In the beginning of the year I was selected to do my company's management development programme this year. Today the first of 3 study blocks started.
As is the case with (I believe) all these courses, we started with an icebreaker. Initially I just loved it... we were playing CSI with real experiments, clues, crime scene tape, etc. The game lasted more than 5 hours and we were all genuinely engaged in this intriguing activity (as opposed to the speakers before ;-)).
It was all fun until we 'discovered more evidence'. I thought I recognised it even though I am sure it is just a 'look alike'. I played lab tech myself, ran the test on it and 'discovered it was lithium'.
The 'research assistent' found the (computer) file on lithium and all the facts seemed to be true. When she read that it is used for the treatment of bipolar disorder, one of the guys said, 'This is it. The looney is our guy. He's not stable and thinks he is two people'. I was about to point out the glaring misnoma re bipolar and schizophrynia and then decided to bite my tongue.
I was in a room with 25 of my company's bright young middle managers and I watched how they jumped on the bandwagon. It had to be the looney who heard voices and saw people who don't necessarily exist. It was definitely the crazy person.
So? So, it initially kind of hurt. I almost immediately realised I can never let my guard down in this crowd. So, I really wish people were more educated with regards to mental diseases. Information is really easy to come buy when you look.
In case you were wondering, no - the person with bipolar disorder did not do it.
1 comment:
Emtia
you were very brave!!!! You touch on a real thorn, people are fine when you have cancer, although they have no clue about this disease, but boy - have something we think we understand like a mental disorder (with special reference to movies who explains these diseases so crass to us - and buy the way more of us have mental disorders than we care to admit, diagnosed or undiagnosed. I am sorry that you had to endure this, on the first day of this long week. Keep it up, us looneys out here we support you.
Suzette
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