Hearing Voices

I am a Law and Order junkie. I like the mystery but I also like the neat wrap up of most of the shows. On the other hand sometimes the story lines are so unreal as to be dangerous.  Dangerous in that uninformed people take the characters and situations portrayed as not only possible but probable.  The episode I watched the other night was dangerous in that regard. It involved a schizophrenic arrested for murdering 7 people under the delusion that one of them had his nonexistent daughter. The state put the man away for life while letting him appear in court unmedicated and delusional despite a ten years old diagnosis and history of schizophrenia.


This kind of blatant misinformation about mental illness is common in both TV and film.  It contributes to the fear and lack of care and services available to the mentally ill.  Writers will say everyone knows it's just fiction but  everyone doesn't know.  In point of fact few people know anything about severe mental illness. People with mental illness are stigmatized as dangerous and undeserving of care in part because of their portrayal in the media.


Years ago, a cousin of mine married a lovely young woman in her early twenties.  On their honeymoon she experienced the first symptoms of schizophrenia.  In those days medication was in its infancy and doctors posited that she suffered from a niacin deficiency.  I was pretty young but I did know that she had to be monitored because she burned herself with cigarettes. On purpose. She also hurt herself in other ways and the drugs she took impaired her thinking and memory.  The last time I saw her she didn't know who I was.  My cousin eventually divorced her and she went back to live with her parents. I don't know whatever happened to her.


Schizophrenics are far more dangerous to themselves than others.  They forget to eat and sleep.  They lack any sense of personal hygiene.  The medication they have to take to keep the fears and voices quiet has unpleasant and sometimes devastating and permanent neurological side effects.


Recently I read the memoir of a woman who is now a professor at USC and also a schizophrenic.  She was lucky in that her family had the means to provide hospitalization when she needed it and weekly talk therapy with a psychiatrist. However, like most mentally ill people, she would go off her meds thinking she wasn't ill and descend into a world of fear and delusions that incapacitated her.  It took her years to accept the fact that she was chronically ill and would need medication and therapy for life.  It's hard to overstate how lucky this woman was.  She is extremely intelligent, has wonderful friends who do not scare easily, and a family willing to pay for her health care.


I should mention too that she didn't tell many people that she was schizophrenic.  In fact until her book came out most of her colleagues at USC didn't know about her illness.  Probably a good thing since most people, even educated people, associate schizophrenia with crime and homelessness.


We think insane people commit the most heinous crimes but usually they are not crazy in the "hearing voices" kind of crazy but rather are seriously emotionally disturbed due to childhood neglect and abuse. Or there just happens to be a weapon around when they get seriously angry and they turn into criminals.


I think TV and film writers have an obligation to portray the mentally ill in a compassionate light.  I imagine they could come up with story lines just as interesting but without the ignorant stereotyping.