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Ed Yeates ReportingMental health advocates are asking Halloween goers this year not to stigmatize mental illness. While not wanting to dampen the celebration, they worry costumes can reinforce the very stereotypes they're trying to eliminate.
Spook and scare and wear the things that make Halloween so popular, but avoid portrayals sensitive to mental illness. That's the advice from the National Alliance on Mental Illness which worries this year about increased sensitivity.
NAMI is simply asking folks to use some good common sense. For example, the ghouls, the creatures, they are okay; but anything that symbolizes a psychotic killer or someone who needs to be in a straight jacket, that's the stigma they worry about.
Sherrie Wittwer, Utah Chapter National Alliance on Mental Illness: "Clearly, anyone who knows someone who has a mental illness or is dealing with a mental illness themselves is devastated by anything that perpetuates stigma."
Though they are actual museum relics of a bygone era in treating mental illness, chairs and other devices have made their way into spook alleys. In fact, according to the Chicago Tribune, one there was named the "Insanitarium." How about another called "Psychopath."
The Utah State Hospital closed down its very successful patient operated haunted castle years ago, not because it wasn't good therapy for the patients, but because this Halloween "scariness" reinforced a perceived "stereotype" that attracted crowds.
Sherrie Wittwer: "They used real people who were mentally ill in their process. That was the pull. That was the thing that interested them and that's unfortunate."
Unfortunate, Sherrie Wittwer says, that in this so-called enlightened age - when biological mental illnesses are treatable - we still have to deal with stereotypes and the need for "political correctness."
Wittwer claims NAMI has to fight harder for mental illness because these lingering "dark-aged" stereotypes discourage people from seeking treatment.
