FINDING THE ANGST WITHIN

     Despite the study of pathophysiology and related pharmacology,  mental illness is still barely understood today. There is a lot in the news about research and findings, but not much that is changing lives. We see the results of untreated or poorly treated mental illness in the paper daily, particularly when it results in violence and death. I suspect if we had an all-out public awareness campaign on the impact of mental illness to society we might come up with some new collective approach to diagnosing, managing, and treating it, that takes out the darkness and puts it into the mainstream, much like diabetes or birth defects.

          I often think what would happen if we made a TV series, that had mental illness as its focus. To mainstream and normalize discussion and understanding of the different manifestations might help to see affected individuals as ill rather than as criminals or ne’er-do-wells. 

     I know this will happen someday. Right now we  may not be ready, as individuals, or as a collective, to lose this convenient scapegoat for our shared anxiety that the mentally ill provide. It is so much harder to find the source of my angst within.