Winning at What Cost?

As some of you may know, or at the very least suspect, I am in the middle of battling major depression.  I don't mean major like Valley Girl, so major, I mean medically major depression. The last thing on earth I thought would ever move me out of my depression enough to write again, even this little bit, is the media circus/train wreck/Greek tragedy to be (I'm sure) named Charlie Sheen. What is it about this (half?) man is bothering me so much? The drugs? The women? The abuse? Yes, all of those are causes for alarm, but what has snuck into my subconscious and festered like a sore is his nonchalant dismissal of those who seek treatment (through AA or otherwise) to battle their alcoholism or substance abuse issues.  He has used such hateful, ignorant (ignoring? as in his own denial?) words as weak and foolish.  He claims to have cured himself with his mind and people are eating it up, thinking that by being on "Team Sheen" they are winning. If Charlie Sheen went on national television, and Twitter, and the Internet and declared that people with any other chronic disease in the world (cancer or MS, just two randomly pick two) were weak and fools for needing outside intervention to cure or manage their problem he would be met with such a backlash not just from the groups that advocate for the rights of people suffering from these diseases but the medical community and, I would like to think, even the interviewers who allow him such a far-reaching microphone and his fans. Picking on people with cancer is just wrong, man.

There was a fantastic piece in the New York Times decrying the lack of attention being given to the fact that Sheen has been arrested for and convicted of (a plea of no contest in one case) violence against women. What I want to know is where is the outcry against treating people with mental illness as equally disposable? This piece is just my opinion and not a scholarly article or argument so I have no statistics to back up what I'm saying but I have enough life experience to know that if people with mental illness could just cure themselves with their own minds without medical, spiritual, or social intervention then the world, at least my world, would be a very different place. While not a believer for my own purposes in the 12-step program, I know people whose lives have been immeasurably changed and improved by it. The seeming invisibility of mental illness makes it such a tricky thing for people to understand how to deal with. If I broke my leg and it was in a cast, people would have no trouble understanding why it's difficult for me to perform life's every day duties while I was recovering. With a broken leg it would be difficult, if not impossible to:  take a shower, clean the house, run errands, and walk the dog. Mental illness can and does cause the same difficulties and then some but because people cannot see the neurochemical imbalance in my brain, they assume it must be easier to "deal with". I am expected to:  buck up, pull myself up by my bootstraps, move on, deal with it, stop dwelling on the negative, look on the bright side, be grateful for what I have, count my blessings, and for Chrissakes just get over it! Picking on people with mental illness is commonplace and is probably one of the last groups of people here in America that it is winked at more than frowned upon to treat in this way.

So now what? Well, hopefully Charlie Sheen will get the help he so obviously needs and use the opportunity and the enormous platform he has been given to help educate people about the real life difficulties of dealing with mental illness, even for someone with tiger blood and Adonis DNA. As for me, I battle on everyday even if some days it seems like I've thrown in the towel. I may not have tiger blood in my veins but I have a great therapist, promising medication, and extremely supportive family and friends. So yes, even if I feel like all is lost, so long as I have the people who love and care about me in my life, eventually I will be winning.