Letter: ‘My heart hurts’
When is somebody taking their own life acceptable? When they’re gay? When they’re transexual*? A fag? A tranny? Is it okay to ignore depression until it escalates to suicide? At what point does somebody become something less than human?
We lost another soul to suicide on Wednesday night, and this kind of thing happens every day. These people could still be with us if society’s outlook was different. If society acknowledged transexual* people as human beings it would have been different. If society acknowledged depression as real it would have been different. If every human had the capacity to appreciate the beauty in every other person it would have been different.
But it doesn’t. And they don’t.
People are lost to major problems that could be minor issues, and society enables it. Depression is the leading reason for suicide. It’s a solvable problem but still needs further addressing. It can not be ignored.
My heart is hurting for every person affected by suicide. What makes the hurt worse is that it can be avoided. How? Addressing the issues that create the problem. In this case, addressing queerphobia. Addressing mental illness. Giving people what they deserve:
Respect.
A stigma surrounds the conversation of mental health and language is a powerful contributor. Speech is PERMEATED by oppressive language. You might be thinking “Oh, I never say bad things about people. I haven’t said fag since freshman year. What’s this dink talking about?” Not consciously being a jerk is a good first step.
People dealing with bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, and a list of other things are all labeled crazy, insane, psychotic, etc. The disrespect thrown at people struggling with these is obnoxious, and society seems to affirm this behavior.
That is not okay. A person dealing with a mental health condition is not “crazy.”
Mental health issues stem from biological interactions in the brain that are no fault of the human being dealing with them. And guess what? They are normal. Dismissing somebody as “crazy” trivializes their experience. I know and love multiple people dealing with mental illness. All of them are normal people dealing with normal problems and go to normal work and eat normal food and sometimes take normal medication. They’re normal. They’re human. Period.
Mental health’s stigma is perpetuated by misinformation and lack of knowledge. People are dehumanized and turned into a derogatory trait when they are a thousand times more. Somebody dealing with bipolar is more than bipolar. The same goes for any human being struggling with schizophrenia, depression or anything else.
One’s diagnosis does not define who they are. Is a person struggling with diabetes defined by that condition? I think not. Unfortunately, a significant portion of society doesn’t acknowledge that mental illness is no different than other medical conditions. As a result people refuse to educate themselves, open the conversation and change the language they use.
The stigma in society is so normalized you hear ableist language in every other sentence. Describing inconsistent weather as bipolar is harmful. Using schizophrenic as an insult is harmful. Telling a person with depression that it’s in their head is harmful. Invalidating another person’s experiences with your own limited experience is ridiculous. Stop.
The topic is serious. The issue is real. We lose people to suicide for major problems that could be minor issues. If you’re a person who doesn’t make active efforts to change the way society fundamentally views human beings you’re part of the problem. When is somebody taking their own life acceptable? Are queers even human beings? Is it okay to trivialize depression?
The way one person acts and their language choice affects other people. The inconsistent way people use language has consequences. If we understood the impact a single word can have on another person’s life we would change the way we speak. We would change the way we act.
My heart hurts for society to change.
I sincerely hope that yours does too.
— Cody Hancock