Language is a Vehicle of Compassion – Bryan Crousore

Of our three children, our oldest, a daughter, has schizophrenia. Our second daughter is mentally retarded. She has Tourette’s syndrome, and both obsessive/compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder, which often accompany Tourette’s in adults.

These devastating illnesses make life difficult on best days. On worst days, they make living questionable.

Imagine, then, the distress caused when our family attended worship at a wider church
meeting and heard the featured leader refer to stubborn, change-resistant, and aggressive church members as “schizophrenic.” Imagine, after we visited our daughter at a psychiatric research project, our seeing a nearby cinema advertise a “fright night” of eight movies in which “pyschos” commit gross, irrational, and violent acts. Language devalues, de-humanizes, and discriminates against persons who have the brain disorders that are commonly called “mental illnesses.”

In the United Church of Christ, we believe in a Savior who sat down and got to know a
person who had been so de-personalized that he could only call himself “Legion.” We strive to be as caring and compassionate as Christ; but the ill-chosen word can defeat
good intentions. Let us choose appropriate words so as to be Christian in word and deed, not to be politically correct.

Persons who resist new ideas or ways are not schizophrenic. They resist new ideas or ways. Those conflicted over a decision or an issue are not bipolar, they are conflicted.
Those who vacillate between options are not bipolar, they vacillate. Those who are detail
oriented and like everything in its place are not obsessive/compulsive, they are neat.

Our nation is trying to work out the difference between mental illness and insanity. This is a difficult problem in law, medicine, and society. Although too brief a definition, “insane” is a legal term referring to persons whose judgment is so impaired they are unable to distinguish legal from illegal actions and/or to choose to do the legal rather than illegal action. Very few persons with a mental illness are insane. Most work, cope, and contribute to society. Many need medical intervention and counseling. A few are sick enough to require care in a protective environment. A very few are incapable of distinguishing between or choosing legal versus illegal actions. To apply “insane” to all persons with a mental illness is inappropriate.

As Christians, we believe that no person is beyond compassion and love. Violence must be prevented whenever possible, contained when necessary, and punished when appropriate. However, no person whom Christ loves and commends to the church is a “pyscho” or a “schizo.” These pejorative words refer to fearsome and repugnant persons who are irrationally violent.

Persons who act in violent and irrational ways are not necessarily suffering from a brain
illness. The causes of violent and irrational actions are not fully understood. Childhood abuse, substance abuse, anger, frustration, envy, poverty, and racial, ideological, and ethic hatred are among other known causes contributing to the violence that plagues God’s creation.

As Christians, we need to be more creative in our thinking than screen writers who use a
person with mental illness as a convenient villain rather than explore the myriad causes of
irrational violence.
Mental Illness and Mental Retardation are different. Although our second daughter suffers from both mental retardation and mental illnesses, neither caused the other. She has two interlocking aspects of the brain damage that happened in her birth mother’s womb.

Persons with mental illnesses are not retarded any more frequently than the general
population. Those with mental retardation are not necessarily mentally ill. It is important to understand the difference.

In order to talk with people at their levels of understanding rather than to de-personalize them, we need to know that those with mental illness most likely have normal intelligence and education. Words can cut deeply or cure powerfully. Let us follow Christ’s example and express in word and deed our common humanity with all who cross our paths.

From UCC DM Newsletter Archive