Read on Twitter
So, I watched @bobvids ' stream of Medium, in particular, the ending, and... w o o f. Do I have a lot to say, especially to westerners.
Trigger warning: I'll be talking a lot about mental health, illnesses, and trauma. A long, explanatory thread incoming. Let's go.
Trigger warning: I'll be talking a lot about mental health, illnesses, and trauma. A long, explanatory thread incoming. Let's go.
What you saw with Bloober team isn't an eastern European studio being the Quartering level of edgy and stupid. What they showed is emblematic of how eastern Europe views mental health and the treatment of mental health.
Medical care in Eastern Europe is notoriously known for several things. While you may have countries like mine - Czech Republic - with excellent equipment and level of knowledge, most of the notoriety is to be found in our perception of ethics - or, lack thereof.
This gross, discriminatory misperception is twofold - that of the laics, and that of the professionals. For the former, mental illnesses are perceived as either made up to excuse yourself from your life's duties, or as flaws of character that turns a person monstrous.
Regular jokes will usually contain some form of mental illness. Mental illness is scoffed at or outright laughed at if mentioned, and you attempting to explain it. Worse, some people think mental illnesses are your regular flu.
As in, "Hey, man, you just gotta do this for some time and it'll be gone! No biggie!" So it's a mix of devaluation and dehumanisation of mentally ill people.
It gets worse on the cultural level.
It gets worse on the cultural level.
ALMOST NEVER will entertainment shows and tv series portray mental health, or mental illnesses, in a positive, or even a neutral, way - there's always going to be an element of vilification, demonisation, dehumanisation, or a mix of all.
Detective shows featuring serial rapists, killers, or abusers - the BIG BUCK episode - will fill the climax with the realisation that, OH NO, the big, super duper big bad had a mental DISEASE! OF COURSE! How ELSE this would have happened, amirite?
I have been exposed to this for as long as I've been alive, and I can tell you, it hasn't improved one bit. And this isn't just the state of my country, but of eastern Europe in general. This is how mentally ill people are looked at by those who aren't necessarily ill.
However, the medical department is bad as well. Some disorders or illnesses aren't even qualified as such here. Worse, in terms of mental illness, if you wish to be treated, you have to accept the fact that the staff will never, ever, treat you as an autonomous being.
When I was 18, I was hospitalised for suicidal ideation motivating me to a suicide attempt. When I got into the hospital, my items were confiscated and thoroughly searched through. I couldn't say no to that.
I took drugs whose names I didn't know, whose side effects I didn't know. I had no say in that. Next room to mine was a small, square shape housing a serial rapist tied to a bed by a single chain, no-one watching over the person. I had no say in that.
The nurses regularly made jokes at our expenses. They wouldn't treat us whatsoever if they had a lunch break, or if they just decided to have a lunch break.
When I was "processed" by my psychiatrist, she regularly put words into my mouth and narratives that I didn't agree to or actually mattered in my case. I was treated as, well and truly, a subject, not an autonomous human being.
And this wasn't my case exclusively - everyone was treated that way there.
Here's another example.
Here's another example.
I self-diagnosed myself as belonging to the autistic spectrum. One day, I'd like to get an official confirmation. Why am I not getting it now?
Because, here, the autistic spectrum is viewed as a disorder. It's even characterised as such.
Because, here, the autistic spectrum is viewed as a disorder. It's even characterised as such.
The official terminology for autism is "Autistic spectrum disorder". You find it in regular medical textbooks you can purchase yourself in the library.
And, again - not just the state of my country; this is eastern Europe's perception of it all.
And, again - not just the state of my country; this is eastern Europe's perception of it all.
With all of this said, let's go back to Bloober team. Yes, how they portrayed mental illness and health is reprehensible, disgusting, and condemnable - but it is NOT the exception. This is eastern Europe's state of mind concerning those subjects.
I truly wish they were an exception we could all collectively punt across social media. But all I'm seeing is an emblematic representation of our atrociously inhumane and discriminatory treatment of the mentally ill and their attempts to get better.
So I very much appreciated what @bobvids had said at the end of the stream - how people like me matter and that we can get better. Because we don't hear it here enough - all we here is how potentially monstrous we are, and how much of a joke we should still be.
I don't think I've anything else to add here, aside from saying one, giant fuck you to Bloober team for not being responsible enough to research mental health and represent it properly.
You scumbags had the resources to do so, and you didn't. Fuck you.
/end thread
You scumbags had the resources to do so, and you didn't. Fuck you.
/end thread
