thinking about how western culture only accepts mental illness when it’s convenient and applicable to them

i totally hear your perspective and personal experience on this for sure!! i apologize for overstepping i just have a different perspective of it based on my own personal experiences, my mom was diagnosed with both autism and schizophrenia and had endured years and years of bullying for it, she ended up taking her own life this last november, but her suicide wasn’t because of the delusions or schizophrenic symptoms it was because of stigma and bullying from others, she felt so alone and misunderstood, she had all these religious and spiritual ideas she wanted to share but as soon as she started showing symptoms everyone stopped talking to her in my family, everyone saw it as a debilitating disease that they didn’t want to be around, but i saw it as a gift , when she lost all her friends and family it seemed like the only aspect of her life that still brought her joy was spirituality, she would talk about all her spiritual realizations and ideas for hours with me, she would show me her whiteboards with scribbles and scripture and they were some of the most beautiful philosophical ideas i’d ever heard, i truly did see her brain as different than others, but not in an idolized bad way, but in a every human is different and unique and if people focused more on some of the positive aspects of schizophrenia like the spiritual aspect of it maybe people wouldn’t be so mean about it, but this is just my perspective on it-

i strongly believe that opinions are subjective and rooted within one’s own experiences so i hope my experience better explains where i’m coming from :)

/r/schizophrenia Thread Parent