I liked. Why was this? One reason I used to skip this sort of post is that they make me feel uncomfortable, even slightly scummy. This DOES seem to be the aim of it, but how is that going to bring people on-board with the "cause"? Shaming never worked very well for me as a tool for communicating something important, or winning people over. Below is the original copy-and-paste, then my rebuttal, which took me over half an hour to write. I had to "snooze" that person for thirty days because I don't feel like being ripped apart in the comments for taking an unpopular view. These things are as dismaying as all the phony "breast cancer awareness" messages I used to get. And ultimately, I think they do more harm than good.

Posting this for a far away friend ❤️

Maybe if people's heads weren't buried in the sand of ignorance and they took the time to understand, instead of judging and thinking it won't happen to them because they have the perfect family, life would be a little bit easier for people that do experience this! This hits close to home for me, for family and friends who live under this shadow. The days of 'it' not being talked about or being taboo should be over. In the most difficult moments of life you realize who your true friends are, and the people who really appreciate you. Unfortunately, most social media 'friends' aren't true friends. They will send you a "like" here and there, but in reality they do not take time to read your status if they see it's lengthy. More than half will stop reading right here, or have already scrolled on to the next post on their page. I decided to post this message in support of all those who continue to battle with their mental illness. (Suicide is at an all time high). Now, let's see who will have taken the time to read this lengthy post right through to the end. If you have read everything so far, please "like" it so that I can put a thank you on your page. More mental health awareness is urgently needed. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean people aren't suffering. Please, try to spare a little of your time with someone who may just want to talk (about anything). Talking can help us all to cope a little more, keeping things bottled up just makes it worse. Most people will say, "if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me, I'll be there to help you" but will they? I believe a select few of my friends will post this, to show their support for those who may be STRUGGLING. You just have to copy and paste rather than sharing. I'd like to know who will take a minute out of their day to read this all the way to the end and then copy and paste it to their page, will you? If so, please write "done" in comments!

Margaret Gunning This is all good, but unfortunately it is a "generic" message that people very often believe has been written by the person who is posting it. The copy and paste messages very often have a flavor of "most people won't even bother with this" and then pressure the reader to show a little sensitivity (unlike everyone else!) by reading it all, then passing it along. Most would likely say, "but the message is a good one, so it doesn't matter how it's delivered" - the tone and underlying implications of it. Or, "at least this raises awareness" or "gets the message across". The writer (whoever he or she is, and we don't know that or where they are coming from) just assumes that most people are utterly callous and won't even bother to read half of it but will just shunt it aside due to their insensitivity. This is dismissive and even expresses a degree of contempt for the majority of people, in that it accuses them of something pretty bad, and ultimately alienates people (potential supporters) and does not help the cause. If you go back and read it again, all of it, not stopping halfway through it, with an eye to HOW it is written, it may strike you as not so positive. If it were worded less judgementally, I'd have an easier time with it. I DO understand the stigma all too well, and have suffered from it all my life. But all these messages, no matter what the issue, have a shaming quality, or at least an implication that almost everyone out there is heartless and does not understand or care, and that YOU can be different and owe it to the world to show it by copying and pasting the message (NOT sharing, because for some reason which makes me uneasy, sharing is never good enough). I have had a lifetime of mental health struggles and watched my brother die due to the effects of schizophrenia, and have loved several people who committed suicide, so please do not accuse me of not knowing or caring! But there has to be a better way of spreading the message, as it does not bring people on-board if you right off the top tell them they have their "heads buried in the sand of ignorance". Try to open a door for them, not shut it in their face.

BLOGGER'S POSTSCRIPT. As I expected, there are more articles popping up on Facebook about "mental health" (which, five minutes ago, was called "mental illness", while the person held a whip and a chair). This was my response to a piece about men working on oil rigs and the "hyper-masculine" environment that leads to suicide from untreated depression. As usual, I'm taking a view that no one wants to hear, because, as usual, if you "saw it on the internet", it will likely be reductive (like Madonna said about Lady Gaga's performances). At least it does not have the nasty finger-pointing of the first piece (when I thought nasty finger-pointing was the problem in the first place).

