From Maria at Crooked Timber:

So why do we find it so damn hard to offer heartfelt sympathy and support to people with mental illness? Because we think that these diseases are in some way not ‘real’, and that the people who suffer from them have somehow invited them in or allowed them to stay. It seems to me that the people who vehemently exhort those with depression or a range of illnesses that are equally stigmatised* to ‘snap out of it’ are speaking not from judgement but in fear. How terrifying is it to think that you might wake up one day and be one of those people who literally cry with despair at the prospect of having to get washed and dressed? Or to realise one spring, perhaps months after a bout of winter ‘flu, that your health has disappeared for no apparent reason and may never be coming back? How horrifying might it be to inexplicably find yourself in a state where your mind or your body has simply forgotten how to be well?

Be sure to follow the discussion in the comments section too.

A couple of comments. One, notice the similarity of the language “invited them in or allowed them to stay” to the language of demonic posession. Could it be that as a culture we still haven’t gotten beyond the metaphor of mental illness as demonic posession?

Two, the paragraph closes by noting the fear of the surprise onset of a mental illness. Could it be that as a culture we still like to think that, if we woke up one morning with just such a terrible surprise, we would just “snap out of it?” If so, urging the mentally ill to “snap out of it” is a projection of fear, a fear that we might not be able to snap out of it ourselves should our day come. “The disabled”–a category which includes the mentally ill–is the only minority group we’re in danger of joining at any time. But perhaps we’d like to avoid thinking about that.