Sunday, July 5, 2015
We all know about white privilege, class privilege, even able-bodied privilege, but have you ever heard of something called neuro-typical privilege?
Up until this week, I hadn't. But then I came across this comic shared by Everyday Feminism.
This comic takes readers into a day in the life of a schizophrenic, and provides a simple list of need-to-knows and advice on socializing with those who have the mental illness. Not only was it informative, but it opens my eyes to a whole new kind of privilege that I've never noticed.
As the author, Crass, points out, dealing with the everyday challenges of your brain fighting against you isn't the only uphill battle that the mentally ill face. Because of the stigma media has branded to these people, primarily schizophrenics, many with mental illness have to pretend that there's nothing wrong with them in order to be accepted by their peers. This also shed light on a post I saw by a man with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosumon the blog Humans of New York who said:
I feel as if, from the outside, these assumptions seem so inhumane to cast upon people, yet we do it all the time. I dont know how many times I've tip-toed around people with mental illness just out of fear of not knowing what to do with them. But the reality is, these are people we're talking about, and it's heartbreaking to think that so many are trying to hide an illness because "coming out" as mentally ill brings so much isolation. You don't see that coming from cancer patients, or people who have physical (rather than mental) ailments. The true illness is not within these minds, but within our society. We have to reach a collective point of maturity to where we can strive to understand, embrace, and respect the mentally ill just like any other oppressed sub group of people.
However, in order to do that we must take the first crucial step first step in changing by being informed.
For more information on neuro-tyical privilege, take a look at this checklist here.
As well as this first account story on the harmful effects of neuro-typical privilege by a woman struggling with Autism.
And in case you missed it before, here's the full link to Crass's comic.
Up until this week, I hadn't. But then I came across this comic shared by Everyday Feminism.
This comic takes readers into a day in the life of a schizophrenic, and provides a simple list of need-to-knows and advice on socializing with those who have the mental illness. Not only was it informative, but it opens my eyes to a whole new kind of privilege that I've never noticed.
As the author, Crass, points out, dealing with the everyday challenges of your brain fighting against you isn't the only uphill battle that the mentally ill face. Because of the stigma media has branded to these people, primarily schizophrenics, many with mental illness have to pretend that there's nothing wrong with them in order to be accepted by their peers. This also shed light on a post I saw by a man with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosumon the blog Humans of New York who said:
“...when people know there is something wrong with your brain, they think you’re retarded...I’ve been labeled all my life. I’ve always been told that I’m learning disabled and I can’t do this and I’m not good enough to do that. And it’s hard to hear that stuff all the time without viewing yourself as a permanent victim and learning to be helpless. ...
Posted by Humans of New York on Thursday, July 2, 2015
I feel as if, from the outside, these assumptions seem so inhumane to cast upon people, yet we do it all the time. I dont know how many times I've tip-toed around people with mental illness just out of fear of not knowing what to do with them. But the reality is, these are people we're talking about, and it's heartbreaking to think that so many are trying to hide an illness because "coming out" as mentally ill brings so much isolation. You don't see that coming from cancer patients, or people who have physical (rather than mental) ailments. The true illness is not within these minds, but within our society. We have to reach a collective point of maturity to where we can strive to understand, embrace, and respect the mentally ill just like any other oppressed sub group of people.
However, in order to do that we must take the first crucial step first step in changing by being informed.
For more information on neuro-tyical privilege, take a look at this checklist here.
As well as this first account story on the harmful effects of neuro-typical privilege by a woman struggling with Autism.
And in case you missed it before, here's the full link to Crass's comic.
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This blog post is extremely accurate about how today's society reacts to those with a mental illness. I feel like the reason people tend to avoid and push away somebody when they realize they have a mental illness is because of the way media portrays those with a mentally ill. In the news, the only stories on people with mental illnesses are stories about murders who 'went crazy.' There are never stories on those with a mental illness accomplishing the same exact things as those without. Also, in most movies, the media portrays those with a mental illness as not able to function, 'stupid,' and unrelatable, when, as we can see if the post above from "Humans of NY," those with a mental illness want the same things in life as those who dont.
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