Margaret Gunning I only object to the "not asking for help", which is always emphasized in these articles. People with mental health concerns are expected to be in control of their own recovery. It wouldn't be true of heart disease or diabetes, but it's very true of depression and other debilitating mental health conditions. "Reach out for help" implies that if a person doesn't, they really don't want it and perhaps don't want to be well. Personally, I think it is about as effective as "thoughts and prayers" - something you say, then wash your hands, thinking "I've done my part". These articles often provoke another response: "oh, that's terrible, look what societal conditioning has done to them" (full stop). I always seem to be taking the unpopular view, and I will likely be vilified for raising points that express the underlying complexity of these issues. I am NOT against asking for help and reaching out, if the person is able to, but might co-workers think of reaching out to the suffering person? Might they be willing to try to step out of their own awful conditioning to try to help, or at least empathize and break the appalling loneliness? In view of the nature of suicidal depression and the terrible stigma attached to it, the suffering person is at the very bottom of their capacity to be proactive. This is just my opinion, but it is based on knowing and caring about people who have suffered disabling depression and killed themselves. and I know I will be refuted because it runs counter to the popular view.

Why is it still OK to mock mental illness?

This is extremely painful for me to write, but I’ll try. Today I saw a YouTube video by a very entertaining duo of filmmakers who make videos of things and show them in extreme slow motion. They often use the word “crazy” to describe them, which is a loose term that can mean practically anything (including mental illness), but they also frequently use the term “mental”. “Look at that! That is totally mental.”

I hear this kind of expression daily, and if I say anything about it I’m pretty much attacked for being oversensitive or having “no sense of humor”. But this casually-used slur against hurting, needing people is done without any thought that it might be disrespectful, let alone abusive.

Can I explain? Daily, I hear people react to news items of over-the-top behaviour with “oh, he’s just a whack job.” “She’s a nut bar, what can you expect?” Then, cheek-by-jowl, we see news items about the rising tide of suicides and “mental breakdowns” and PTSD and being “triggered” and society's noble attempt at “reducing the stigma” (never getting rid of it – that’s too much to ask).

What is going on here? Many think it’s “progress” and enlightenment, but as someone who has lost several dear ones to suicide, I don’t think so. “Reach out for help” is the new “thoughts and prayers”, and it means almost nothing because in most cases the “help” just isn’t there. The most that desperate families can expect for their suicidal teen is a wait list or a misdiagnosis (and people with mental illness are misdiagnosed an average of FIVE TIMES before the medical community gets it right), or poor treatment or mismedication, or even moralizing, while at the same time they have to endure the “whack job” mentality, the daily heedless slurs that still prevail in a culture that only poses as compassionate.

The “reach out for help” isn’t a bad thing, and I’m not saying “don’t do it”. But it is a bandaid solution and a way of dismissing an uncomfortable topic, so you can entertain the illusion that you have "raised awareness", and thus done something important. But it gets worse. "Reach out for help" completely puts the onus on the sufferer to make themselves better. Depression is immobilizing by nature, and perhaps you’d be surprise to learn that the heavy stigma and general contempt for mental illness that still lurks under all the trite phrases causes people to try to hide it.

I am sure no one will be too interested in reading this, as it will be seen as “negative” and not acknowledging the great strides society has recently made. "Brave" celebrities come forward and "admit" they have suffered from depression (admission being a form of confession). This does not help the cause and only helps us distance ourselves. It is only very recently that anyone even thought of having a walk or fund-raising for “mental health”. Ten years ago the very idea would have caused bafflement, even a bit of embarrassment. Why are we just now beginning to look at an “issue” which has ALWAYS affected the human race throughout its history? Why does mental illness still represent the last target of acceptable abuse?

