I watched the movie Milk over the weekend. Sean Penn portrays Harvey Milk, the controversial San Francisco gay rights activist who became the first gay to hold an elected to office in the United States. 

While Milk is a history of the gay rights movement in the United States, it is also study of stigma and ignorance. Regardless of how you feel about homosexuality, there are stunning  parallels between society’s attitude toward gays and the mentally ill.

I did not know that gays were so persecuted. Exterminated in the holocaust, fired from out public schools and arrested for gathering in bars.  It reminded me of the Mental Health Bell, 300 pounds of melted down iron chains and shackles used to restrain the mentally ill in asylums.  It was commissioned and cast in the 1950′s by Mental Health America. I had a chance to ring the bell last year. As I laid my hand on the bell I thought about the wrists and ankles that the metal beneath my hand had touched. 

The asylums are gone but the stigma is not. In the movie Milk, Harvey Milk stands before a crowd and shouts “Secrecy is the enemy!” He does not ask other gays to come out of the closet. He demands it. He tells those on his staff to leave if they don’t come out to their parents, friends and employers.

Secrecy is our enemy, too. But I would never demand that someone to come out of the closet. These illnesses make us fragile. That kind of demand could make us sicker. Some of our illnesses are more stigmatized than others. Outing someone else or forcing someone to come out of the closet with their mental illness – whether it is alcoholism or schizophrenia – is wrong.

 I am at a point in my life and career that I can do so. It is one of the blessings of growing old. Would I have come out if my parents were still alive, I was still married and my career was new? I don’t know. For me, coming out was a relief. But it makes others very uncomfortable. Every time I mention that I have depression, bipolar and alcoholism I see the fear, pity, guilt and discomfort others feel about their perception of mental illness. I don’t fit their mold and it makes them squirm.

I don’t know what or how long it will take for mental illness to become a “respectable” illness, such as cancer or diabetes. I don’t know when we will see thousands of runners race for the cure for depression, bipolar and other mental illnesses. But I believe it will come someday.

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (March 23, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 23 Mar 2009