I want to first say that I want to dedicate this talk
to all the folks who lean into the unknown and share their stories anyway.
I want to dedicate this talk to my wife, Amy.
(Applause)
I want to begin by sharing with you all a part of myself.
It's something that I don't talk frequently about.
When I was 17, I was diagnosed with manic depression.
I want to stop there
because by uttering those two small words, "manic depression",
I've just created very strong negative ripple effect in this auditorium.
Perhaps you're now viewing my body differently than you did
when you heard my intro.
Perhaps you're ascribing stereotypes onto my body that aren't mine.
I think it's important that you all know that at this point I want to say,
"Thank you all for listening", and I want to go off stage,
but I'm going to stay.
(Applause)
So much clapping.
(Laughter)
We're all familiar with the phrases "depression",
we're familiar with the term "mania".
Perhaps you've used these words colloquially.
"I feel so depressed today." "He's acting so manic."
For me, mania and depression
were felt in more invasive, regular everyday ways.
They literally invaded into my everyday.
And although this is just my experience,
I think that it's important to know too
that everyone's experience is radically different.
I was 17, I graduated high school,
I was beginning my journey into a local JC,
and for me, depression felt like an overwhelming weightiness.
I felt like I was in a room without a door knob.
Getting out of the bed and beginning the day
was a success in and of itself.
I was so suicidal that I couldn't drive,
so my mother would drive me to my college,
wait for three hours in the parking lot, pick me up, drive me back home.
Although it wasn't as frequent or as long-standing,
for me, mania was an overwhelming sense of focus and energy,
and I truly felt, invincible.
By the time I finished my PhD work,
I was hospitalized four times.
Now, this is not how I was going to start my TED talk.
Not even close.
I was going to talk to you all
about the statistics surrounding madness.
I was going to talk to you about semantics.
I was going to tell you about the history,
of how we conceive of and inscribe madness,
and it wasn't until the fourth draft of my talk that I realized
I had completely written myself out of this conversation,
and I had to pause and ask myself why.
Why in a talk where I was going to explore the negative ripple effects
created by the ways in which we conceive of madness,
had I written out my narrative?
A narrative that so completely fit into the conversation.
And the answer is simple,
and I think absolutely problematic in its simplicity.
And it's one word.
It's shame and it's stigma.
Even as I stand here before all of you,
I am feeling very apprehensive about how I am being read,
how my body is being read,
by my former, my current, my future students.
How is my body and my identity being read by my colleagues.
Am I being read as inferior, as incompetent, as untrustworthy?
Some of you might even be sitting and thinking quietly to yourselves,
"But she doesn't look crazy."
And to that question, I ask you, but what does craziness look like?
And in fact, we have been taught what craziness looks like, right?
Many institutions in our society have taught us
and have helped us cultivate a very strict and rigid understanding of madness.
And just to illustrate the speed at which this happens,
and has happened for all of us since we were very young,
I want you all to pause with me and think.
What do you think of, what images, what connotations,
what do you think of when you hear the word "insane"?
What do you think of when you hear the word "crazy"?
What connotations and images come to mind when you hear the phrase "mental illness"?
Perhaps your thoughts and your images
are informed by the way the news media ascribes disabilities,
psychiatric disabilities, and madness.
Perhaps your thoughts are informed by literature,
by graphic novels, by the movies.
I go to the movies.
Perhaps you thought of "Girl Interrupted",
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest",
"Psycho",
"Mommy Dearest",
or "A Beautiful Mind".
Irregardless of where you've given these images
or where you've gotten these images from,
I think that a very rigid list of stereotypes gets created.
And although we probably did it together and keep adding to this list,
a very brief list is as follows.
Folks with psychiatric disabilities are often viewed as being dangerous,
unpredictable, incompetent,
unstable, irrational, and irresponsible.
Now, the images or connotations
that you so quickly call to mind
when I ask you all to pause and just meditate on the words
"insane", "crazy", and "mental illness",
the images that I've pulled up that my mind went to,
and this list of stereotypes,
this is why it took me four drafts to write myself in this talk.
The sheer universality of these terms and these images, and the weightiness
regulate folks with psychiatric disabilities,
regulate me.
I think it's really important to know that, unlike other illnesses of the mind,
psychiatric disabilities carry with them something that's very distinct and unique.
They carry a moral judgement on the individual.
So, what do we do with all of this?
Before telling you that, I want to tell you
what the purpose of this talk is not.
I think often, when folks with disabilities of any kind
share their narratives or speak,
they are often seen as an inspiration.
Their story is meant to be heard and is meant to inspire you
to bettering your life as non-disabled folks,
or even as other disabled folks.
I am here to tell you that I am not your inspiration.
That's not my purpose.
The purpose of this talk is to ask
that we collectively cultivate a community and space
for unlearning the stereotypes and stigmas
that we ascribe to psychiatric disabilities.
I want us to live in a place
where someone sharing that they have manic depression
is as benign as someone saying to another person, "I have diabetes."
I want us to live in a place where the moral judgements
that often get placed onto folks with psychiatric disabilities is removed.
I want us to live in a place where I can come before a group of people,
and stand and say, "My name is Shayda Kafai.
I'm a professor in the Ethnic and Women Studies Department
at Cal Poly Pomona. I have manic depression."
or just a person,
this way,
Thank you.
(Applause)