Gabrielle Ray in the 1900s

I know almost nothing about Edwardian actress Gabrielle Ray. But these hand-tinted photos are lovely, if highly stylized. They reveal nothing about the person, since in most of them she stares vaguely and dreamily into the middle distance. This particular stylized gaze was typical of the objectified photography of the day, particular in women.

The gowns, as usual, are to die for. I never cared about any kind of vintage clothing, at all, until I had access to the internet. Now they're like old automobiles (which I never cared about either!), a passion and an obsession. Sadly, I have read that Gabrielle Ray was "put away" in a mental institution in later years -  which was what they called it then when you had a "nervous breakdown" (a so-called diagnosis which in fact does not exist, and from which you did not recover). Generally, when this appears in a famous person's biography, it means it's over, even if the person lives another 50 years. It just stops. Unspoken is the fact that no one ever comes to visit. That person is dead to them. It is the end of the trail, and to a frightening degree, everyone seems to accept it as inevitable. I don't want to think too much about what life was like for this glorious woman after she was taken as a permanent captive.

Mental illness: Let's NOT reduce the stigma!

Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself.

It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.

It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they?

We don't speak of diabetic illness. We don't speak of Parkinsonian illness. We don't speak of - you get the idea. Although these are all chronic, ongoing disease conditions, we use different language to describe them that does not imply the person cannot be well.

Why should this matter? It's only a name, isn't - it doesn't change anything, does it?

I beg to differ. The name "mental illness" itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. I have never in my life heard anyone object to or even mention it, because in the public consciousness, it does not exist. In fact, "mentally ill" is a compassionate term (so they say), if leaning towards pity and tinged with dread. But it is is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "whack job", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). But it's still inadequate.

There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."

Note that they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a little bit better about ourselves (hey, we're really helping the cause!) for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.

(Caption: To put yourself in another's shoes, you gotta first unlace your own.)

I hate "stigma". I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve the ugly term, detach it and throw it away.

"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserly, not to mention miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat in that dress" thing (hey, who said anything about looking fat?) Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is like reducing racism or sexism or gun violence - a spiritually stingy approach which only calls attention to the existence of the stigma.

So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"? Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the "poor soul" attitude that prevails?

But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty or thirty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, and nobody objected or even noticed.But then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.

From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. (We won't get into the obvious role of corporate sponsorship.) But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior". The movement to change language gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology

That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.

Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark. When one person briefly illuminates their own story (and they're always called "brave", as in "you're pretty brave to wear that dress"), the light is  like fireflies, a brief burst of enlightenment before darkness closes in again. It's not even a candle against the night. When will the light come on that renders the entire concept of stigma dated, backward, offensive, and completely irrelevant?

POST-DATED. You may or may not recognize this piece, for I've run it a couple of times already. Today is Bell Media's "Let's Talk" day, in which one day per year is set aside for "mental health awareness". This 24-hour period takes up a few grudging minutes of media time, emphasizing over and over again the fact that people who are suffering need to "reach out for help". Never is it mentioned that their family and friends should consider reaching out to THEM - it's just too much bother, and besides, it makes them uncomfortable. I had considered, as I do every year, sharing my own story, then quickly decided it would just cost me too much. Experience has shown me again and again that it just isn't worth it. I still mean this, however, so I will post it once again.

Mental health: let's NOT reduce the stigma!

Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself.

It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.

It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they? You can't be both at the same time.
We don't speak of diabetic illness. We don't speak of Parkinsonian illness. We don't speak of - you get the idea. Although these are chronic, ongoing disease conditions that a person must live with on a daily basis, we use different language to describe them that does not imply the person cannot ever be well.

Why should this matter? It's only a name, isn't - it doesn't change anything, does it?

I beg to differ. The name "mental illness" itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. I have never in my life heard anyone mention it, because in the public consciousness, it does not exist. In fact, "mentally ill" is a compassionate term (so they say), if leaning towards pity and tinged with dread. But it is is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "whack job", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). If these terms shock you, if you don't believe people use them often and on a daily basis, pay attention to people's reaction every time there's a news story when someone's behaviour seems over the top, whether violent or not ("Ah, he's just a whack job/nut bar/loonie" - dismiss, dismiss, dismiss). If you call them on it, they give you the standard "can't we say anything any more?" line that obliterates awareness.

