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Newtown

A Look at the Loony Binsters

By | Health | No Comments

Since “mental health” seems to be so much in the news due to the Newtown massacre, I thought I’d share a little insight on the history of how our country has dealt with mental illness.

Back in the day, people deemed to have a mental illness were left to be taken care of by family memberes. Those who didn’t have family were taken far away and stashed in institutions – rather like being quarantined. With industrialization and urbanization, families were no longer able to watch over those suffering full-time and the growth of mental asylums increased. Unlike general hospitals, which have been privatized and commercialized, mental health facilities have usually been left to the state. Also unlike hospitals, which have generally always increased in number, mental health facilities have generally increased in size since it was preferred that they stay on the outskirts of town.

At first, mental hospitals were filled with elders suffering from dementia. With the advent of nursing homes, mental health care became completely segregated. Indeed, until the popularization of psychiatry by Sigmund Freud’s visit to America in 1909, mental illness was never seen as something that could be treated or cured, but only managed. Even today there really aren’t cures for most mental illnesses – usually just sedatives and symptom depressors. Paul Starr, an expert in medical history, describes how these medications have allowed patients to be “more safely ignored” instead of treated.

The U.S. government has made only halting efforts to address mental illness over the years. When the National Institute of Health was founded in the late 1930’s a part of its budget was devoted to mental health research. And in the early 1960’s President John F. Kennedy made a push to create community health centers – a pilot program intended to link federal and community services for the mentally ill, but one that had little follow-through.

Looking back on this checkered history, it makes sense why so many would blame gun violence on those in “loony bins” even though only about three to five percent of people with mental illness actually commit violent crimes. We’ve mainly treated mental health in our country as a nuisance with shoddy institutions and stopgap remedies, never investing the time and money to develop better treatment for illnesses such as depression that plague about one in ten adults.

In my opinion, putting people in a database who have been labeled as being harmful to others is not going to do a darn thing. This proposal stems from a fundamental confusion – psych patients are not criminals. As an EMT in Chicago, I encountered many psychiatric patients and visited many psychiatric wards and institutions. Though we rarely give lobotomies any more, I found that mental health institutions are still eerily similar to the depiction in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Usually, when someone was labeled  “harmful to others,” it was a patient who had become so angry at their environment and the way they were being treated that they lashed out with threats to hurt others. If any of us were cooped up in a place that resembled a jail, stripped of freedom and control over our own lives, the desire to hurt someone would probably not seem so insane.

If there’s any benefit to the current media circus over mental illness, it’s that a national discussion on mental health may help make people more aware that there are problems with how our country treats and views mental illness. And then maybe, just maybe, we can stop stigmatizing those who suffer and start to truly help them.

Crafting for Change

By | Art & Social Change, Crafting Change | 2 Comments

A movement of self-proclaimed “craftivists” has emerged in recent times, devoted to the answering the question: “How can craft improve the world?”

Betsy Greer, who coined the term craftivism, defines it as “a way of looking at life where voicing opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper & your quest for justice more infinite.” Craftivists are knitting to protest sweatshop labor, cross-stitching anti-war messages and taking over public spaces with projects like Massive Knit NYC, in which knitters adorned trees, benches and other objects in Washington Square Park with yarn.

While most crafters, from the occasional scarf knitter to the hardcore DIY-er, probably do not think of themselves as craftivists, even the everyday crafter is making a statement simply by making something instead of buying it. Making your own subverts our consumerist culture where most things are bought and soon thrown away. Handmade items are an antidote to mass-produced, impersonal goods. By using re-purposed materials, crafting reduces waste. It fosters resourcefulness and reusing or mending things instead of throwing them away.

In this space, I’ll be exploring how people are using crafting for activist purposes (be it political, environmental, feminist, etc.), as well as how the craft and DIY movement generally empowers people to create rather than consume, and reduce their environmental footprint.

But craft can also simply be a force for empathy and connection – a small, good thing in a time of crisis. After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, one crafter decided to put her skills to use for the children of Newtown. Kim Piscatelli was inspired by the children’s book “The Kissing Hand,” about a raccoon going to school for the first time. He is anxious about leaving home, so his mother kisses his palm as a reminder of her love, telling him to hold it up to his cheek whenever he misses her. Piscatelli wanted to give the children of Newtown a similar reminder, so she organized her friends to make hand-knit mittens with a heart on the palm for each child at the school. The mittens are meant to remind the kids of how much they are loved by their families and friends.

Word got out about the project and soon crafters all over the U.S. and beyond were knitting, crocheting, and sewing mittens and sending them to Connecticut. Nearly 600 pairs have been collected so far. While it doesn’t take a political stance, this is a great example of crafters coming together to support a cause. Stay tuned for some more radical examples of craftivism!

[Photo via The Kissing Hand Mitten Project]