Teacake, you said something I found really interesting in one of my other threads, so interesting I thought I would start a fresh thread to address it:

"Its because the affluent suburbs are very like a golf course prison. For kids they are. You cant get out. No bis línes. You are the prisoner and property of your parents. You cant get judicial review in most cases. You are second class citizens.

See how it works?

What priaon is to me i imagine involuntary commitment is to you. Im pretty sure its a childhood issue. Thsts why its encrypted. Irrational, symbolic and so compelling." - quote by Teacake, in this thread: http://forums.psychcentral.com/post-...-wrong-me.html

"The dark side" of suburbia is a recurrent theme in America in the past decades - we have everything from "Peyton Place" to "Desperate Housewives" and "Picket Fences", exploring the theme of "the dark side" in literature, film, television.

Part of that "dark side" is mental illness. But, no one seems to want to "talk about it". Even now. I have heard a lot of people in my community make comments about mental illness, such as in the days immediately after the school shootings in Connecticut in December 2012. Usually comments along the lines of "it's a shame" or "they should do something". But, I honestly can't remember ever hearing a real conversation about any aspect of mental health, not in my own house or family, not with neighbors, not at work. Just comments, some insensitive, some flippant, some short but sincere.

It seems to be one of the things we "don't talk about". In past generations, there were a LOT of things "we don't talk about" - most relating in one way or another to sex - the actual subject itself, as well as pregnancy, homosexuality, sex outside of marriage - and people had "secrets". One true story - my grandmother was pregnant with my uncle in the 1930s, and no one was told until after the baby came - and this was a couple who had been married about 14 years at that time and had already had 4 kids. Pregnancy was taboo, too scandalous to talk about, and as a somewhat heavy-set woman, she was able to hide it, literally, under her dress.

When I was in the depths of my despair, "sentenced" to the day hospital, not yet there, and even during almost the whole time I was there, I walked around town almost all night, almost every night, having my slo-mo breakdown. And, one of the things I thought was "they will cast you out when they find out you are 'crazy', because the 'good upright citizens' won't tolerate 'that" in this town." And, I pretty much believed this to be true, it was a visceral reaction, it hit me immediately in that doctor's office, part of the "your life is over except for the dying" thing upon hearing "bipolar" and "psych hospital".

But, I also walked around thinking "hypocrites!" - because I know there are all kinds of dysfunctions in my town -substance abuse, adultery/infidelity, bad parenting, gambling and spending addictions, whatever, you name it. And, I also know "how the system works" -- a good example, a few years ago, it came to light that a township supervisor's husband had a drinking problem, and had been pulled over several times impaired behind the wheel, but ... it was all conveniently covered up by the police. Until a political enemy found out and exposed the scandal. And, I thought, drunk driving is "forgiven" and "covered up", but mental illness, "being crazy" was, in my mind, an unforgivable sin, punishable by being "cast out" - I was sure I would end up, literally, homeless on the streets of Detroit. Because, you know, I've seen "those people" many times when I've been in the City of Detroit proper - a human tragedy in the "land of plenty". I thought that that is how "crazy people" ended up - it was my stereotypical view of the "mentally ill", and suddenly, I was one of them, and I just knew it was to be my fate.

So yes, I thought, for whatever reason, that my particular "crazy" was somehow a bigger transgression of the rules of my little corner of society than the "sins" of other people here, and that I would finally be given that death sentence .... the one I was expecting all of the time from dear old dad, because I always thought, growing up, that it was only a matter of time before he, literally, killed me.

Suddenly ... a lot of this is making a lot more sense to me than it did just a few days ago. I "know" all of this, I've been over all of this turf a thousand times, in the day program, with my therapist, with my doctor, on the net on support sites. But, it just seems so much "clearer" to me now. I was the teenage boy who expected to die because he did something really, really, really heinous, a capital crime, like getting a B+ on an English quiz, it was a "disgrace to the family" and it shattered the image of "the perfect son" and "the perfect family" that was so, so carefully cultivated, growing up my dad's own particular twisted dysfunctional Disneyland, where everything was make-believe for show, and the reality on the ground was that it was a Hell of epic proportions. In real life, the closest analogue I can think of is North Korea, with the various Kims playing the role of my father, or vice versa.

And, I grew into the man who expected to get the death sentence when something happened and he "broke the rules of society" by "going crazy."

Except, I didn't "go crazy" on purpose, and I resented then and still do the fact that "society" is not kind to "crazy". Most crazy is harmless to anyone except the afflicted. Maybe I am not the "crazy one" after all. Maybe society is profoundly dysfunctional in how it treats "crazy people". Because, as OpenEyes said in her thread, she needed loving kind support, but was ignored, was belittled, yelled at, treated badly in a time of intense stress and trauma, and that made it so much worse for her.

Well, I see it this way --- our wonderful little suburban Utopian society is just that way when it comes to mental illness. Out "system" doesn't really serve up the warm and fuzzy to people who are "in crisis" - it throws them in the back of police cars, puts them in restraints, sticks needles in their arms against their will, and then after they are "better" it sticks them out in a society that re-traumatizes them by making them feel bad, guilty, and ashamed for "going crazy". I guess it's nothing new, look at the poor guys who came back from Viet Nam with what they called "shell shock" ie PTSD, and then were treated like the scum of the earth for fighting in an unpopular war AND "going crazy" from it.

Image is so much here. Geoffrey Beene - I thought of "designer" whatever when I thought of this thread, because I was wearing a Geoffrey Beene shirt yesterday, and someone commented about "what a nice shirt". When the "image" becomes more important than the reality, there is a problem. Mental illness is like that --- I know I'm more worried about the "image" I might project if it were know that I was in the psych hospital day program, than I am about the reality of my life, which is that it's actually quite excellent in many ways. I spend almost every day unhappy and worried about a short period in my life. If I took the "Geoffrey Beene" label out of my shirt, it would be the same shirt. Well, whether or not I have a "label" in the form of a psych history, day to day, I'm still the same guy. I don't think I'm a bad guy at all. Maybe a little weird, but who isn't?

This is what I need to remember - that going to the psych ward, having a diagnosis code in a medical record, doesn't make me a bad person.

Well, that is my editorial of the moment.