There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."

Note they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a bit better about ourselves (hey, we're really helping raise awareness!) for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.

I hate "stigma". I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't stigmatized either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve that ugly archaic term, detach it and throw it away.

"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat" thing (hey, who said I looked fat? Who brought the subject up?). Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is spiritually stingy and only calls attention to the stigma.

So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"? Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the "poor soul" attitude that prevails?

But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty or thirty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, but then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.

From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior".

One reinforced the other. The movement gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology. The turning of the public tide shamed industry into coughing up some funds. That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.

Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark. I once read something in a memoir that had a profound effect on me: "Mental illness is an exaggeration of the human condition." This isn't a separate species. Don't treat it as such. It's you, times ten. It's me, in a magnifying mirror. Such projections of humanity at its finest and most problematic might just teach us something truly valuable. Why don't we want to look?

POST-BLOG. I've been posting this on Let's Talk Day for several years in a row now. Because it got twelve views last year, I thought I would run it again. I am not sure why I continue with this, except that it seems to satisfy some need in me. But when I try to put the message "out there", I find there is no "out there". The internet is all about numbers, totals, likes, views, and popularity, a thing I cannot bear because I thought I left the high school mentality behind a long time ago. So I do this for the only reason that matters to me: because I want to.

In my merry lobotomobile

Walter Freeman, who championed lobotomy in the US, toured with his “lobotomobile” demonstrating the procedure

Instant Articles
News Jan 14, 2017 Goran Blazeski

Throughout his life, Walter Freeman was obsessed with finding a cure for mental illness and he thought he found it when he became the first to introduce and popularize the prefrontal lobotomy in the United States.

He perfected the procedure by using ice picks hammered into each frontal lobe through the back of each eye socket and performed nearly 3500 lobotomies in his career.

Walter Freeman was born on November 14th, 1895, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. His father was a very successful otolaryngologist and his maternal grandfather was William Williams Keen, a prominent surgeon in the Civil War.

Dr. Walter Freeman left, and Dr. James W. Watts study an X-ray before a psychosurgical operation. 

Psychosurgery is cutting into the brain to form new patterns and rid a patient of delusions, obsessions, nervous tensions, etc.

In his early years, Walter wasn’t interested in medicine but after he received a bachelor’s degree in 1916 from Yale University he studied neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a medical degree in 1920.

In 1935 Freeman learned of a frontal lobe ablation technique when Carlyle Jacobsen tried frontal and prefrontal lobotomies on chimps and came to a conclusion that the chimps became less aggressive and more manageable.

The same year Antonio Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurosurgeon devised a leucotome, an instrument for dividing the white matter in the brain, and performed the first procedure known as prefrontal leukotomy.

In 1936 Freeman modified Moniz’s technique and together with his colleague James Watts he performed the first lobotomy operation in the United States on a 63-year-old Kansas housewife suffering from anxiety, insomnia, and depression. He was convinced that the operation was successful and was satisfied with the results so he started to propagandize the procedure heavily recommending it for any type of disorders, from psychosis, depression or neurosis to criminality.

Egas Moniz

Trying to find a more efficient way to perform the procedure he developed the “ice-pick lobotomy”- an operation that didn’t require drilling holes in the skull. Instead, he inserted an ice-pick-like instrument above each eye of the patient by tapping it with a hammer.

Insulin shock therapy administered in Lapinlahti Hospital, Helsinki in the 1950s

Many of his colleagues criticized his method but Freeman was convinced that it was a success and recommended the procedure. Between 1939 and 1951, almost 20,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States and as Freeman claimed, the operation reduced the governmental costs from $35,000 per year for keeping a patient in an asylum to $250 for lobotomizing him.

