Psycho

I am not sure why I share some of my thoughts and feels on here, due mainly to the personnel nature of them, but I always feel they are justified, I mean what is more fragile then another persons thoughts, particularly regarding their mental health.

Anyway, I failed( or rather decided not to share this at the time) but I am now back on anti psychotics, WHY? because my hearing had become to much to handle,. If someone whispered I heard it like a scream, this and heightened sense of smell are usually the first signs of a psychotic episode for me...  So rather than wait till i am to ill, i decided to contain it, I have a certain amount of leeway  with my meds, I guess its about ME controlling my illness rather than the doctors..

The plus of being on Anti Psychotics, I avoid the hospital. The downfall of being on them is, I eat like a horse, in the space of a week, i have gained weight, I hate(ate) that...

Anyway this got me thinking.. peoples reactions to someone being on Anti psychotics is  scary, People, assume that someone who becomes psychotic, goes around murdering people, ah the Hollywood stereotype.  Movies  portray people with mental health problems negatively, when in fact people with mental health problems are statistically more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.

I was speaking to a student who was looking at madness as their subject matter for their FMP. I asked how they planned to portray this, they then used Hollywood films as examples. At the time, i felt angry, but i did not show it, I tried to explain how people with mental health feel and that they often victims . But i got the impression, my words had fallen on to the ground un heard.

I will be honest, If their tutor allowed the depiction of mental illness, to be shown in a negative light, would that make it ok, to be prejudiced towards others, OK.  There is is a fine line between, putting across an idea in your art work, and putting across a damning idea, Hollywood gets away with it, so I guess it would be OK for a student to depict madness as a scary horror type imagine.

The more I have done this project, the more I have become comfortable with my condition. You know what? I am blessed, other people do not get my Highs, with out the aid of drugs. Hell even my pesky acute hearing is a blessing at times. Or even my hyper sexuality, ok the downs are a  pain, and getting too high leads to a heap of problems, but I realise there are some pluses to the whole Bipolar label.

Anyway I am in no way blaming the Student for their misconceptions, nor the tutor, but I am blaming a society that  is ill educated regarding mental health and a multi billion dollar industry that feels it is OK to portray the ill in a negative light. But saying that, we vote with our wallets on that and continue to watch these movies.Would we pay to watch a racist or a sexist film? I believe there would be an out cry, You can see it now, the tabloid papers, up in arms screaming boycott this movie. Yet when movies, Like "the Ward"," Psycho"  and even "American Psycho" are realised, we rave about them...

Ok i will stop my rant ..... sorry needed to be shared.