Finding Hope

I really like the TV series Revenge. It’s full of drama, mystery and intrigue. What I don’t like however is the way they’ve portrayed mental illness, perpetuating the misconceptions and stigma that already surrounds this topic.

During the episode that aired last Monday, they showed that the character Tyler Barrol takes antipsychotics. He had absconded from hospital just weeks earlier. When he stopped taking his medication, he became a violent, volatile, murderous sociopath. He was conniving, he was manipulative, then trashed the place when he was angry, stabbed someone in the arm with a knife and tied him to a chair, then threatened someone with a gun to get where he wanted. All because he wasn’t taking his antipsychotics. Umm, really?!

Let’s get the facts straight. People who have a mental illness are not likely to be any more violent than the rest of society. People are not going to go off their rocker and start stabbing people and threatening people with a gun if they stop taking their medication.

I take Seroquel which is classed as an atypical antipsychotic. You know what’s going to happen if I stop taking it? I will likely get little sleep and may feel more anxious than usual. That’s it. No dramatic “I’m gonna go take this knife and stab you to death!!!!!! You better get out of my way you ****!!!!!” type scene is going to play out. And those who take it for conditions such as schizophrenia, no such scene is going to play out either. More likely, they may experience a return of their symptoms which may include hearing voices, maybe paranoia and delusions related to people being out to get them, but neither are they going to go and start shooting people with a gun to get what they want.

It may only be a fictional TV show, but the media can be quite influential when it comes to popular ideas about issues such as mental illnesses. It is therefore very irresponsible for them to portray mental illness as incorrectly as they have. As if people who have mental health issues need even more stigma attached to them. 

A week or two ago, the government announced an increased budget for elderly people with dementia. In my time as an occupational therapy student, I have come across people with dementia, both in the nursing home and the rehab ward of the hospital where I did my placement. However, that was only for a short while. In that short while I could see their current affect. Confusion, being completely unaware of self and surroundings, wordless apart from a phrase being repeated over and over, issues with behaviour, just to name a few.

It was only yesterday I got to hear things from a carer’s perspective. He came into our tutorial to speak to us about his experiences, and to answer questions we had for him. His wife had dementia before she passed away some time ago. And what he described happened to his wife sounds incredibly difficult. A complete loss of memory, loss of inhibition, loss of awareness and inability to care for herself. As a result, he had to look after all her self care needs, as well as ensure she didn’t hurt herself and didn’t go out for a wander and get lost or hit by a car. In the end, it was too much and she ended up residing in a nursing home.

The stress of being completely responsible for looking after all of someone’s needs must be enormous. I can only imagine the strain and how physically and emotionally draining it is. Especially when the person you are caring for has no idea who you are. He described visiting his wife in the nursing home and coming away with tears- because he’d greet her and give her a hug and she’d look at him affronted, wondering why this person she didn’t know was coming up to her and hugging her. Again, I can only imagine the sadness involved in losing someone, someone you knew in the past as full of life.

I asked him whether it was easy or not trying to find a place in a nursing home for his wife. He said that it took him seven months to find her a place in a high care facility. This, as well as the difficulties he has described and what with my little experience I have had with those with dementia highlights the need for that funding is very high. Increased funding for this area is definitely welcome- especially with the ageing population, age care services are going to be a big area of need even more in the coming years.