It was not so long ago that I was unable to effectively take care of myself. My life was a waste and had very little value. I was alienated, alone and miserable and I acted in ways that clearly exemplified how sick I was. No one spoke up to help me make things better. I had a chronic problem and no effective help or guidance, least of all from the punk scene. Life for me was hell and I wanted to be dead.
Many people found it easier to simply label me as “crazy” instead of putting in the time and effort to see deeper into who I was. I was forced to face the brunt of several extremely manipulative people who did and said some atrociously shameful things. This is something that unfortunately happens to people who have the mental health condition that I live with. It is a victimization perpetuated by friendly villains who are wholly supported by people who somehow like to eat the shit of these friends of theirs and apparently like the taste. It is strange the degree that people acquiesce when such tyrannical abuse is occurring. Well, I have seen this happen many times and not just to me. It is strange when there are so many people whom you otherwise think highly of who willingly allow themselves to be played in a game that they have no idea is being played.
Having a mental illness is something that society will judge you for. I have certainly been judged all throughout my life and in the punk scene. I was so despicably subjugated by my parents and by the mental health system for many years some time ago. My parents decided a long time ago that I was never going to get better, that I was their sick son who was going to be a burden on them for their entire lives. Interestingly, now that my parents are both suffering from mental illness and since I have severely limited my contact with them from minimal to almost none, I am doing better and they are doing much worse.
In the punk scene, wow, it is so brutal to even think about this stigma that I am talking about in this column. I’ve had people who were supposed to be my friends pushing the notion that I was “crazy” and that everything I said was to be discredited and the only thing that people needed to know was that I was “crazy” and that no one else had any responsibility to take for their behavior ever. This is an interesting thing I am talking about here. How can a person be 100% wrong about everything that had happened, about every experience and about every single thing that was said and done? How on Earth could I have been so wrong about every single freakin’ thing and how could an entire community of people simply buy into the most manipulative slandering that intentionally discredited me as simply being “crazy”? This blows my mind. Does it not blow my readers minds?
Are people with mental illness to be treated simply as being useless and as having no value? Are we to be used as jesters at the beckon call of those who wish to degrade us for their own twisted ulterior motives? The answer should be no, of course not, however, unfortunately this happens all the time. How many people do you the reader know, who have a mental illness? How do you treat them? With respect and dignity or do treat them as fools and as someone to not take seriously? When you think about your friends and your family who deal with mental illness, how do interact with them? Do you turn your back or do you embrace and engage them? Have you done some of your own research to try and understand why a person may be acting a certain way? Have you spoken to that person and told them that you care about them and that you want them to be happy and that you know they are suffering? Did you treat them first as a person and then only second as a person with an illness? These are questions that I wish most people that I have known in the punk scene in my city would have asked themselves over the years to better understand about who I was, why I was doing and saying the things that I was doing and saying and perhaps to show me some compassion, love and decency even if it seemed that due to my actions that I did not deserve it.
Of course, if someone is interested in knowing more about some obscure band from East Antarctica, they will be searching the internet for that information faster than I can say “say no to mental health stigma” and then sharing the information they find with their friends online and in person. Now, why are we not also seeking out information about mental illness and how we can better support our friends and family and yes, those people in the punk scene, like me, who suffer from a mental health condition? Don’t you think I am worthy of making the effort to better understand me? Have you considered what your relationship might be like with me today if you had been more informed about who I was, why I said and did the things that I did and perhaps if you knew that I was suffering to such an incredible degree and hated being the way I was wishing I could have made things better for myself? Now some of you have done a great job however many more have a great deal of work to do.
We scream about racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and so many other worthy issues in our society. Who here is screaming about discrimination to people with mental illness? Aren’t we worthy of being treated with dignity and respect and fairness? Yes? No? I can tell you that I have suffered a great deal of discrimination as a person who has a mental health condition. Society does not like people like me. I am not normal, whatever normal is, I am not it. In the punk scene I’ve been labeled “crazy”. Actually, not just labeled, I was identified as “crazy” and mostly by people who either had something to gain by perpetuating this garbage, or more likely by innocent/ignorant people who are all just trying to carve themselves out a little bit of a good life in this world and who were sadly misdirected.
What I want is a little bit of liberty. I want to no longer carry the label of “crazy”. I want to no longer feel discredited for being a person who struggles when things in life get a little screwy. I want to feel like I am equal with my peers. I am speaking out very loud and clear here. Stigma against people with mental illness must stop! The punk scene must embrace the idea that treating people badly due to their having a mental health condition is discrimination. Stigma can be destroyed through becoming educated about mental illness. Stigma can be destroyed by communicating with and trying to understand those who are different than ourselves. When we alienate and push away people with conditions such as mine, we lose out on valuable life experiences and perspectives that can make our world a better place. It is time to embrace people who after being born with a disease that they did not want, still deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
I challenge anyone reading this to contact me for any reason. I ask that any person who reads this that I may have harmed or done wrong to over the years to please contact me so I can take responsibility for myself and do my best to make amends. If there are people out there who read this who know that it would be a wonderful thing to contact me to settle any issue that may have existed over the years then please do. I assure you that I am very willing to make things right. I want to love more than I hate. I want to live more than I want to die. Please let us make a small difference in the life of a person who has struggled and let us not stigmatize that person, instead let us show our support.
My name is Craig Lewis and others know me by my nickname Crusty Craig. I have had a debilitating mental illness all of my life. Six years ago I found out by a complete and total fluke, that people with mental illness can get healthy. I truly had no idea that this could happen. This is called “Recovery”. I am currently in recovery and living a great life, all things considered, while also living with my symptoms. I am a success, it is amazing. I work as a mental health peer counselor and I help people just like me, learn how to better manage their symptoms, get some control over their lives and improve the quality of their lives so that they can be happier and healthier. I have received effective training, I am still in school and I use my wealth of lived experience from living with a mental illness to help people and beautifully, I do help people. Thank you for reading. Thank you to MRR, I’ve been reading you since 1988. Recovery is real.
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