The Scapegoat

Unless you have been completely isolated from television, radio or the Internet you have been inundated with news about the madness of Charlie Sheen.  I have a few thoughts about why this story has captured the attention of everyone breathing and as per usual my thoughts are troubling.  We have seen our culture once again embrace chariot races and gladiators, circus acts and flamboyance in our never ending quest to distract ourselves from facing our serious problems.  We've latched on to this man as a balm to our own insecurities and troubles and we've ignored the underlying question that has been plaguing our society for quite some time.  What do we do with those suffering mental illness?

A quick recap of some of the behavior Sheen has engaged in is probably a good idea, but I will keep it very short as I am not interested in any sort of sensationalism on my watch thank you very much.  Sheen has had a long history of drug abuse, questionable sexual practices and an unprofessionalism on his television and movie sets.  These past few weeks have seen those tendencies reach a breaking point with rants, massive interviews and streamed podcasts that are trying just a bit too hard to be "random."

Sheen is having a nervous breakdown in front of the entire country and instead of feeling pity, embarrassment or sympathy the media and we the people who consume the media have been pointing our fingers and laughing.  We have turned Sheen into a scapegoat for our own struggles with peace and purpose.  We've turned away from examining our own short comings and straightened our backs and lifted our chins to look down on another.

We as a society have never truly dealt with the real problem of mental illness.  We have simply medicated, imprisoned or institutionalized those without the material well being or fame to buy themselves out of the situation.  Imagine if you or I went into our workplace yelling of blood and waving a machete.  We would have a nice ride in the police car down to the slammer, but with fame and/or money Sheen has actually been hurt by his celebrity.  He is not getting the help he needs and in fact we are encouraging him to continue down a path that will lead to heartache.  He has lost custody of his children and his gainful employment, but we keep encouraging him to act more imbalanced.

Mental illness is the most under diagnosed problem in the United States.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health nearly five percent of Americans are suffering from some form of serious mental illness.  The numbers vary by age, sex and ethnicity, but every category is much higher than it should be.  Of those adults who have serious mental illness the United States serves merely sixty percent of them.  This means for every ten adults in the United States with a serious mental illness four of them are receiving no treatment whatsoever.  Most troubling to me is the fact that the best state in the union has an average loss of life expectancy of 13 years in patients with a major mental illness.

We are being entertained by a person who has a serious problem.  If Sheen were not a celebrity, we would ignore him on the street as we pass by.  The amount of homeless people with a mental illness is higher than the general population with much of that mental illness manifesting as alcoholism or drug dependency and a higher than average rate of psychosis which is roughly equal to the general populations rate of depression.  (Depression is a most common mental illness in the general population in the United States with close to 7% of the population suffering from it. Schizophrenia by comparison affects 1.2% of the adult population.)

We have serious challenges facing us and we are not doing anyone any good by laughing at the clown and enabling a mental problem to continue.  We need to do better.

So what do we do?  First in this particular case we ignore the outbursts and stop frequenting the websites, television shows, "news" agencies and other forms of media that continue to exploit the mental breakdown of Charlie Sheen.  Secondly, we need to get more introspective and figure out why a mental breakdown is entertaining to us. 

What is weak in us that the breaking of another human would cause laughter or in some cases adoration?  We should first become more comfortable with ourselves and use our lives as examinations of our intentions.  We should find happiness in ourselves and in the lives we help better, not amusement at another's suffering.  We need to do better and we can do better.  Let's start with ourselves and then help others.