Mental Illness Takes a Village

There has been a lot of buzz about mental health awareness the past couple of years which is important, but my experiences with a ill friend in the past several months have left me realizing that for all this talk, there isn't much action. When you're sick with cancer, people cook you meals, they visit you and take you for walks, they bring you small comforts and call you on the phone. When you're mentally ill, people leave. They leave because it's too much pressure, because they're scared, because they have their own problems; they leave because mental illness pushes up against their own fears and judgments, their preconceived notions of what is normal and proper. Talking to someone who is mentally ill is like a thorn under your flesh that you can't seem to get at no matter how you try. Mental illness cannot be reasoned with; it cannot be brought down with angry admonitions, threats or tears. Mental illness wants to spar with your insecurities; it forces you into a corner where you have to draw on more power than you think you have; that's why people leave. The only things that work are patience and love, and patience and more love and patience and more love and more and more and more and more. Have you ever heard the term 'it takes a village'? Of course you have. Well, mental illness takes a fucking village. So I'm looking for my village. I am looking for some strong and generous souls in the Montreal/NDG area who would be willing to help someone who is sick in their mind and trying to get better, by arranging through me to deliver meals, and maybe do the odd house call or help out with house work, errands or lift to the doctor. It's just one person; one person who means the world to other people. One person who is suffering. Just one. No one will think you're a hero, but you'll be able to pat yourself on the back for doing something decent. In my life I've come to understand one of the secrets of the saints: that when you have enough compassion in you to face the suffering of one person without judgment, you have enough in you to heal the entire world. Let me know if you're willing to be one of those people.