Southern Vapors

What are the things that we still don’t talk about AT ALL?

What are the things that we still don’t talk about AT ALL? I have thought of a few. Care to add?

1. Severe mental illness, like schizophrenia. We have cracked the door on depression, anxiety and bipolar, those have become household words. No one, not even the “mainstream mentally ill,” wants to talk about the real dark side.

2. Cutting. Drug abuse, alcoholism, anorexia, bulimia, gambling, etc. are all on the table in varying degrees. NO ONE talks about cutting. I have never done it, but I get it, through and through. It would have filled the bill for me in so many ways during my hard times (inflict pain on myself to play out the tape that I am a bad person, inflict pain on myself in order to feel anything at all, release the demons). I can’t explain why I didn’t do it, except for vanity. Maybe that’s the plus side of growing up in a family obsessed by image.

3. The sexual side effects of psych meds. Excellent comments and discussion at https://20commandments.blogspot.com/2012/12/sexual-side-effects-of-medication_31.html?spref=tw Such a poignant comment: “Sanity must trump sex, unfortunately.”

4. The chilling effect of fear of job loss. Many well meaning people advocate in favor of lifting the stigma surrounding mental illness. How is that going to work if you lose your clients, customers, colleagues, etc. if you come out in the open? There are no laws against a client chucking you in favor of a saner model if you show signs of weakness. I was told by an attorney last week (June 2013) that you can’t even disclose cancer, stroke, etc. in the legal profession. Business is so competitive that no one is willing to risk losing a client. If that is the case for “accepted” illness, how are we going to convince people who are suffering from depression, etc., a less acceptable illness, to come forward?

These just popped into my head stream of consciousness. I hope to come up with more and add them as I go.