He popularized the procedure and started traveling around the country in a van he called “the lobotomobile”, performing dozens of ice-pick lobotomies each day. He was able to do a lobotomy in 12 minutes and it is said that he once performed 25 lobotomies in one day. Known as a showman he often used carpenter’s hammers and also liked to insert picks in both eyes simultaneously.

A site of the borehole for the standard pre-frontal lobotomy/leucotomy operation as developed by Freeman and Watts Photo Credit

However, lobotomy’s popularity faded and Freeman performed his last lobotomy in 1967 when his patient Helen Mortensen, died on the operating table. After this incident, he was banned from operating.

Read another story from us: Egas Moniz invented the full frontal lobotomy and won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for it. He was also shot by one of his patients.

In the last 20 years of his life, he continued to tour the country in his “lobotomobile” visiting former patients and documenting their histories. He died on May 31st, 1972.

BLOGSERVATIONS. I don't know what to say about this, but saying something seems to be called for. In another era, I know I would have had my brain ice-picked into submission, no doubt to save those pesky bills from the sanitorium. Humanity has always been terrified of mental illness, and unfortunately remains terrified. There are those (radicals!) who say we've replaced straightjackets with chemical restraints. That instead of warehousing the mentally ill, we dump them out onto the street. And that would be true.

Rosemary Kennedy, sister of JFK, was lobotomized, not because she was violent or unteachable, but because she liked men a little too much. She was unruly and didn't fit the social mold. LOP, went her brain.

Maybe it would be better to have your brain lopped. What would it be like to walk around inside a lobotomized mind? Would it be as full of holes as Swiss cheese? The brain is nothing but a computer made of meat, and meat can be carved up, sliced, even eaten. 

I was going to call this post Borehole, but I assumed no one would be particularly drawn to read it. In any case, borehole was soon to be replaced with eye socket and ice pick. Though Freeman streamlined the lobotomy and made it readily available to the masses, he didn't win the Nobel Prize for it. That went to that Moniz character, ivory tower type, didn't even DO them like Freeman, just theorized. But theorized countless people to a living death. For that, they give the Nobel Prize.

Going crazy isn't all it's cracked up to be

Kind of a repeat, but these are thoughts I revisit practically every day. As a culture, we're where we were with gay issues in about 1970. We haven't even had our Stonewall yet.

Snap out of it!

What NOT to say to a depressed person

 


“It’s all in your mind.”

“You just need to give yourself a good swift kick in the rear.”

“No one ever said life was fair.”

“I think you enjoy wallowing in it."

"Depression is a choice, you know."

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

"There are a lot of people worse off than you.”

“But it’s a beautiful day!”

“You have so many things to be thankful for!”

“You just want attention.”

“Happiness is a choice, you know.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“Everything happens for a reason.”





“There is always somebody worse off than you are.”

“You should get off all those pills.”

“You are what you think you are.”

“Cheer up!”

“Have you been praying/reading your Bible?”

"People who meditate don't get depressed."

“You need to get out more.”





"Don't you have a sense of humour?"

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“Get a job!”

“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

“But you don’t look depressed. You seem fine to me.”

“You can do anything you want if you just set your mind to it.”





“Snap out of it, will you? You have no reason to feel this way.”

“I wish I had the luxury of being depressed.”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

"Just read this book. It'll fix you right up."

"Do you want your family to suffer along with you?"

“Can't you at least make an effort?"





“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I was depressed once for several

days.”

“Turn it over to your Higher Power.”

“I think your depression is a way of punishing us.”

“So, you’re depressed. Aren’t you always?”

“You’re always so negative! Look on the bright side.”





“What you need is some real tragedy in your life to give you perspective.”

"You're a writer, aren't you? Just think of all the good material you're

getting out of this."

“Have you tried camomile tea?”

"I TOLD you to read that book."





"Go out and help someone who is worse off than you and you won't

have time to brood."


“You have to take up your bed and carry on.”

“Well, we all have our crosses to bear.”

"God never gives us more than we can handle."

"I was depressed until I tried yoga."

“You don’t like feeling that way? Change it!"

“SMILE!”






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