By Eric Shapiro for the Flatiron Hot! News
Many of us belong to generations that rely on cynicism and ironic detachment as defense mechanisms to avoid disappointment, but I hope you’ll humor me by giving me a few minutes to get up on a soapbox and spout untempered idealism.
It’s difficult to summarize what MLK achieved in just a few words, but I’ll do my best. He organized and led a civil rights movement that successfully pressured a sympathetic federal government to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending de jure segregation in the south in the Jim Crow era and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, officially striking down discriminatory voting laws that barred African Americans from voting despite the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
How did he do this? To oversimplify, he and his movement engaged in civil disobedience to appeal to the conscience of the nation. He appealed to the empathy and decency of the American public to first change hearts and minds and then change the law.
What can we, as individuals living with mental illness, learn from MLK’s example? A lot of things, but I want to emphasize the need for us to think about not only our individual recovery journeys, but our collective responsibility to all of what I will refer to in a slightly corny way as our “brothers and sisters” who are living with mental illness. Many of the people we see living on the street begging, their symptoms untreated and their promise unrealized. Or the people we will never see. We are lucky enough to reside in a state that places a relative priority on mental health treatment. We are lucky enough to attend a world-class treatment program, CDTP, funded by Medicaid, which not coincidentally was implemented by the same administration that passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Not everyone living and dying with mental illness is so fortunate.
More Americans have died by suicide and drug overdoses since the beginning of the century than in 9/11 and all the wars we have fought combined in the years since. These “deaths of despair” represent nothing short of a mental health and addiction crisis in this country. This is not just a tragedy, but the product of a grave injustice stemming from a combination of societal neglect and stigma that prevents people with mental illness from seeking and/or receiving the help that is all of ours by right.
What can we do about this somewhat depressing and overwhelming state of affairs? How the hell would I know? I’m just a mental patient. Seriously though, I don’t have an easy answer to such a daunting challenge. But it seems to me that, like MLK and his allies in the civil rights movement, we have a moral calling to do what we can to address the mental health crisis plaguing this country.
The process starts with our own recovery. But I don’t think it should end there. When we leave CDTP and go back out into the world, I hope we will do all we can in our own professional and personal lives to follow MLK’s example and appeal to the conscience and empathy of our fellow Americans so that they can no longer ignore a mental crisis that has such a devastating human cost; A crisis that probably touches us, but that may very well touch their own lives and the lives of their loved ones in ways they aren’t even aware of.
What does it mean to engage in this struggle? It can mean organizing and participating in collective action or it can mean simply speaking up in conversations, drawing on our firsthand knowledge and experience to challenge negative stereotypes and stigma. The key point is that we are not just individuals on our own recovery journeys, but part of a larger community. Ultimately, if we don’t stand up for our rights and dignity, no one will. It’s not enough for us to help ourselves; we have to help each other whenever and however we can!
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Flatiron Hot! Pundit: MLK as a Personal Inspiration for those Fighting for Mental Health and Justice
By Eric Shapiro for the Flatiron Hot! News
Many of us belong to generations that rely on cynicism and ironic detachment as defense mechanisms to avoid disappointment, but I hope you’ll humor me by giving me a few minutes to get up on a soapbox and spout untempered idealism.
It’s difficult to summarize what MLK achieved in just a few words, but I’ll do my best. He organized and led a civil rights movement that successfully pressured a sympathetic federal government to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending de jure segregation in the south in the Jim Crow era and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, officially striking down discriminatory voting laws that barred African Americans from voting despite the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
How did he do this? To oversimplify, he and his movement engaged in civil disobedience to appeal to the conscience of the nation. He appealed to the empathy and decency of the American public to first change hearts and minds and then change the law.
What can we, as individuals living with mental illness, learn from MLK’s example? A lot of things, but I want to emphasize the need for us to think about not only our individual recovery journeys, but our collective responsibility to all of what I will refer to in a slightly corny way as our “brothers and sisters” who are living with mental illness. Many of the people we see living on the street begging, their symptoms untreated and their promise unrealized. Or the people we will never see. We are lucky enough to reside in a state that places a relative priority on mental health treatment. We are lucky enough to attend a world-class treatment program, CDTP, funded by Medicaid, which not coincidentally was implemented by the same administration that passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Not everyone living and dying with mental illness is so fortunate.
More Americans have died by suicide and drug overdoses since the beginning of the century than in 9/11 and all the wars we have fought combined in the years since. These “deaths of despair” represent nothing short of a mental health and addiction crisis in this country. This is not just a tragedy, but the product of a grave injustice stemming from a combination of societal neglect and stigma that prevents people with mental illness from seeking and/or receiving the help that is all of ours by right.
What can we do about this somewhat depressing and overwhelming state of affairs? How the hell would I know? I’m just a mental patient. Seriously though, I don’t have an easy answer to such a daunting challenge. But it seems to me that, like MLK and his allies in the civil rights movement, we have a moral calling to do what we can to address the mental health crisis plaguing this country.
The process starts with our own recovery. But I don’t think it should end there. When we leave CDTP and go back out into the world, I hope we will do all we can in our own professional and personal lives to follow MLK’s example and appeal to the conscience and empathy of our fellow Americans so that they can no longer ignore a mental crisis that has such a devastating human cost; A crisis that probably touches us, but that may very well touch their own lives and the lives of their loved ones in ways they aren’t even aware of.
What does it mean to engage in this struggle? It can mean organizing and participating in collective action or it can mean simply speaking up in conversations, drawing on our firsthand knowledge and experience to challenge negative stereotypes and stigma. The key point is that we are not just individuals on our own recovery journeys, but part of a larger community. Ultimately, if we don’t stand up for our rights and dignity, no one will. It’s not enough for us to help ourselves; we have to help each other whenever and however we can!