Weather and Stuff

Why my hands are cold:


In other news, I found myself more than slightly annoyed this evening with Josh, who was running our small discussion group in colloquium, and his repeated confusion of mental illness with mental disability. Need I explain why? It bothers me that he asks us about what we've seen of mental disability and mental illness in our service-placements in that tone, as if we are observing zoo creatures in their natural habitats.

It bothers me that he doesn't seem to understand what mental illness is, that it's a human disease and not some strange aberration.

"Have you seen mental illness in your high schools? Oh, well, probably not; I know that some of you attended private Catholic schools."

And apparently at this point I had a funny (not humorous) look on my face. Considering that he was supposed to be thoughtfully directing the discussion, I shouldn't have needed to point out that EVERY high school with more than thirty students is going to have one with a mental illness, that it is impossible to screen students for mental illness, that people with mental illnesses tend to look like everyone else, because they are people.

"Do the people at your placements seem confused about time a lot? That tends to happen with people will mental illness."

And then I took the opportunity to explain a few things about my past and past perceptions and the lack of temporal confusion therewithin, and then he started to get a little irritated and returned the discussion to its (his) proper track, because let's face it, no one wants someone to point out that they're a dumbass.

I had something amusing to note, but it's gone now.