A question of the future and public office.

[MonteLukast]

(Yes, first post on this board) :hi:

The recent discussions about Sarah Palin and her reluctance to release her medical records, and McCain's reluctance to do same, has gotten me thinking:

If we're unfortunate enough to have a history of mental issues, how do we keep that history from affecting our ability to hold public office in the future?

For instance: I happen to, like John McCain, have a short fuse.

My temper has caused me a lot of pain in my life-- it even got me a misdemeanor some years back, which has since been dismissed; but I had to go to counseling, so yes, I have mental health treatment on my record. Which in itself causes me worry: for my ability to get health and life insurance, for the jobs that may be closed to me once the employer starts the electronic vetting process.

In general, my temper crops up whenever I feel dismissed or not taken seriously. Being able to realize this has helped me tremendously, because I was able to focus on the real goal of sound judgment and good decision making--... not an unproductive focus on "stabilizing my moods", which is, at best, a first step.

I was also able to see how the responses to the person with an anger problem typically tend to compound, not ameliorate, the problem. Take the old standard, "Calm down." The person on the receiving end of those words hears only one thing: "I am going to tune out everything you have to say." Which kills communication and discussion dead. There are ways to communicate that you find someone's temper disrespectful, without sending the message that "you're not worth listening to"... it behooves us to use them.
Because, once again, the goal is for the person with a temper to come away with good judgment. Reflexively tagging a person "unstable" does nothing to improve their judgment.

McCain's not a good example to compare myself to. He's got a long list of character flaws outside his temper that make him a person I don't want running my country.

Also, my suggestions are not for the angry person who could actually be dangerous. I'm focusing on angry people of basically good character who have ambitions for future leadership and opportunities.

But we'd be making a big mistake if we considered everybody with a mental health history unfit for public office, leadership, or challenging jobs.

Of course McCain and Palin are afraid to release their medical records-- they're afraid of it being written down, crystal clear, that they're unfit for public office.

Stigma about mental illness is alive and well. Because we assume that anyone with a history of mental illness has poor judgment and weak character. Yes, too often on DU too.
(Maybe what we need is a contrasting example-- another politician with a hot temper who has a better character and better progressive values? Like, say, John DeStefano, who's taken a lot of heat over making New Haven a sanctuary city?)

There's much I'm proud of in my generation, this progressive young generation. But we seem to replacing one stigma with another: becoming more tolerant of race, religion and sexual orientation while at the same time, holding any mental or personality issues against a person for the rest of their lives.

In the age of Google and YouTube, any character flaws or bad behavior we ever displayed, can be used against us for the rest of our lives. The important point to remember is, you can't move on, you can't grow and learn, you can't change for the better if you're having to continually fight the same demons that cropped up 5, 10, or 20 years ago. And it isn't too good for your mood, either.

The task of fighting mental illness stigma is up to us. One of the worst things about Republican rule, is how acceptable they made it to throw people away, how acceptable they made it to demand perfect personalities, characters, and histories. It happens in health insurance, it happens in the workplace, it's even starting to happen in our college admissions.
It's tempting to play right along with it. We even tell ourselves that it's a necessary evil for our own emotional stability. Republicans' pattern of turning a blind eye to inequality and human suffering has indeed seemed to pay off for them, in the form of greater personal happiness and equanimity.

But I personally cannot do it. It's a solution lacking in imagination and compassion, and it goes against my progressive values.
So while it may make me angrier and less happy, more stressed and less calm, my question for that would be: what does it say about emotional stability that it seems to demand shutting down your natural capacity to feel compassion? What does it say about happiness that to attain it, you must not think too much? What does it say about a desirable character trait that demands unacceptable trade-offs in order to attain it?

[EFerrari]

1. If you think about the distance between you and another person,

instead of thinking about that other person as someone you can have around or not, you have more choices, don't you?

That distance can be a continent wide or a few miles or a few feet or right next to you in your space.

I think the deal is to figure out which one of these distances works for you, and sometimes the answer to that question will change.

We have many more choices in a relationship than only yes or no, don't we? Thank goodness!


A lady named Stella used to have a StigmaBusters group at NAMI. I haven't heard from her in a long time. She used to send out action items that were easy to do. Wonder what happened to that effort.

:hi: