This is how things used to be:
Why is it that the mere mention of mental illness arouses such extreme reactions?
We are freaks, outcasts, deviants. We arouse hostility and fear. Unlike Bedlam today’s lunatic asylums do not attract tourists. Nobody wanders through the wards laughing, joking, pointing at the inmates. But I know that if they could they most certainly would. We are protected by the thin veneer of civilization. But something tells me that in the years since Bedlam closed its doors, humanity hasn’t changed a bit. The stage occupied by the mad has moved to that voyeur’s paradise: reality television.
The mentally Ill represent devastation. Lives laid to waste by some invisible force over which we have no control. We do not follow the rules. We do not obey instructions. We are weak, we are feckless, they are helpless. Our very presence corrupts society. The industrious middle classes are the most hostile. It is not that they lack imagination. It is not that they are devoid of empathy. Far from it. They posses those qualities in abundance. They understand more than they want to.
People are afraid because one day they know it could happen to them. Like aerial bombardment. No one knows who the missiles will hit next. But they will never acknowledge that. Not in a million years.
If you have a problem with this then please tell me why you have a problem with this. I need to hear alternative views.