Truth/Lies... and mental illness...

First and foremost, I am not an expert. I'm writing this from my perspective in what I've been observing of late. This ties in to my learning the truth and letting go of the lies, and learning for myself, as opposed to trusting the so-called experts. Some of them are experts, but there are an awful lot of people who tout themselves as experts. I'm learning to investigate who I'm trusting to give me information.

I watched a CSI, the other night, and one of the suspects was a schizophrenic. Using persons with mental health problems as a convenient criminal seems to be the new "in thing" in Hollywood. Has anyone else noticed that Hollywood goes through these phases? Their new pet project becomes all the rage, and all the shows have something relating to the pet cause. Mental health is apparently what is trending now. The problem with this is that Hollywood is telling a STORY. Telling a story for television or the movies means everything has to be cram-packed into 1-2 hours, so everything is exaggerated. It's fiction. So what if a few facts are allowed to fall to the wayside? It makes for a great story! The problem lies in an uninformed general public that goes merrily on its way spreading the lies... oh, sorry, the exaggerations, as facts. How do I know? I've done it! It's embarrassing to realize how much I allowed television to educate me. There are some great programs, but I've learned that they are supplemental, not a main diet. In books, if I find something that catches my interest, I don't simply take the author's word for it, I look it up. Case in point, I read Brown's Angels and Demons. I was fascinated, especially when he had his list of "facts." Facts was an incredibly loose term. Truth be told, by the time I finished doing my homework, I realized that the only real facts worth noting were some of the locations. I felt foolish for believing him, but it taught me a valuable lesson. Fiction is fun, as along as I acknowledge it for what it is: Fiction.

Hollywood spews out garbage as solid facts on a variety of issues. Ask anyone, in real life, who has to deal with the public regarding what real CSI is able to produce, and they'll tell you that the television shows are a nightmare. The general public, particularly in court cases, have expectations that are impossible to meet, because they're basing their perception on television shows that are fiction. When it comes to mental health issues even the psychiatrists and psychologists don't agree about many things that Hollywood seems to take great pleasure in portraying as cut and dried facts. Please don't think I'm picking on Hollywood and books. I love a good story, like anyone else, but I needed to learn the difference between truth and fiction and the difference between fiction and lies. Fiction has truth in it, which is why it resonates. Lies deceive, cover the truth, distort the truth. When I read fiction, I know it isn't a true story; hence, there is no deception there.

I read an article the other day that wondered if a particular tragic event could have been avoided if the perpetrator had been understood to have mute syndrome, in addition to being schizophrenic. I thought the writer of the article was irresponsible giving a postmortem diagnosis having never met the perpetrator and making only suppositions. The writer wondered if the event might not have happened if the person could have had a voice. Excuse me? The event would probably not have happened if the person had stayed on their medication for their schizophrenia!

When did speculation become solid scientific evidence?

Now, if the writer wanted attention drawn to their article, that certainly gave it a punch, but how honest was it to draw such a conclusion with essentially no evidence on the part of the writer? In fact, that titillating tidbit was so completely out of sync with everything else written, I found myself wondering if any of the article was valid. So, I did my own homework. Wikipedia is a fantastic place to START. What value DID I find in the article? I now have a better working knowledge of mute syndrome, from reading about it elsewhere.

Why do these television shows and books annoy me so much? My sister is a multiple (now fully integrated). She's bright, intelligent, funny, empathetic, and one of my heroes and dearest friends. Her life has been difficult enough without the idiocy of misinformation for entertainment purposes making it more difficult, because people don't do their homework to find out what is truth and what are lies. These irresponsible television programs and books and articles dole out bits and pieces of information without thinking about what the results will be from an arbitrary information dump that has no research to back it up. And all they had to do was spend five minutes on the internet to verify. (She said I could share her website here.)

What unsettles me even more is that I see more and more an unwillingness to recognize evil and call it was it is. Instead, mental illness is vilified or minimized. The mentally ill are treated like they are either to be feared or treated lightly. "They're a danger to themselves and others." Or "There, there, just say you're sorry, and everything will be all better." Or it's a joke. Try educating yourself on what it is and what it means and recognize that each case is different. If you have a cold, would you really expect to be treated like someone with pneumonia? Would you really want everyone treating you like you have TB, simply because you have a cough? Or how about everyone telling you that you don't really have a cold, while you continue to suffer from the effects?

On the other hand, it seems that there is a fear of calling anything evil. In an effort to not hurt feelings and not judge others and make everything feel good and right for everyone, far too many people are happy and willing to throw away the concept that evil exists, let alone that people choose it, WITHOUT being mentally ill. You only have to face evil once to know it is real, and no amount of denial or whatever you want to call it will ever change that fact. Mental illness and evil are not interchangeable and pretending like there is no evil by calling it something else does not make it go away. Using mental illness as the scapegoat is irresponsible.

I've heard the lament that there isn't enough time to learn everything there is to know about everything. This is true. That being said, do not use that excuse while you play video games, go to the latest movie, watch television, and "hang-out." If you don't know, do a little homework or say nothing at all. In my interpreting class, my teacher liked to share the old quote that a little knowledge is dangerous. As an interpreter, we had to be prepared to translate anything and everything or at least know of a way to work around it. Her mantra: "Let's get dangerous." So, I learned a little about a lot of things. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn't know. I'm ashamed to admit that I used to use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card; Saying "I don't know" was not an acceptable answer. I'd been taught that. So I'd toss out what I knew, and let the chips land where they may. It made me feel smart to have such diverse information. I finally realized that I knew enough to land me in trouble, but not enough to bail me out. Now, I try to keep my mouth shut if I don't know. If it matters to me, then I do my homework. And I have finally learned that saying, "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer.

One more thought: Knowing evil exists isn't as frightening as some might think, because it also means that good exists. God is truth; the adversary is lies.