There are many, many, many scholarships supposedly available in the name of mental health.
They are virtually all awarded to future therapists and psychiatrists.
There is only one that is restricted only to individuals who have a serious mental illness.
So far as I am aware anyway.
And it asks a lot of those who apply to it.
It expects disclosures from your physician.
Essays.
References.
Prior transcripts.
Letters of intent.
Regular reports on your academic progress.
It only covers tuition – and it is discretionary amounts. So are we to release PHI for a $500 award?
But the one question I found most offensive was this: what are you doing to reintegrate?
As if the assumption was, that a person with a mental illness was somehow a social outcast, without any education or career experience.
When did I leave?
Where have I gone?
I have always been here.
You have broken me down.
I have almost died.
I have lost everything.
I have started to climb back up from the rubble.
But no, it was not I who cast myself out.
I am here in spite of society – as are the rest of us.
You can call us crazy.
You can call us whatever you want.
Though I have nothing you can keep your insult.
I will find another way.
All of us – we are capable of things you never dreamt possible.
We are not stupid and we are not crazy.
And we will persevere.
Laughs and Lobotomies 