Mental Illness more common? *rantish*

[The Hierophant]

i don't know if it's my latest place of work or not, but not a day is going by where i don't serve someone who either has horrific self harm scars, is talking to themselves, buys an inviisible person a pint, or has esaped from the psychiatric hospital (i can say this because i recognise them & the bands from being in harplands)

& what is really annoying me is the people i work with, who openly laugh at these people, including one gentlemen who comes in everyday & buys two pints, ignoring one & talks to himself in the corner, it's doing no-one no harm, the guy seems perfectly happy & the people i work with, including my manager laugh about it. (of course they do not know any of my history, that was carefully hidden).

today capped it off though, a boy came in with some illness, an obvious diability & they were sat there chatting with him, being really nice, after filming the guy who talks to himself for laughs.

it's annoys me, it really does, i'm not about to say 'well i was in psychiatric unit so shut up', because i don't see it as a dig at me, they don't know.

but really, are people that narrow minded, or am i just unfortunate with the people i work with?

[whirlpools]

i don't think it's just you... when i was in town where i live a couple of months ago, there was a man verbally expressing his beliefs. he was also being held by the police. there were crowds of people gathered round taking photographs and laughing and pointing. it was awful. that night he ended up on the same ward as me.

people are a bit scared of what they don't understand.

[Hydroviolet]

That sounds very unpleasant and I'm sorry you have to work in such a negative environment. I'm currently bartending at my Student Union bar and everyone is lovely with not a bad word to say about anyone! The only truly narrow minded people I worked with were in one of my previous bartending jobs at quite a large club in London where the bar manager used to identify people in rather insensitive ways. So if there was a smashed glass I had to go and clean up, she'd tell me whereabouts and in which room it was in by saying something about how it was near the guy with the huge birthmark on his face (followed by a really insulting comment) or she once said that there was a crate ready to be taken down (which was always left for us by the main door) right by the "spaz in the chair" which, when I got upstairs, was a guy who was in a wheelchair. Just awful comments.
It's sad that there are such cruel people in the world.

[The Hierophant]

I used to work at my SU bar, untill i ended up in Hospital, my manager was always wonderful to me.

The thing that nnoys me most, is my manager is one of these peopel that seems to think he knows it all, and he's said more than once he can work people out by just looking at them & seems to think the mentally ill are bad people, i'm going to end up saying something, i just hope it comes out polite.

[Geranium]

Guess you could say you find their comments hard to hear because you have friends with mental illnesses, and you've seen the suffering it causes to live with one.

I don't suppose they'd get any more sensitive but they might shut up about it around you?