Gay, Mentally Disabled and a Different Race

Something I keep thinking about is how people make claims that no one chooses to be gay, just like a person like me doesn’t choose to be a different race.

So my question comes to this: Why are people with mental disorders treated differently?

What I mean is, when it comes to mental disorders it seems society’s ways of dealing with it are to put the person through psychiatric treatment and addicted to psychiatric drugs. Unlike LGBT+ or race, people tend to treat mental disorders as something that should be dealt with to make this person normal and functional in society instead of society learning about the disorder and how to cope with the person with it.

Like sexual orientation or race, having a mental disorder isn’t a choice. Some are born with it, while others, like depression or PTSD, are caused. Some can be prevented.

What do I mean by “can be prevented”. Let’s take depression for example, an LGBT+ youth is being bullied by homophobic kids at school, getting made a social pariah and outcast cause they are different, most people’s reaction to this is to just ignore and do nothing about the bullies as reacting only “empowers” them. This however is untrue as the bullies are already being empowered by their peers who are sitting there laughing and encouraging them to continue, standing up to the bully would actual make the person feel better even if it doesn’t stop.

But most of the time most youth form depression because school isn’t just about learning mathematics and reading and writing, etc. School is also learning about being able to socially interact with other people outside your family. The reason most youth form depression over being bullied is cause of this cut off from social interaction as it is hard not to envy kids who have sleepovers and people to talk with at school and hang with after, etc. it’s hard to ignore this and not get depressed when people are shunning you for being different.

So how is this depression preventable you ask? Simple, by schools and parents doing their jobs. Children need to be taught that if they see or are the victims of bullying than they need to know that they can come forward and something will be done, to let it be known this kind of behavior is not okay and will not be tolerated and that the victims will be protected from such things cause teachers will be monitoring, etc. that’s more therapeutic than trying to fix the victim of bullying to let the child know someone is going to look after them and stop it. I sure know when I was a kid that would have made me feel a lot better.

Speaking of me, I honestly think people need to learn to cope with people with mental disorders like Asperger’s, a high functioning Autism, now considered ASD, Autism spectrum disorder, people who are Autistic like me don’t tend to do well with social interactions as it is, but also it has to do with we are mostly about logic, for example I was taught as a kid when you do something wrong, like lie, you get consequences for that wrong. A very basic and easy logic to understand, wrongful actions have consequences, good actions get rewarded. Instead because of how people want to be over complicated they try and force a person with ASD to be the same way and accept and condone such things instead of embracing that this person is different and has a different mindset.

A lot of my depression is caused by being forced to be like everyone else when I don’t want to be, I’ve been taught that I didn’t choose to be gay, I been taught that I didn’t choose to be half Puerto Rican and so I feel the same about having a mental disorder, I didn’t choose to be born with ASD, I didn’t choose to end up with PTSD, and I should be accepted and embraced for the different human being I am, not told to go to therapy to be like everyone else for something I didn’t choose to be born with.

I take great pride in being different in all the says I am, from being gay, to being half Puerto Rican, to having Asperger’s and PTSD, to me it is a sign I am not easily thrown into social norms of condoning wrongful acts and feel strongly on things like “Do unto others what you would have done unto you.” and equality and so on. My disorder and my simplicity of how I look at all things equally I do not find a curse that needs to be changed to appease others and make me something I’m not.

In conclusion

I’m tired of seeing people with mental disorders treated like they are nothing more than a menace in need of being made “normal”, you don’t feel that way about LGBT+ or people of color than people need to treat mental disorders the same way. It’s this type of mind set that had people locked in mental institutions being tortured and killed with electroshock therapy, lobotomies and so on. These practices may no longer be in place but we are still a long way from treating people with mental disorders as true members of society who are not in need of being fixed and changed to be “normal” as deemed by an unjust and immoral society.