The Chair of the Tennessee Mental Health Planning Council received a negative response from the Team VP and Manager. We understand your new football league is opting to be fun and entertaining however, the logo face with the spiked hair and swirls for eyes represents a stereotype that mental health advocates work so hard to overcome. Mental illness is neither fun nor entertaining. This use of antiquated language like maniax and asylum and the ugly logo is most offensive, hurtful, demeaning and humiliating for millions of men, women and children struggling with a mental illness. To continue to use of the name and logo of Memphis Maniax will perpetuate the pervasive stigma that is a barrier to recovery for our one in five Americans struggling with a severe mental illness.
Mental illness is neither fun nor entertaining.
I'm mentally ill. Fisher, the actress who turned Star Wars' Princess Leia into a superheroine, told Sawyer her manic depression creates such a roar of energy in the brain that she is left with uncontrollable mood swings, frenzied thoughts and suffers sleepless nights. And I was that. But it turns out that I am severely manic depressive. It has taken her 20 years and a mental breakdown to say these words publicly.