Compassion

Compassion is an interesting thing. You would think it would apply to those in need pretty well across the board. But it has boundaries and limitations.

For example, my brother John arrived Christmas Eve. He was pretty well a basket case. He is a mentally retarded 61-year-old man in a wheelchair with a broken leg. He is completely dependent, on a list of medications a mile long, was "escaping" from a nursing home where he has been pretty well locked up for five years, both ears were badly infected, he was totally disoriented and a mess of other stuff I won't go into. Needless to say, he was traumatized.

Without hesitation, my wife and I devoted ourselves to bringing him back from the edge. We hustled up various organizations and government bodies to swing into action in order to support John and start him on a recovery process.

There are very limited programs and policies in place for the government to support disabled people in such a situation who arrive from another province. However, the individual bureaucrats, desk jockeys, professionals, clerks and just about everyone who came into contact with John swung into action and did everything possible to help him. As a result, he can stay with us for a while and we are able to nurse him back to health.

To let you know, it has been about a month and John is off of all but one of the meds and that is in a greatly reduced dosage. That's under medical supervision as well. He has weekly therapy to get over his trauma. He is awake now. He enjoys going to the local Junior B hockey games. He has a growing community of friends and circle of support. He is looking forward to getting his cast off. He likes to sing when he's happy. He still cries in fits of anguish and grief, but the fear is leaving him. He's getting better.

John's life of hardship began decades ago when his mother died in 1961 and he was institutionalized for 20 years. The last five years were just the last straw. Right now we look to the future and things get better day by day. In his life John has had people who loved him. And that is what makes it possible for him to begin to recover.

Now, the reason I'm writing about this on a news blog about the homeless mentally ill is this: John got help because people were compassionate about his situation. Of course they were compassionate. He has his brother and family to advocate for him and people have compassion for the mentally retarded. We all know John was born with his condition. He is not at fault. As a matter of fact, even thinking he is at fault is repulsive.

As my wife and I were walking in the local park by the river pushing John along in his wheelchair, we discussed why is it that John gets help while all those people who are very sick and unable to look after themselves -- the homeless mentally ill -- go without. We figure it has to do with compassion. People are compassionate towards John, but, it seems, not towards the mentally ill.

John is easy to love. He smiles at people and waves and says hi to just about everybody. He has an innocence and child-like nature that inspires compassion. Mentally ill people do not.

Furthermore, some of those who are mentally ill have been known to be dangerous. It's fairly rare, but it happens. Generally, mentally ill people are not easy to love.

John is not alone as one who has suffered because of his disability. There are thousands who suffer with no access to services and treatment all across Canada. There are also thousands who do receive treatment and whatever help they need as well. But there is a dividing line here. Some receive compassion within our society and others do not. And the dividing line is hard to define.

The mentally ill are seen as having brought it upon themselves, that they were not born that way. For example, many are associated with the addicted and thereby tainted with the accusation that their disease may be in some way their fault, or that they could recover if they wanted to.

The statistics contradict the belief that the homeless mentally ill are sick because they fried their brains on drugs. It is not fair to equate mental illness with drug addiction. These people are just sick. They have no hope and no access to help and as a result, they are a major drain on society.

The madness is that they can possibly recover and the cost of their recovery is far less than the cost of managing a hopeless situation for both the ailing and the surrounding community.

It appears that from a lack of compassion, rather than a lack of ability, we have found ourselves with a major social problem.

And the paradox is, that this is from people who are basically compassionate.