Lesson 1. John Henry and Marie

Marie is 21 years old and has had about five years of struggling with bipolar disorder. Despite this disability, things are working out well: she hasn’t had a hospitalization in two years, she’s working a good on-campus job, she’s earning good grades in all of her classes, and she’s living with a supportive roommate. By many people's standards, she has beat her mental illness and recovered. Still, Marie frequently attends mutual help groups where she provides support to peers who are struggling with more acute problems related to their illness. She is also an outspoken advocate against stigma. She speaks out at campus events where she publicly discloses as a person with mental illness who is outraged by the disrespectful images of mental illness that are rampant in our society as well as on campus. Marie is a person who identifies herself as “mentally ill.”


John Henry has a very similar history to Marie. He has struggled with bipolar disorder since he was 16. Now, he is 21, involved in a debate team on campus, and working a great internship to complement his business major. He has not been hospitalized in two years and almost no one at his internship or in his social circle on campus knows about his illness. John Henry wants it that way. Not only does he choose not to let others know about his past, he does not view himself as a person with mental illness. “I'm a complex being with only a very small piece of me having to do with mental illness.” John Henry is a person who does not
identify himself as “mentally ill.”