Mental illness and justice – Marja Bergen
Having a mental illness doesn’t mean that a person has any less ability to reason than the next person. It doesn’t mean they’re any less able to know when wrong is done. It doesn’t mean they cannot feel the pain when they are being mistreated. And it doesn’t mean that the truth about that mistreatment can’t be in them because they’re not in touch with reality.
All of the above show the wrong impressions harboured by many about what mental illness is and how it impacts people. These false impressions have fed into the damaging discrimination that’s rampant in our world and touches so many lives. People with mental illness are not as different as they’re assumed to be.
The truth is, they’re being hurt. There’s no denying it. And it matters.
When complaints are made against a person who has mistreated the person with mental illness, the person who is hurt seldom has her word accepted. After all, she has a mental illness and the person who hurt her is not.
But she deserves to have justice done, just like any other human being deserves to have justice. And justice means that a person needs to have their case seriously listened to and heard. Too often she is given the blame, further consideration not thought important. Her complaints are ignored.
Mental illness and the church, Stigma
false impressionsinjusticejusticemental illnessmistreatmentstigma discrimination