Social Class and Mental Illness

(This blog post is somewhat a study in intersectionality, which is essentially the principle that different forms of oppression are all connected, and takes special interest in people who identify with more than one minority group: black women, disabled trans people, etc.)

A member of my family was very fortunate last summer to get a well-paying job in software consultation. With the knowledge that they were on a significant number of medications to control Type I Bipolar Disorder, I asked my mother if she thought the company's healthcare plan would cover our family member's medical needs. My mother informed me that there would probably never be a job that would cover all of their healthcare needs, and some of it would always have to be covered by personal cost and insurance.

Surprise! Having a mental illness— incidentally, most of all bipolar disorder —is really, really expensive. The lifetime cost per case of bipolar disorder for chronic or non-responsive bipolar can be up to $624,785. That's about fourteen years of an Ivy League-caliber college. Few people have that money simply lying around.

The other issue with poverty and mental illness is its cyclical nature. At first, it can seem like a chicken-and-egg question— are people poor because they're mentally ill and therefore have a harder time holding a job and paying for treatment, or are people mentally ill because they're poor and feel that they have few prospects for the future? Of course, each person's case is unique. But in the end, the cause itself is not as important as the fact that when a mentally ill person falls on hard times, its extremely difficult to escape.

How many times have we, walking down the street, written off a homeless person as a "crazy bum," when perhaps in a different situation they could be any other middle-class wage-earner? After all, 20-25% of the American homeless population is severely mentally ill (compared to 6% of the country as a whole). Homelessness can also complicate the consistency and availability of treatment of mentally ill people.


Though the cycle can be a downwards spiral, it can also be a positive pattern. For example, better mental health services can also combat homelessness. It also can see overall jail times decrease. Perhaps by better funding mental health services, we can actually save money as a society by lowering the number of people who rely on the state through food services or even incarceration. As a sort of preventative medicine, providing job resources for the mentally ill and mental health resources for the poor can make sure that no one gets caught in a vicious cycle.

Ron Paul and "Honest Rape"

I should preface this with my honest, completely biased opinion– I dislike and have always disliked Ron Paul.

I think some people who are Ron Paul supporters are very attracted by his anti-war stance, one of his many libertarian views for which he is famous. Others like his soft on marijuana position, though he doesn't think that full-out legalization is possible right now. Some people are repelled by the fact that he's signed off on racist newsletters, or just find his economic opinions. Depending on what's important to you, all of those are pretty valid opinions to like or dislike the man, as long as you recognize the whole picture.

On Friday, Ron Paul was interviewed (transcript here) on Piers Morgan about his life, his political views, and his election run, especially impressed with his popularity with young people.

(Video from YouTube.)

At one point, Morgan brought up Paul's stance on abortion. Morgan posed the dilemma that if one of Paul's five children or eighteen grandchildren were raped, would he force them to carry the baby to term? Paul simultaneously asserted that "life does begin at conception" and then went on a rambling tangent about the complexity of the issue (recognizing there are no clear lines, indirectly mentioning the morning-after pill) but ultimately did not come to a satisfying conclusion. He did acknowledge that "It's a tough one. I won't satisfy everybody there."

Regardless of the stumbles that he made on abortion, there was one moment of shockingly poor word choice.

MORGAN: But it's a dilemma that I am going to put to you. You have two daughters. You have many granddaughters. If one of them was raped -- and I accept it's a very unlikely thing to happen. But if they were, would you honestly look at them in the eye and say they had to have that child if they were impregnated?

PAUL: No. If it's an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room. I would give them a shot of estrogen or give them --

MORGAN: You would allow them to abort the baby?

PAUL: It is absolutely in limbo, because an hour after intercourse or a day afterwards, there is no legal or medical problem. If you talk about somebody coming in and they say, well, I was raped and I'm seven months pregnant and I don't want to have anything to do with it, it's a little bit different story.

Morgan did not go on to ask Paul to clarify on what he believed was an "honest rape." This poses a lot of awkward questions: what is "honest rape?" Moreover, what is "dishonest rape?" 

I'm not going to get into the ins and outs on the different opinions on when life begins.  But I think in this quote and this interview, Ron Paul is showing a dangerous disdain for rape victims. An "honest rape" is not just one where the girl is single and a virgin and a Christian, and she was held at gunpoint in a dark alley, and she didn't know her rapist (probably a person of color, knowing Paul). Rape victims can be drunk. They can be married. They can be male. They can be of any age, race, gender, religion, or socioeconomic class.

There is no such thing as an "honest rape" or a "dishonest rape." There is only rape, and the fact that people should not have to deal with its horrible consequences after the attack.