A stolen antique ring, a remorseful veteran MP and an often-malicious media have, in recent weeks, thrust the issue of mental illness — bogged down, as always, by a chilling degree of ignorance, obscurantism and conjecture — back into the limelight in Canada. The mostly-useless back-and-forth about whether or not Svend Robinson’s lapse in judgment was due to post-traumatic stress follows on the heels of much attention being paid in the press this year to the nature of mental illness.

In March, The Globe and Mail‘s Margaret Wente used her national column to attack the “PC language” of Nova Scotia’s Anti-Stigma/Discrimination Working Group, an organization that “is trying to stamp out media bias toward mental illness.” And only this year did the federal Liberal party remove a question about mental illness from its nomination form.

Allow me to indulge in a bit of P.C. overkill, if only to repay Wente for her years and years of columns — allow me to declare that I, too, am a Serotoninally-Challenged Canadian; or, as they would have classified me 50 years ago, “a fucking nut.” Having long suffered in almost absolute silence with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) — which by striking one in 40 people is still an odds-on favourite against scratch-and-wins — I’ve only relatively recently been able to discuss the full extent of my condition with doctors, friends and family.

Watching the groundswell of angry, ignorant observations and snide comments about the mentally ill in response to Robinson’s press conference, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made a mistake by opening my mouth. I can say with absolute certainty that those who are today in the position that I was in 12 months ago — deathly afraid to speak up about their suffering due to the crushing stigma and marginalization attached to it — will most definitely be even more steadfast in their resolved silence if they’ve been listening to the Norman Spectors of the world these past few weeks.

On his Vancouver Island-based show, the catastrophically insipid Right On, Spector engaged in the kind of rhetorical bombast that might make one long for the open-mindedness of a Stockwell Day or Governor George Wallace. Always the thundering tower of intellect, Spector wondered aloud whether, if indeed Robinson were suffering from a mental illness, the NDP ought not to retroactively examine and disavow his political positions in the years since his near-fatal fall on Galiano Island. Not to be outdone in terms of Neanderthal sensitivity, host Pia Shandel offered her opinion that Robinson’s past political actions had been far more indicative of mental illness than his auction house theft.

The baboonery of the Right On hosts is manifest out of an unfortunate trend running through the general discourse surrounding mental illness: Unlike with cancer, AIDS, psoriasis, lupus or ingrown toenails, with mental illness everyone is suddenly an expert, whose input and observations amount to responsible scientific assessment. Even among lifelong progressives, anti-scientific impulses are often hidden behind anti-corporate postures, and add to the stigma of illness by attacking treatment.

All my life, for instance, I have taken allergy medication developed and sold by multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, without a peep from anybody. Once my friends knew, however, that I had been prescribed Paxil — a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor from the same generation as Prozac and used to treat anxiety disorders such as OCD and depression — I was treated to a plethora of well-meaning (if dubiously researched) soliloquies about the inherent evils of anti-depressants.

This Instant Expert phenomenon, which is certainly broader than just the Left, has led to conjecture about the validity of Svend’s claim which is, to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of mental illness, completely laughable. Many pundits-turned-detectives have slyly observed that, the day after Robinson had stolen the ring, he spoke at a Sikh temple with absolute calm and composure, showing no outward signs of distress. To these journalistic colleagues I say: I salute you, but stick to reporting charity softball matches and celebrity sightings. A survival mechanism commonly adopted by those who find themselves potentially open to scorn and hostility is the ability to hide inner turmoil absolutely, and I can only imagine that this skill would be even more advanced in a public figure — especially one whose early years in politics involved concealing his sexual orientation.

When I was finally ready to open up about my own illness, I broke the news to friends of 20 years who had had no idea what I was going through; I’m sure Svend was able to play it cool for an afternoon amongst strangers.

But assessing the state of Robinson’s mental health is not at all the point of this piece, nor is it a task that I — even with a knowledge of these things which apparently soars above former ambassador Norman Spector’s head like an Israeli air force pilot — feel in any way able to perform. Just as if Svend had announced he was worried about a mole on his shoulder, it would not be our business to assess whether or not it was skin cancer; it would simply be our business, as compassionate human beings, to wish him the best in the medical processes upon which he and his physician saw fit to embark.

My point, rather, is to offer an insider’s criticism of the ways in which the prevailing hostility in our society towards those who are mentally ill — exposed as right beneath the surface, ready to bubble up in cases such as these — are accepted as perfectly valid commentary in mainstream, “respectable” Canadian discourse. Whether that fear and prejudice come through openly and with hostility such as that expressed on Right On, or whether cloaked in the sincere and well-meaning anti-medication speeches of very dear friends, the mentally ill are left feeling even more isolated, and likely to keep quiet in order to stay that way safely. It’s appalling, really, but the general silence even among progressives unwilling to substantially take on and help destroy the stigma that we face is enough to leave one feeling helpless.

Sometimes, I just feel like (repeatedly) washing my hands of the whole affair.