Schizo-What?

‘Why don’t you work full time?’ asked a colleague at the home the other day.

‘Because I’m radio rental,’ I replied.

‘Radio rental?’

‘Yeah, you know, it’s Cockney Rhyming slang. I’m mental. I have schizo affective disorder.’

‘Schizo what?’

‘Schizo affective disorder.’ I enunciated my words carefully. ‘It’s a combination of schizophrenia and manic depression.’

I saw her flinch when I uttered the word ‘schizophrenia’. She pursed her lips, walked away and said nothing more about it. Now, how am I supposed to respond to that? There is a flicker of fear in her eyes now whenever she sees me.

The government’s aim, not entirely devoid of merit, is to get as many ‘disabled’ people as possible off benefits and into full time work. This includes the ‘mentally ill’. It is easy, when hanging around in the ‘Madosphere’, a virtual place in which one is suffused with the warm glow of acceptance, of mutual appreciation, to forget that the real world is not like that. With a few notable exceptions, mental illness carries a greater stigma than physical illness. And no government can legislate away fear, suspicion and hostility.

Tags: awkward questions, employment, government, madosphere, politics, schizoaffective disorder