I buried myself in my room again this morning, determined to finish off Elyn Saks's The Center Cannot Hold, one of my assigned readings for my introductory psychology class. I'd started it a while ago, but found Saks's approach quite different from Jamison's (An Unquiet Mind) and so was rather disoriented. In my goal-oriented haze, I figured that the best way I would get the thing done would be to sit and read it straight on through. So I did. It was a fascinatingly horrifying account of Saks's struggle with schizophrenia, painfully frank and in turns humorous and frightening. I finished the book just in time for lunch, during which I told my mother about what I'd read.
I should have known that she'd drag the incident at the Navy Yard into this and go off on her spiel about gun control and mental illnesses (we'd had an earlier not-row about Second Amendment rights that I terminated the moment she said she didn't care what any amendments anywhere said - people should just not be allowed to carry guns). I did know that hearing her ramble on about this would upset me. So I inhaled the rest of my lunch, scurried back to my room, and impetuously sent her a link of Saks doing a TED talk. I'd found it especially compelling to hear her tell her own story, and I hoped maybe it would be enough for my mother.
Well, it wasn't. My mother said Saks looked "scary," and "couldn't she at least have combed her hair?" I got quite angry then, but, as usual, I stormed off before I could say anything. It was as if the "fight" part of my autonomic response had disappeared. I fumed in my room for the rest of the afternoon, bitterly angry at my mother, who had no idea that I was sending daggers down at her from on high, but also frustrated with myself. I knew that this would have been a good opportunity to talk about my own thoughts, my own experience with mental illnesses, but I was too frightened by her callous dismissal of a subject that has grown quite dear to me. So, in a sense, I had a not-row with myself.
Maybe I feel like she could never understand. It certainly appears as if she could never want to understand. There's still this tremendous stigma associated with mental illnesses, the underlying belief that by sheer power of will, one might overcome the voices brought about by genetics and biochemistry.
It's just as what Saks said: "When you have cancer, people send flowers; when you lose your mind, they don't."
Here's the TED talk:
Well, it wasn't. My mother said Saks looked "scary," and "couldn't she at least have combed her hair?" I got quite angry then, but, as usual, I stormed off before I could say anything. It was as if the "fight" part of my autonomic response had disappeared. I fumed in my room for the rest of the afternoon, bitterly angry at my mother, who had no idea that I was sending daggers down at her from on high, but also frustrated with myself. I knew that this would have been a good opportunity to talk about my own thoughts, my own experience with mental illnesses, but I was too frightened by her callous dismissal of a subject that has grown quite dear to me. So, in a sense, I had a not-row with myself.
Maybe I feel like she could never understand. It certainly appears as if she could never want to understand. There's still this tremendous stigma associated with mental illnesses, the underlying belief that by sheer power of will, one might overcome the voices brought about by genetics and biochemistry.
It's just as what Saks said: "When you have cancer, people send flowers; when you lose your mind, they don't."
Here's the TED talk:
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