The Sickness and The Soloist

Nathaniel Ayers is a tormented man. As I’ll be going to view The Soloist tonight, I can peer through my eyeglasses at a screen of a sad and beautiful story adapted from reality. I don’t know what it’s like to have schizophrenia and can’t begin to know who I would be if I were afflicted. Several years ago, I visited a home for schizophrenic and mentally ill adults in Charleston, South Carolina. I developed some relationships with a few of the tenants and continued to visit the home for nearly 2 years.

Among the group, there were vast differences between one person and the next. The condition of schizophrenia affects each person differently. There was a middle aged woman who painted portraits of people living there. She was talented, yet had no boundaries to her socially inept approaches and interactions with others. After some years of the affliction, she appeared timid in social environments, often creating an uncomfortable and awkward environment.

There was also a young man who was afflicted at a very young age with mental illness. He was admittedly an alcoholic who had been attending alcoholics anonymous from age 17. When I met Miller, he was only 20. He used to roam the streets of Charleston, many times aimlessly, somehow fitting in with the collegiate population, but often leaving a strange taste in most people’s perception of him. I gave Miller a lot of suggestions how to interact socially and appropriately. He was and likely is still a troubled young man, but at the very least, he knows how to seek help.

So, my idea with this entry is to present to people that mental illness can happen to anyone. Schizophrenia introduced it’s weary and tortuous hand to  Nathaniel Ayers, now reknowned as the character in The Soloist, while he was studying music at Julliard. For Miller, it affected him in his mid-teens, perhaps while on a drinking binge. For the previously mentioned middle aged woman, I’m not entirely sure, but she had mentioned to me that it had been many years since she had felt a regular part of society.

So, where do these people fit in society? Where do you as a person allow them to fit? Do you allow them to fit? It’s so typical and easy to discount the mentally ill and many times, after their resources run out and their left out on their own with no support, they end up on the streets, just like Mr. Ayers. Where’s the humanity in this equation? With the rich becoming the only population that can readily access American health care, a mentally ill person may never see the care they need to get better. This is why we must be aware that the problem exists not only on a public perceptual level, but on a global priority level. If our government does not support mental health parity for the care of the mentally ill, the problem will grow and continually cycle. My answer is to suppor the Mental Health Parity Laws. I signed a petition earlier this year. The end result is that low income folks would also be able to see mental health professionals and start to work on their conditions. 

To suffer is bad enough. Support Mental Health Parity for the health of everyone.