Mental illness, now what?

Now, before you go all “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” on me, it should be understood that current treatments and new drug therapies have provided more autonomy and independence to the “consumer” than ever before. (Isn’t that a stupid term? Like “I would like a cup of mental illness please”?)  What has not changed as much, is society’s need to infantilize them. A retort I once heard speaks this clearly, “I am nuts, not stupid!” Here is where I state that there are some people with some illnesses, will not be able to work 40 to 50 hours a week at the same employer for five years or more. So what! As I alluded to before, there’s no reason we have to immediately jump to a disability check, a welfare apartment and a lifetime of learned helplessness? So you can ask, why are you preaching self-employment? In an earlier post, I mentioned that business is not just 100’s of thousands of square feet offices, and 1000’s of factory workers making widgets. Today, a man or woman with a skill and a cell phone, and maybe a laptop, can do more than legions of the business people of our past. Whether developing software or plowing snow, there are things people can and want to do. So the real question is, what can we do to help? Till we chat again, W    ]]>