ON MENTAL ILLNESS: We Should be Considered a Minority

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2014-08-08/article/42355?headline=ON-MENTAL-ILLNESS-We-Should-be-Considered-a-Minority--Jack-Bragen

The maltreatment experienced by persons with mental illness is not on the same scale of severity that African American people experienced several decades ago in which there was extreme violence perpetrated upon them. (We yet have a long way to go to alleviate the discrimination, wrongful conviction and violence directed at nonwhite individuals.) 

Yet, the maltreatment of persons with mental illness is real—it is not a figment of our psychotic imagination. Part of this is that we are essentially a segregated population. Some of this occurs through wrongful imprisonment. Some occurs by means of being supervised by the mental health treatment system. 

Some of the maltreatment is brought forth by attitudes of people in mainstream society who are intolerant of someone different. It remains socially acceptable to regard persons with mental illness with disdain and ridicule. 

We are considered to be a lower form of life by most people. The stereotype of a person in treatment for mental illness is that of a person either rocking back and forth on a bench while smoking a cigarette, or involuntarily twisting their face while boarding a bus. We are considered a bunch of "sick people."