"Living under the shadow of a new “code” bore no curative function, but it did imply that to be high-functioning would be difficult, and it warned me that to live beyond that code would be a tricky gambit. A therapist had already told me in my mid-twenties that I was her only client who was able to hold down a full-time job. Having a job, among psychiatric researchers, is considered one of the major characteristics of being a high-functioning person.
During my first inpatient experience at a psychiatric hospital, I met two patients who were treated as markedly different from the rest of us — I will call them Pauline and Laura. Pauline was middle-aged and chatty; Laura was the only other Asian woman on the ward, and spoke to no one. We patients rarely spoke of our diagnoses — at the time, I was labeled as having bipolar disorder, with traits of borderline personality disorder — but everyone knew that Pauline and Laura were the two with schizophrenia...
I’ve seen the psychiatric hierarchy elsewhere — a hierarchy of who can be seen as high-functioning and “gifted,” and who can be seen as not being capable of either. A much-liked meme on Facebook circulated months ago, in which a chart listed so-called advantages to various mental illnesses. Depression bestowed sensitivity and empathy; ADHD allowed people to hold large amounts of information at once; anxiety created useful caution. I knew before reading it that schizophrenia wouldn’t make an appearance. As with most marginalized groups, there are those who are considered more socially appropriate than others. Being seen as inevitable failures by the dominant culture causes a desire to distance yourself from other, similarly marginalized people who are seen as even less capable of success."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/esmewwang/who-gets-to-be-the-good-schizophrenic?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%204/18/16&utm_term=.uqjZ6V81E#.mmWgAY1v3
I appreciate this essay, with a woman who is struggling with her own prejudices and with the severely limiting impact of stereotypes on her life.
(also, it's much shorter than the page makes it seem).
FB: "Like Saks, I am high-functioning, but I’m a high-functioning person with an unpredictable and low-functioning illness. I think of this while contemplating Susan, a woman described in Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree, who is described as responding well to antipsychotic medication: “Intermittently, I have little things trigger here and there, but they only last a day or two. … Some people get stressed and their back goes out. I get stressed and my mind goes out. But then it comes back.” I may not be the “appropriate” type of crazy. Sometimes, my mind does go out, leaving me frightened of poison in my tea or corpses in the parking lot. But then it comes back."
During my first inpatient experience at a psychiatric hospital, I met two patients who were treated as markedly different from the rest of us — I will call them Pauline and Laura. Pauline was middle-aged and chatty; Laura was the only other Asian woman on the ward, and spoke to no one. We patients rarely spoke of our diagnoses — at the time, I was labeled as having bipolar disorder, with traits of borderline personality disorder — but everyone knew that Pauline and Laura were the two with schizophrenia...
I’ve seen the psychiatric hierarchy elsewhere — a hierarchy of who can be seen as high-functioning and “gifted,” and who can be seen as not being capable of either. A much-liked meme on Facebook circulated months ago, in which a chart listed so-called advantages to various mental illnesses. Depression bestowed sensitivity and empathy; ADHD allowed people to hold large amounts of information at once; anxiety created useful caution. I knew before reading it that schizophrenia wouldn’t make an appearance. As with most marginalized groups, there are those who are considered more socially appropriate than others. Being seen as inevitable failures by the dominant culture causes a desire to distance yourself from other, similarly marginalized people who are seen as even less capable of success."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/esmewwang/who-gets-to-be-the-good-schizophrenic?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%204/18/16&utm_term=.uqjZ6V81E#.mmWgAY1v3
I appreciate this essay, with a woman who is struggling with her own prejudices and with the severely limiting impact of stereotypes on her life.
(also, it's much shorter than the page makes it seem).
FB: "Like Saks, I am high-functioning, but I’m a high-functioning person with an unpredictable and low-functioning illness. I think of this while contemplating Susan, a woman described in Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree, who is described as responding well to antipsychotic medication: “Intermittently, I have little things trigger here and there, but they only last a day or two. … Some people get stressed and their back goes out. I get stressed and my mind goes out. But then it comes back.” I may not be the “appropriate” type of crazy. Sometimes, my mind does go out, leaving me frightened of poison in my tea or corpses in the parking lot. But then it comes back."
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