I love twitter. It's a fantastic way of expressing a fleeting thought, a feeling, a whim, a joke or anything else that doesn't take much to read, but can mean a lot. Brevity is the soul of wit, after all. But sometimes these little shoots can outgrow the limited plantpot of 140 characters. Hence I am writing this, as what I want to write simply needs more room to be properly explained.
I follow a gentleman on twitter who is not exactly reluctant to express himself, he is often funny, often controversial and always uncompromising. And recently he tweeted this -
"More chance of being killed by a mental patient than a terrorist. Where's the war on nutters?"
Now, I get his point, I think. I believe he was making a comment about the 'war on terror' - and what he sees as the gross over-reaction to a relatively minor threat from global terrorism. Possibly a fair point. But it bothered me. What bothered me was the wording, Particularly the use of the term 'mental patient'. More particularly its conjunction with the term 'nutters'. Even more particularly its association with killing people. Now I know this person was trying to use a bit of humour to make his point. But it bothered me. Maybe it bothered me because it came just a few days after the recent fuss over an Asda advert for a kids dressing up outfit for Halloween, the "mental patient" costume, with torn blood stained clothes and murderous blood-stained weaponry. Again we have the association of the term 'mental patient' with a blood thirsty killer straight out of a horror film. To me this association is just as bizarre as saying that because I know my neighbour has money worries I'd better start locking my door. Because my work colleague told me he is gay, I'm not taking my kids to work. Because my friend is getting treatment for a mental illness he might stab me. They are all ridiculous assumptions based on anything but fact. Poor people are not all thieves any more than all thieves are poor. Gay people are not all paedophiles any more than paedophiles are all gay. Mental patients are not all murderers any more than all murderers are mental patients. One expressly does not mean the other.
"More chance of being killed by a mental patient than a terrorist. Where's the war on nutters?"
So I replied -
"xxxx, please have a look at http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/ and follow @TimetoChange and reconsider that tweet. #TimetoTalk"
Maybe I shouldn't have, I know. As the saying goes, "how do you know you're losing an argument on twitter? - You're arguing on twitter". And actually I wasn't even really arguing. I just felt obliged to say something. Although I don't believe there was any malice in the original tweet, the wording of it only revealed to me a misconception as massively outdated as any racism, sexism, homophobia or any other prejudice we might have seen decades ago. Maybe this is the last great remaining prejudice, only acceptable due to not being seen as one. Yet. And this is why things have to change. These type of comments, whatever the intent behind them, should be challenged. Exposed as ridiculous. And consigned to history. Because until that ridiculous association is broken, and being treated for a mental illness is seen as no different from being treated for a broken arm, then people will suffer from more than their illness. A person with a broken arm can quite happily tell their boss they have a broken arm, and not worry that they have lost all chance of promotion. They can quite happily tell their mates, knowing they'll still get asked to the pub next weekend. Their character will not be questioned. They will not be considered a potential axe murderer. So should it be for someone with a condition such as depression for example. A chemical imbalance being treated with medication to correct the issue has as much relevance as someone with indigestion taking antacids. We need to be able to talk about this. Time to talk. Time to change.
By the way, his reply to mine -
"Depression isn't a mental health issue. It's sad laziness."
As I said, time to talk. Time to change.
