The Challenges Faced by the Recovered Psychiatric Patients in their Life

Dr.Jiji.T.S. MSW, M.Phil, PhD Mental health and mentally ill are always serious social issues in any society. Though there is effective treatment modalities for psychiatric disorders in the current medicine the attitude and approach towards such victims have not attained much progress. Mentally ill people suffer from being prejudged and stigmatized within society. Friends, family, healthcare professionals, colleagues can all be sources of discrimination. The results of this can be further mental and social problems: lower self-esteem, social isolation, exclusion, depression, anxiety and so on. The unfortunate fate of a mentally ill is their rights and desires are always misspelled or ignored without any reasonable background, it is simply ignored or given least or last priority. Usually in almost all families of such patients decisions for them are taken by the superior figure in the family whether it is beneficial for the patient or not. Right from the treatment aspect to major decisions regarding their marriage, child bearing or rearing and custodianship of properties and children and like everywhere they are subjected to a lot of discriminations. Developments in the fields of science and technology have revolutionized Human Life at material level. But in actuality, this progress is only superficial: underneath modern men and women are living in conditions of great mental and emotional stress, even in developed and affluent countries. People from all over the world irrespective of culture and economic background suffer from mental illness and though a number of researches are carried out worldwide but till date it has not been possible to resolve the problem. Even if a psychiatric patient regains his/her normality she or he has to face a range of challenges in their personal and social life. If there happens any minor mistakes in their part then others prefer to color it with their sickness and again they are branded as abnormal. Unlike any physical illness the psychiatric patients rarely get involved in the social mainstream even once they are cured of their symptoms. The family also tries to control them in many ways in order to maintain their normality which they think is possible only through certain restrictions. As a result the patient feels that they are not capable of doing things independently or they have lost their vitality and vigour forever and the rest of the life is with full of bondages and restrictions. The nature of the psychiatric illness is that we can only control the symptoms as it is caused due to certain chemical imbalances like high concentration of dopamine in the brain. In order to regulate it proper medication for a certain period sometimes life long is required. As long as the medication continues the victim is also under the supervision of their close relatives and is subjected to an array of rules and norms in their life. In the bygone years it was believed that mental illness is caused by the evil forces or by some witchcraft. Such patients were locked up in chains in dark rooms and they had to end their life there itself. Some uncivilized people believed that if holes were made on their skulls then they can eliminate the evil spirit from the patients and many patients were died due to this practice in the past when there was little knowledge and treatment were available to deal with this illness. The majority of people reported that the main problem with families was that the mental illness was not understood properly. Some mentally ill people are ostracized and distanced from their families, Dr.Jiji.T.S/30/03/2012 1

with uninformed relatives behaving as if the condition is contagious. Loss of status within families is a common complaint: inheritances deleted or reduced and responsibility taken away being the most frequent of these. Many people reported that 'general hurtful comments' such as 'mental'. Those who had jobs when diagnosed with mental illnesses were often pressurized into resigning, were dismissed, or were made redundant on grounds of being incapable to complete their jobs properly. Those who kept their jobs felt pressurized over sick leave: either the sufferer felt they could not take a sufficient term of sick leave, or that they were pressurized into returning too soon. Many suffered bullying and ridicule from colleagues, or were rejected of isolated. On the other hand, some mentally ill people who were surveyed found that their employers did not take their mental illness seriously, and were therefore not given the consideration required. Mentally ill people who are searching for jobs often feel they cannot disclose their condition to a prospective employer for fear of discrimination. This discrimination and prejudice against people with mental illnesses has a long term effect on the health of the sufferer, even beyond the duration of their illness. In a Health Education Authority survey of psychiatric workers, it was found that 60% of the people they'd worked with now have long term emotional problems as a result of the discrimination they'd suffered. 99% of psychiatric workers believed discrimination to have long term detrimental effects of the health of a patient. The media intensifies the problems of discrimination against mentally ill people. The animalistic portrayal of mentally ill people as violent and dangerous, aside from being, on the whole, false, can be the only experience some people have of mental illness. This reinforces stereotypes and gives opportunity to confirm the prior beliefs held through stereotypes as true 'biased perception'. Two-thirds of media reports portray mentally ill people as violent despite this being proven incorrect by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by people with Mental Illness. According to the child welfare authorities of some states, up to 1 in 5 of their cases involve a parent who suffers from a mental illness. This raises serious moral, emotional, ethical, and legal issues, none of which are simple. If a parent is struggling to keep custody of his or her children, and suffers from a severe mental illness, this can make an already-difficult situation even more wrenching. And while the stigma surrounding mental illness has diminished significantly in recent years, it still persists. This means that, once a person is diagnosed with virtually any mental illness, many people automatically assume that they are not fit to be parents, even if they know better than to publicly acknowledge this assumption. This is very unfortunate, because many mental illnesses, such as depression, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder are often highly treatable. And while they present challenges for sufferers and their loved ones, they dont automatically prevent a person from being a loving and competent parent. Possible move to reduce the intensity of discrimination against mentally ill people The government should review anti-discriminatory laws to include specific criteria for people with mental illnesses. This would provide a 'benchmark' of social boundaries, which would eventually bring about a change in attitude towards people with mental illness. It would also prevent some of the more outright acts of discrimination going unnoticed. Legislation should be introduced to modify the way in

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which the media portrays mentally ill people. Negative stereotypes and tabloid dramatizations should be removed, and positive accounts should replace them. The media should encourage the inclusion rather than exclusion of mentally ill people. This will, like government action, lead where the public will follow. The new Disability Rights Commission launch a campaign to raise awareness of the problems of, and discrimination suffered by, mentally ill people: what their problems are, what the causes are and the impact of these problems on someone's life. This should include more 'equal status contact', with mentally ill people in order to reduce the effect of the 'Minimal Group', and also to reduce the idea of a stereotype through 'attribute driven processing' i.e. focusing on the individual rather than their group. Other things we can do All of us can help the way people think about mental illness. Start with our self. Be careful about our own choice of words. Use accurate and sensitive words when talking about people with mental illness. Our positive attitude can affect everyone with whom we have contact. Try to influence all the people in our life constructively. Whenever we hear people say things that show they do not really understand mental illness, use the opportunity to share with them some of the information that we have. We have already changed the way we refer to women, people of color and people with physical disabilities. Why stop there? We need to motivate the psychiatric patients to adhere to prompt treatment and also to encourage them to regain their potential to become part of the social mainstream much better than before. Let them inhale the free air of creativity and spontaneity amidst their disability adjusted life years (DALY).

Dr.Jiji.T.S/30/03/2012