Fright night Special

I don’t know about you but in the last few weeks I have again been questioning what images/character portrayals, demand the title stigmatizing. It started with the condemnation and removal of the Halloween costumes from ASDA and Tesco’s and now a petition to discontinue the Fright night attraction at Thorpe Park.

Now I see that the charities MIND and Time to change are weighing in with their opinion and I almost don’t want to read it. The last few weeks have been tumultuous and have yet again brought me to question many things including whether I am suffering from self stigma. I have been accused of ignorance of all things mental health and though it is true that many of the experiences of those with mental health problems have not been mine when it comes to the distress of mental illness I have certainly not been without it. The years have not been kind and I worry that they have left me unsympathetic to the plight of others which distresses me exceedingly.

So why would I set up my opinion up for public view on issues when there is every reason to believe that I will cause offense and that offense with be jumped on with much anger and pain, responses that cause me great pain. This blog is about my voice, and my opinion and as such I hope that people feel free to consider it just that and make up their own minds about their views.

So Halloween and fright night and all the furor about it’s stigmatizing affects.

I can’t honestly say that I am that bothered or that I believe that it is stigmatizing. I guess when it comes down to it I feel the small reference that it makes to mental health patients of today is so slight as to be inconsequential to your average Thorpe Park visitor. In short I doubt that they consider it at all realistic or representative of people with mental health problems and thus will have no negative effect on their views of those who suffer from these illnesses.

 

The obviously fake blood, whitened skin and dark eyes, rags and chains and running around trying to scare people seems completely alien to a hospital with mental health patients today. It does however seem in keeping with Halloween when it is customary for anyone or profession to be made scary and or murderous for the occasion so why the furor.

Well it seems to me that people in general feel extremely uncomfortable with anything relating to mental health. They often in my experience have no idea what is or isn’t appropriate to say or make fun of. The past is being held responsible for this pain and as the new found explosion of voices from people who have suffered continues people are discounting everything they once new to listen. There are dozens of voices all decreeing what is or isn’t the way to approach it I feel it has left confusion and fear, fear that what they are saying or doing is increasing the distress of the people who have suffered to such a great degree already and they ultimately will do anything to reduce this. However if the knee jerk reaction to reduce their pain is built upon the complainers misguided belief that the public associate such caricatures of mental illness with actual patients then I would respectfully ask them have they considered that it was never there in the first place and that people have never considered a fright night or a budget horror as realistic or similar to real life.

It may, in the current climate, be ill advised to use any reference, however slight, to mental health or it’s treatment as the new storm of voices are ready to attack and now have the where with all to do so. The world is listening in a way that it never has and much as this is wonderful it is also an exploration of what is and isn’t tolerable. There will be debate and petitions and censor and also change however is this a change I would wish for to remove this caricature of mental health?

 No I wouldn’t. I do however feel uncomfortable and distressed by peoples disgust and outrage and to see people petitioning for Thorpe Parks closure/renaming of the Fright night Asylum maze. I feel that it is sufficiently divorced from reality that it will have no ill effects on peoples views of people with mental health issues. If it were to carry on it would not bother me however I wish I could be sure that people are not affected by it and as such renaming it might be prudent.

Regarding the costumes that were withdrawn, I find that I am brought back to tropes of Mad scientists, Doctors, dentists, and the like that are all readily available for Halloween costumes and what comes to mind is this

Are they any less stigmatizing? Or is it just that everyone has a more negative view of mental health in this country such that it has become a problem of any negative comment/portrayal is considered stigmatizing. I feel that had I seen them in the shops I would have walked right past without a qualm. It has been brought to my attention that they feed into the stigma I feel that the complainers have a very dim view of peoples ability to discern real life from a TV or film trope. 

The anger and surety in their views has left me with this question are they right?

Well I’m not sure anyone can tell but there is certainly I growing trend in the responses to refute the stigmatizing effects of Thorpe parks attraction as a Fright night trope.