Severing the Stigma

by Alec Bojalad

She squints through the sun, gazing at the surrounding landscape, eyes settling on the cluster of Victorian buildings that are now, for the most part, abandoned at the top of the hill, staring at the place that used to attempt to understand people like her — not fully comprehending the irony.

“Where should I sit?” she asks.

I gesture towards the two chairs closest to the door. She didn’t know where the Front Room Coffee House was. Undoubtedly, this is her first time taking in the view from the back porch of the Baker University Center.

“Good. I like corners,” she says.

It is the type of throwaway comment that anyone would say merely to show you that they’re comfortable with what you’ve chosen. But she has borderline personality disorder — an imposing, scary phrase that could mean anything to the uninitiated. “I like corners.” What does that mean? A Freudian desire to crawl back in the womb? She can’t just like corners, there has to be a reason.

I ask her if she wants to talk about yesterday. She sighs and giggles a little. (Deflection? Denial? Delirium? Or just dry humor?)

Yesterday was the first Students Overcoming Stigma meeting of the quarter. She arrived before almost anyone else. The room, with eight tables and 32 chairs, revealed lofty expectations. Even more chairs lined the walls of the immense room like soldiers at attention waiting for the general to give an order.
It never came, though. And most of the seats were never filled. Thirteen people showed up. She sat two seats removed of anyone else, which is more than enough to be removed of conversation and interaction.

One of the counselors-in-residence began to pass out chocolate, a sort of communion. Everyone accepted the offering, except for her. Then the counselors wanted to know why each new face had decided to join SOS.

“I wanted to help people.”
“I love psychology.”
“I could use the credits.”
“Uh. Please come back to me,” she said with a voice as meek as her body.

They did, and after hearing another round of psychology-related answers, she had no choice but to own up to the truth.
“I think I misunderstood,” she admitted. “I thought this was a group for people who were having trouble, um, adjusting.”

The room got quiet. The group looked toward its counselor. He calmly explained that this group was not necessarily a “support group,” but rather a collection of like-minded individuals who would like to stop the stigma often perceived with mental illness.
It was too late, though; by outing herself as different, she already had been stigmatized.

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 26.2 percent of Americans 18 or older have some form of diagnosable mental disorder in a given year — that translates to about 80 million people. But only 15 percent of the population uses mental health treatment of any sort in a given year, according to the Surgeon General. That is nearly 34 million Americans who need help, but will not seek it.

SOS exists to bridge that gap between those who need professional mental health care and those who seek it.

“Just the idea of someone having hard times and not going to find help just because of the stigma that they have … that scares me,” SOS President Derek Zeigler said.

Derek and SOS aim to increase the public awareness of the nature of mental illness and decrease the stigma surrounding it.

Through a concert at Donkey Coffee and Espresso last spring, the members raised around $250 for The Gathering Place, an organization for people with mental disabilities. They’ve advocated for the mentally ill for three years. They’ve helped depressed souls find their direction. They’ve sat in clinic waiting rooms just to understand what it means to be perceived as ill. They care.

“You join the group because you want to help — you have some sense of passion for people with mental illness,” junior SOS executive Jade Martin said.
Oftentimes things are just too deep for mere students to take care of. Actual diagnosis and treatment of mental illness must come from a professional or a graduate student. So if the untrained cannot fight the disease itself, they must fight the stigma that surrounds it — which often can be deadlier than the mental illness itself.

“My best friend was bipolar. He got ridiculed. He committed suicide in March. It’s crazy how people label others with problems. I look at it now as an inspiration to try to stop people from being so cruel. Even if you help one person, it is worth it. People’s words hurt a lot, so reducing the stigma is worth a lot,” Jade said. “You want to know why, you know?”

“Welcome to the Ridges of 2009,” George Eberts says as he flings the double doors of the second floor open. Eberts has been working in the mental health field in Athens since 1979, when he signed on with the original facility in the Ridges — he is as much a fixture here as the walls are.

The scene looks no different from a college dorm room on a lazy Sunday. A bearded man carries clean laundry toward an open room furnished with a bed, television and an array of Philadelphia Eagles posters. A small group of people line up against a wall and hold an animated conversation with one another. A woman reclines in a chair while a man in sweatpants and a dirty T-shirt lies on a couch next to her as they watch the communal TV.

The Ridges of 2009 contrasts sharply with the image of the old Ridges. For one: it isn’t in the Ridges. This is the Appalachian Behavioral Healthcare building, and it is located in the shadow of its predecessor, nestled safely between the Hocking River and Union Street. The facilities in the Ridges were closed for Behavioral Healthcare in 1994, and the in-patients were relocated to the new, smaller and less imposing center. A handful of patients from the merger still remain in the facility, going about their day-to-day business as if they never moved.

Secondly, “The Ridges” never existed — at least not the way it does in the Athenian imagination.

The Ridges of Athens’ imagination is synonymous with pain, suffering and horror. The Ridges of Athens’ imagination is filled with souls of the damned wasting away until judgment day. The Ridges of Athens’ imagination is where spirits of the mistreated and misunderstood mentally ill cry out for justice in the night, sharpening their scythes in the name of vengeance.

But the Ridges of Athens’ reality resembled Christmas at grandma’s house more than the medieval torture orgy most believe it to be.
“The creation of the Ridges was a joyous thing,” Eberts explained, “The mentally ill had the dignity of raising their own food and providing for themselves. It was a glorified group home. They did potlucks, interacted with each other and watched movies.”

Potlucks and movies don’t scream “eternal damnation.” Pre-1950, the Ridges was a community for the mentally ill of southeast Ohio. It was a place for them to grow their own food and take care of themselves without the pressures of the outside. Post 1950, treatment became more realistic with the effectiveness of Thorazine-based drugs. And by 1994, enough people had moved to outpatient residential options that the massive facility no longer was needed.

Today, perceptions have changed. Mental illness no longer is equivocated with horror. Every college student who has taken a Psych 101 class can define depression. Knowledge is creeping into the mainstream. But still, stigma exists.

To witness the second floor of the Behavioral Healthcare center, you have to sign two documents: one hospital-policy, one governmental decree — both promising silence. You have to agree not to take any recording equipment to the second floor. You cannot divulge the names of anyone you meet.
Their lives are secret and their names are unknown, just like the headstones that litter the landscape of the Ridges. But unlike those headstones, they are very much alive.

You just wouldn’t know it. Confidentiality dictates that you cannot see them. Stigma dictates that you cannot know them.

She’s back on the rear porch of Baker. Everything is different this time. It is the end of the day instead of the beginning, the weather feels like autumn instead of summer, and the tables surrounding her are mostly empty instead of full. But she says that she feels the same.
“Nothing’s really changed since the last time I talked to you, you know,” she said.

A beat passes.

“I did see someone at Hudson. … He was supposed to be pretty good with borderline personality disorders. I came into his office, and I started talking to him about serious stuff. And at the end of the session he said, ‘I don’t see that you have much hope.’ ‘Do you want to treat me?’ I asked. ‘Not if you’re going to come here and whine everyday,’ he said.”

She has seen this psychologist twice. And she is going to see him again. She doesn’t know if she has any other options. He says he can help, and she knows she needs it. She wants it.

The interview is over. She stands up to leave. I ask her if I can publish her name along with her mental illness for my story.

Her first name is Alex. Her last name is lost to stigma.

Direct link: http://backdropmag.com/features/severing-the-stigma/