The Las Vegas massacre brings the grief and suffering of thousands and the questions of millions together once again. Regardless of the motivations of the perpetrator, it calls us, as a society, to face anew a challenge we have never effectively confronted. And, once again, the questions of why and what we might do could lead to divisiveness, to blame and scapegoating that often stand in for solution, but can never truly serve its place.
One awful outcome of the Las Vegas shooting is that it might be just another in a series we decide as a nation that we can do nothing about. Another would be the perpetuation of prejudicial attitudes and discrimination that make us more unhealthy and insecure as a culture, by laying blame at the foot of a group of Americans that is seen as voiceless or powerless.
For millions of Americans living with mental health conditions and those who care about them, myself included, a fear exists that this incident will be attributed to mental illness of the perpetrator, supporting by association the biased view that we as a group are untrustworthy, violent, even wicked. We fear that the discrimination, bias and harsh treatment which make the experience of mental health symptoms worse will get reinforced in the extreme, as it has before. That there will be yet one more reason to demonize the issues that affect a huge portion of our population, to marginalize those who live with them, and foster public discourse or policies related to us without the benefit of our insight and experience.
It happens nearly every time. With the flimsiest of justifications and given the evidence to the contrary. Even writing this I hesitate. To put gun violence and mental illness into the same sentence might in itself reinforce the false association. Yet it must be said once again. There is no substantial case to be made for a connection between mental health conditions and mass murder. The most relevant intersection of these is in the mental health needs and support for trauma of the victims of violent events and their families, the place where our compassion must now and forever be focused.
The United States does have a terrible problem with mass murder and violence. There are many reasons that our country stands far and away from the rest of the world in this. Mental illness is not one of them.
Across the world the prevalence of psychiatric illness in major countries is more or less equal, with the US ranking a little higher on some indices. The prevalence of civilian mass violence is not even comparable. In that domain we stand far and above all our peer nations, including those few others with very high levels of gun ownership. Countries with large numbers of guns and very poor infrastructure for mental health treatment, such as developing nations in Latin America and Africa, also show no comparable levels of mass murder. These disparities alone show that mental illness, treated or otherwise, cannot be a root cause of our problem.
In point of fact, the voices of Americans with mental health challenges must be part of the solution to all of our nation’s deepest problems, including that of gun violence. Mental health conditions affect almost every family in America, more than 25% of the entire population at any given time. During their lifetime at least half (50%) of all Americans will experience disabling mental health symptoms that would qualify them for a psychiatric diagnosis. And the number of people with the most severe forms of mental illness in our country is more than the population of Texas.
In the main people living with mental health conditions are positive forces in every sphere of society. Most of us live productive lives in recovery most of the time. We are not broken beings. We are not perpetrators. We are your lawyers, farmers, nurses and doctors, your soldiers, brothers and sisters, your parents and your children. We love our families and contribute to our communities, in spite of what can be intensely difficult moments.
But public stigma and shame, a culture of ridicule, bullying and finger-pointing, work against us. They make the journey of life with mental illness much worse than it needs to be. Stigmatized views, including the misconception that people with mental illness are violent, prevent our society from properly funding and providing the right kind of services to help people recover from illness and manage their conditions. They support discrimination in medical care, family law, civil rights and employment, and on a base level undermine human character and dignity. Ultimately, prejudiced attitudes devolve to blaming of the victim, as people with mental health conditions are far more likely than the general population to be trauma survivors or victims of domestic abuse, military or civilian mass violence.
We must stop the continuing epidemic of violence in America. We must heal from the trauma and grief of Las Vegas in order to do so. And we must stem the rising tide of suicide and disability that results from mental illness.
We can do all of these if we embrace the issues as a whole nation, one that includes millions of individuals living with mental health conditions. This means we cannot let ourselves be distracted by the convenient fiction that mental illness is to blame for mass violence. Or take that idea into practice in the form of coercion, psychiatric profiling and discriminatory policies that will drive more people to isolation and despair.
We who live with mental health conditions are not a nameless, powerless ‘other’ group of Americans. We have real lives, influence, resources and dignity. And we are everywhere. We are all colors, all ethnicities, all classes and religions. We cannot be excluded from the crucial conversations our society is facing today. And we will not be its victims either.
The struggle to free our country from the division and violence that we are glimpsing every day is profound. We need millions of hands and hearts and minds to come together to find solutions. Many of the people who will join this cause are around us right now. Many are people living with mental health challenges. Many are not. But all of us deserve a healthy future, and we must all work together for an America that is free from fear.
This is the second in the blog series Reclaiming Mental by Eduardo Vega
Eduardo Vega, M.A., is CEO of Dignity, Recovery, Action! International, which works to advance mental health, patients’ rights and empowerment and social justice internationally. He is Chair of the US Destination Dignity Project and serves on the Steering Committee of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Executive Committee of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.