Disabled by Living

I resist labels. No, I out-and-out dislike them, especially when I succumb to the seduction and comfort of using them. “Mental illness” is a label I dislike, because of the societal stigma attached to mental health disorders. On occasion, however, such labels find their way into my thinking and usage. This happens sometimes when I consider issues involving emotional and psychological struggles, as well as conflicts of the mind and soul. It is then that my discomfort with the mysteries of our complex inner worlds causes me to flee to those black-and-white labels that offer saccharine-like relief.

This internal struggle with labels was revisited as I read an interesting and poignant article in The Huffington Post, written by Brandon Marshall (“The Way People Talk About Mental Health Is Crazy”). He is an accomplished wide receiver who plays for the New York Jets, and is now in his tenth NFL season. He courageously documents his own feelings and experience of isolation and depression, stating: “As the downward spiral continued, it just felt like the new normal.” That “normal” was appropriately challenged by supportive family and then by professionals, who provided a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, and offered treatment that “transformed” his life.

He also accurately points out that when tragic violent acts are committed, the perpetrator of the horrific event is too frequently labeled, or automatically “diagnosed,” as mentally ill by the media and in our minds. While they may very well be suffering from some form of mental issue, this catch-all label further stigmatizes all people suffering with mental issues, people more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it, and thus preventing them from exposing their problems to employers and the like and getting help.

To shed light on this issue, the author and his wife, Michi, established Project 375, “a foundation to raise awareness, erase the stigma, and help people to get diagnosed and treated.” Truth telling and self-disclosure is not easy, and in the case of people suffering, as Mr. Marshall was, revealing their own trauma is admirable.

Perhaps a better phrase to use than “mental illness” is Thomas Szasz’s expression, “disabled by living” (from his book The Myth of Mental Illness). After all, there are times in most of our lives when we are “disabled by living,” times when we are deeply disturbed by an event, or have an occurrence that triggers memories and feelings related to a childhood trauma. In either case we may suffer emotional distress. In Szasz’s view “mental illness” is a metaphor because there are no true illnesses of the mind. Illness suggests cure, and from his perspective offering assistance, through psychotherapy, to the “disabled by living” enables them to “learn about themselves, others, and life.”

The Huffington Post essay reignited the struggle and wrestling I engage in when it comes to the too vague and misguiding concept of illness cast in a medical model of disease—dis-ease, yes. Mental illness, no. Concrete and definitive labels ease our discomfort.

However valid the medical model is for physical diagnosis and treatment, I don’t believe it carries equal credibility when applied to emotional and psychological conflicts, or the brokenness of our minds and souls. We are made up of “hard” and “soft” wired parts—the former scientifically provable and the latter empirically sensed—a combination of aspects that make us complex.

Brandon Marshall and his wife have taken on a worthy cause—de-mythologizing and getting rid of the stigma attached to mental illness, or as I prefer, being “disabled by living.” We should all make an effort to follow in their footsteps.

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