The man at the concert meant no offense. He was trying to amuse those around him with jokes and conversation while we waited for the choirs and orchestra to begin.
He was a friendly, jovial person, and though I preferred to take in the beauty of the sanctuary in silence, I appreciated his intentions and joined in the conversation with the strangers around me. Then, poking fun at his own off-beat humor, he quipped, “You’ll have to forgive me folks. I had a little medication mix-up today.” Ah, “medication.” We all knew what he meant by that. Not blood pressure medication or headache medication, but psychiatric medication. Everyone laughed. Except me.
Imagine being the parent or sibling of a young person who is loving, intelligent, outgoing, athletic, healthy and popular, someone who does well in school, is close to other family members, and has many friends. You have a vision of your loved one’s bright future: the college, the career, the family to come. But one day, perhaps in the late high school years, perhaps after your loved one moves out of state to attend college, something changes. At first the signs are subtle and might be seen as just teen hormones run amok. There is the inexplicable, out-of-proportion temper. Then your loved one insists that there are bugs crawling in his food. Next the paranoia begins. He becomes very angry at any suggestion that what he’s experiencing isn’t real. Convinced that the government is spying on him everywhere he goes, he won’t leave the house, won’t go to a psychiatrist or take medication. “Medication” after all is for crazy people, people who are scoffed at and derided as being “wacko” and weird. That’s not him. No matter how awful he feels, he’s still in touch with reality enough to know that he does not want to be crazy. And so your descent into darkness begins.
Or perhaps your child is born with high-functioning autism, aware enough to want desperately to fit into the social world he sees around him, but low functioning enough to come across to others, children and adults alike, as weird and annoying. Imagine watching him suffer the bullying and ostracism, the struggles to fit in, the rejection and confusion as he tries to be normal but finds he can’t succeed. And then, after he and your entire family have suffered this heartbreak for years, imagine what the development of schizophrenia adds to your lives.
This is your descent into a living hell you never in your worst nightmares thought would befall your loved one, your family. This is the life I have lived. It isn’t funny.
I often wonder what it is about the intense suffering of another human being that tickles people so. We don’t hear Parkinson’s disease jokes. No one makes up cruel names for people who have cancer. We don’t find diabetes or osteoporosis to be particularly hilarious. Yet the suffering of those with conditions brought on not by wrong thinking on their part, or wrong behavior, or anything they have done, but rather by an imbalance in neurotransmitters — this suffering amuses us. We have the “crazy” sign, the index fingers circling around the ears. That one always gets a laugh. Or we can mimic someone having a tic, a not-infrequent side effect of psychiatric medications. Ha, ha, isn’t it funny that someone can’t control his head jerking constantly?
I see my son through a lens very different from the world’s lens. I see a hero. I see someone who has suffered his entire life but has never given up. That day at the concert I saw a young man on stage in his tuxedo singing proudly. Thanks to the gluten-free/casein-free/sugar-free Specific Carbohydrate Diet that has greatly reduced his symptoms, along with a small dose of antipsychotic medication, my son has been able to develop his considerable musical talents. But doing so has meant exposing himself to taunts, not from audience members like the man at this particular concert, who my son did not hear, but sometimes by performers themselves. Twice I have taken my son to hear outstanding, uplifting concerts only to have the performers crack jokes about “support groups” or do the “crazy” signal or mimic a tic to elicit laughter from the audience. And I have asked myself if it ever occurred to these people that sitting out there in that audience of hundreds of people there might not be someone whose suffering the performers are exploiting to get a cheap snicker.
I enjoy a good belly laugh as much as the next person. I need a good laugh as much as the next person. But I ask my readers to stop and think before they crack another joke about those “wacko” people who take “medication.” The person beside you might have a story of suffering you can’t begin to imagine. That person might be me.
Beverly Hoback is a resident of Arlington.
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First Person welcomes commentaries about the lives of Snohomish and Island county residents. Submit columns for consideration to Jon Bauer, Herald editorial page editor at jbauer@heraldnet.com.
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