Why is it that, in this supposedly enlightened age, mental illness still carries a stigma? Why is it that when people talking about someone who is ill, say in their office, and it's the flu or even cancer, they will discuss it openly, however if it is a mental illness, say depression or schizophrenia, they will whisper about it? Are they afraid that they, too, will succumb to this disease if they admit it's real. Do they feel that they are somehow protecting the dignity of the person with the illness if they whisper rather than talk normally about a person's mental illness?
Dementia, too, affects the brain, and people with dementia are often treated as though they have something that shouldn't be talked about. When I started writing my newspaper column and mentioned my mother's arthritis, it didn't bother any of her friends. When I talked about her dementia, many were shocked and disappointed I'd "do that to her." She didn't ask for either disease and she wasn't to blame for either. What's the difference?
A British study titled, "Dementia stigma leaves sufferers alienated: Dementia sufferers feel alienated because of a stigma attached to their disease, new research has shown," and reported on in the Telegraph, spotlights how, "Those suffering from the disease say that they have lost friends, had neighbours cross the street to avoid them and have also heard their symptoms dismissed as 'just old age' by professionals."
My dad's dementia was the result of surgery gone wrong - a surgery that was supposed to correct the effects of a World War II brain injury. Dad went into surgery just a little fuzzy from fluid buildup behind scar tissue in the brain. He came out totally demented. He was paranoid. He imagined himself to be anything from Lawrence Welk's guest of the week to a presidential candidate. He thought he'd earned a degree from every college he'd attended, even if the graduate classes he had taken were just for the entertainment of his brilliantly curious mind. After the surgery, the quietly dignified man who was my father became a real side-show, at times.
I remember wheeling him into the clinic for his many doctor appointments. Often, he was sleepy and it was just a grueling ordeal. But occasionally, a chipper, extraverted man who lurked in his demented brain would emerge. He would grin and wave from his wheelchair as if riding in a parade float, on our way the reception desk. He would speak to everyone in Spanish, the language he learned in the 1950s so he could help local migrant workers through the social system. He didn't understand the stares of curious people.
My poor mother couldn't stand to go out in public with him. I didn't blame her, as this wasn't the man she'd been married to for over 60 years. It wasn't Dad as we knew him. I didn't blame the people who stared when he made such an entrance at the clinic either, as he was a strange sight. However, there was judgment in their looks and I could feel it. Why was I taking such a man out in public?
