BROKEN ART OF CLASS
By: Cristina Aloe
Tags: Tommy, Mental Health, Ada, Disability, Violence Against Women

For the life of me I could not memorize these lyrics. I was not surprised, as I have always had a hard time memorizing unfamiliar lyrics. I stress unfamiliar, because if they were lyrics that I had some attachment to, or could grasp on to in some way, I memorized them, and everything about the show they were from, who wrote that show, the history behind that show, and how to play that song in 10 different styles. That’s how my mind works. That is how a brain with ADHD Combined works. Growing up, I didn’t know that this is why I talked a lot and didn’t like math. As an adult, I know now that this is why I must have set routines and must re-learn that I was not a bad child, I just thought differently. I know now, as an adult, that I have a disability. An ADA recognized disability.

Some other things happened in my adult life, involving that ex-husband, and that Judge, that brought on another disability. PTSD. Put PTSD on top of ADHD and you have a fantastic explosion waiting to happen, and for me, it did, and Tommy, led me to that wall that I had to hit. When I hit it, I hit it hard. Harder than I should have. Harder than anyone should ever hit in the future.

When I sat in that car desperately trying to memorize those lyrics, I was filled with guilt, with fear, with the very message of the lyrics. I was told by a Judge that I was lying about being abused and in my court order, it is also written, that “she will tell anyone and everyone that she was abused.” Well, of course I would. I was screaming for help. In every way. My mind would not allow me to memorize those lyrics because my mind was on overdrive. At the time, I was taking a break from ADHD medications, because it seemed that the medications on the market were not working for me. So, I was stuck with just my mind that focused on what it could, how it could, and what it could — that focus was fear. Fear that the Judge would find out that I was performing and I would lose custody forever. Fear that I would mess up on stage. Fear that I didn’t belong on that stage to begin with because the Judge in her ruling referred to jobs in the arts as being “extra — curricular”

The biggest fear was that my daughter would think that I was a failure. To this very day, though I have traveled miles in my journey of healing, that last one, fear of my daughter thinking I am a failure, still haunts me, because I have not been able to help her after all this time.

By the end of the run of Tommy, I was done with theater. I haven’t really been on stage since that show. I’ve developed a fear of the stage, and of myself. Neither of these fears ever should have developed. They did. Why? Because we fail to acknowledge that mental health is part of our health, and not something that people choose to be because they want to be evil or wicked. Sometimes, I think people associate mental health conditions with people wanting to seek revenge on others. This must stop, as it is completely wrong.

The messaging about what mental health is, and how we view it, must come from doctors. We must stop airing commercials about mental health pharmaceuticals that allow us as consumers to diagnose each other. We must stop making shows like Ratched that glamorize mental institutions and those who find pleasure in harming mental health patients. The mind is a beautiful and delicate part of the human body. We must respect the brain, and see it as an organ, like any other, and realize that mental health is nothing more than malfunctioning of an organ. The brain.

How do we as human beings contribute to that malfunction by allowing ourselves to continue to malfunction as a society ? You be the Judge. If you don’t see it, and you don’t hear it, maybe you need to look around and see how we treat others, especially those with disabilities and mental health conditions. When you see it, if you do not say something, if you do not speak up and make the situation better, then you are at fault. Yes, you have a moral obligation to do better. We all do.