Look at this picture. What is the first thing that comes to mind? The long, depressing halls, the stretching dark shadows, the gruesome barred windows, and the grainy black and white view? (more photos at http://www.lost-least.it/insane-2.htm) To most people this image screams insane asylum. It screams, “I’m a container for those unfit to live in the outside world! I’m full people that mumble nothing and bash their faces into walls! I am nothing more than a holding cell for loons and psychopaths!” but mostly, what this image screams at us is, “I’m a bad stereotype for the mentally ill! I’m what people think of when they think crazy! I’m a lie, a twisted rumor, and a Hollywood depiction!”
When most people think of an insane asylum their mind will instantly jump to images, quite like this one, of dark gloomy living quarters, like prison cells. They think of the people inside them as incurable monsters, people unfit for society. Do we ever think of these people as patients? As ill people in need of help? Rarely. To most of us we don’t know what to think, we don’t know what its like to live at a mental institute, we don’t know what these people think or why they act so different. Many of us are ignorant about what really goes on in such places, so we let Hollywood and bad rumors create our ideas and opinions about them. That’s why we dehumanize these people and look down on them. We have all these stereotypes of how the mentally ill act, most of which aren’t true.
And we let this happen because we don’t know and we don’t care to know. These people are different, unstable, and often times scary. They are a lower class of society; unfit to live a real life, so why should we care to find out any more? There not like me, there not equal to me, in fact their not even human to me. But they are. Inside each person has a thought, a beating heart, and a working mind. They may think different, they may act different, and they may be classified as mad, psychopathic, or ill, but inside they work the same as you or I. They are humans, they are creatures, and they do not deserve to be looked down upon. Most of these people are the way they are to no fault of their own, and yet you judge them upon their nature?
So the next time you look at a depiction of a long dark hall, or even at a patient such as the one below, look closer, and see the lies. See the stereotypes and make your opinions knowing that each person is equal, each person thinks and lives and breathes. And knowing that each person has a soul, each person is an individual, and each person is equal, judge the patient below. Judge him knowing he is a monstrous mental patient. Judge him and see the truth behind his sorrow eyes. Judge him and see his pain and his hurt, his outreaching hand. Judge him, and see like he sees and understand him as if he were anybody. Judge him, and ask yourself:
Are these the eyes of a monster, or the eyes of a human?
Image one: http://www.lost-least.it/insane-2.htm
Image two: www.dgorton.com/ white_south/mental.html
