Children are especially sensitive to covert expectations, the implicit shoulds that are handed down from the adult world and are frequently refashioned to fit the stages children move through.
At each stage, the implicit maxims are dress alike, talk alike, think alike. Be "in." Especially, have the same feelings, values, and hopes. Most of us are raised to fear being different because we might come to be a lonely minority of one.
But when we become ill, especially if we are emotionally troubled, the rules change radically. Animals, from the aquarium angelfish to the household dog or cat, seem to have an instinct to seek isolation when ill. This tendency probably has evolved because it contributes to survival: the sick animal can more easily rally its energy for self-healing in quiet, undisturbed by others of its kind. And going off to be alone reduces the chance that the animal will spread any disease it has.
Added to an animal's self-isolating tendency is the tendency to hide the very signs of illness or injury. An animal that shows signs of injury or illness is immediately a target for predators who look for the weaker members of the species.
We human beings also tend to choose solitude and to hide the revealing symptoms of sickness or injury. Admiral Byrd admitted to these defenses only in his loneliness. But it is important to realize that hiding our feelings and isolating ourselves frequently are not in our best interests.
Animals do not practice medicine, though many species are capable of offering moral support and even a certain amount of physical assistance, as in the case of a sick whale who may be supported by its fellows in the water in order to breathe. But only we have developed medicine, and we have more recently begun to develop ways to treat problems that affect our emotions, attitudes, and behavior. When individuals, perhaps instinctively, distance themselves from others and bottle up their malaise, they turn their backs on the educated assistance and goodwill that are available.
Sometimes we do so out of fear of treatment coupled with fear of admitting that we are not as self-sufficient as we want to believe. But more often in the case of problems that directly affect our moods—i.e., "psychological problems"—we feel ashamed and afraid of the stigma, the disgrace, that our society attaches to those who admit they have unhappy or confused feelings.
There can be little doubt that society is unbalanced in legitimating physical sickness while reacting with alarm and repugnance to problems of a psychological nature. Think of the discrimination against psychological disorders, in favor of physical complaints, practiced openly by nearly all health insurance companies, offering reduced benefits for mental health. Psychological pain does not hurt any less because it is emotionally based. Even so, emotional distress is held suspect, and insurance coverage for it, if not ruled out completely, is frequently only partial. It was, after all, not more than a century ago that our mental hospitals were run with an inhumanity that still can send shivers down one's spine. Unhappily, it is clear that we have not entirely left this phase of our development: the film One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for example, points to continuing inhumanity in some psychiatric hospitals. And there is the alleged case of a Ukrainian woman who was involuntarily committed and held for some thirty years in a mental hospital. She was thought to be insane because, unfortunately, no one involved in her case recognized her "gibberish" as Ukrainian!
Emotional and mental problems are still not accepted by many. There is a fear of the unknown and a skepticism that psychological problems are nothing more than signs that a person is malingering, simply does not want to try to get better. And there is a gut-level anxiety when confronted by someone who, we worry, "may be close to going over the edge."
TEARING DOWN PRISON WALLS