Faces of Mental Illness: A Wonderful Description of Bipolar Syndrome

Stephen Fry is not only a brilliant artist and an outspoken advocate for mental illness. He himself has bipolar II disorder. In this video, he explains what bipolar disorder is like.  The saddest and truest line is from an acquaintance of his who in the throes of depression let himself get hit by a truck; the man said that the pain of having his legs rebroken over and over so he could walk again was nothing like the pain that drove him to stand in front of a truck in the first place.

Faces of Mental Illness: Schizophenia

We all know what schizophrenia is, right? We've seen schizophrenics in movies and on TV.  We normal folks know how scary they are. So here's a little frightening entertainment for you today, showing a real live schizophrenic:

Yup. Scary, huh? It's amazing what meds and therapy can do.

Faces of Mental Illness: Homeless Man is Transformed

Mental illness is a subject close to my heart. Numerous people in my family suffer from the complications that come from leaving it unchecked. Most of the men in my mother's family were indirectly killed by it, as they tried to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. All too often, mental illness leads to a life on the streets, because when it's unchecked or unresponsive to medication it can lead to a disconnect with society.

I don't know much about Dégagé Ministries and I'm not going to vouch for them. But I do know this. Often, when we see a mentally ill person on the street, all we see is some ill smelling, dirty person talking to him or herself, instead of a son, a daughter, a sister or a brother. We don't see someone who once  and still might have a caring family, a person who was once able to hold a job, a former soldier or teacher or factory worker. We forget that in front of us is a human being, and that all humans are born with dignity and have worth.

Maybe this video will help remind you, as it reminded me, that what we often see when we are around the mentally ill and homeless, is only half the story.