Law School Discussion

You all want to know, I'll tell you.  I have ADD and Bipolar II. I was diagnosed with ADD at 12 and Bipolar II at 19.  I know what you all are thinking.  You’re thinking I’m stupid, unintelligent, insane, and incapable of leading a full life.  Guess again! I am smart and intelligent, and perfectly sane. I am a straight A student, who is a Phi Theta Kappa member.  I do the same work and take the same tests, as everyone else in my class.    I go to college full time.  Live on my own, and I am planning on getting an academic scholarship to a school I want to transfer to.  I plan to go into public interest law, doing civil rights and litigation work.  One of my areas will be disability rights, and I will make sure that one no disabled person has their rights denied, especially people with psychiatric disabilities. Nothing and no one will keep me from being an attorney.  If anyone tries to deny me my civil rights, I will sue the pants off of them. 

On a personal note, I can tell you that there is nothing worse than being sick, alone and scared and having people ridicule and stigmatize you for it.  No one deserves that type of treatment. 

I find it really sad that people in this day and age continue to stigmatize people with psychiatric disabilities and deny them their civil rights.  They think we're lazy, weak, insane, stupid, violent, etc.  However, people with psychiatric disabilities are just as capable and competent as anyone else.  They have an illness, just like any other.  Like asthma or diabetes.  To treat people with psychiatric disabilities this way, is the same as discriminating against someone because of their race, gender, and sexual orientation.  You wouldn't make fun of someone with cancer, you wouldn't deny someone with cancer disability accommodations if need be.  Then why do the same to someone with a psychiatric disability. 

I also find it really sad that people in this day and age, can't see people with psychiatric disabilities for the gifts and abilities they have. Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression.  He was a lawyer and the president of the United States.  If Lincoln were alive today, and he was a student and had depression, who you deny him his civil rights and a chance to succeed in school? If someone did, they would have never have known one of the greatest presidents who ever lived.

The rehabilitation act of 1973, section 504, grants student with psychiatric disabilities the right to their civil rights and academic accommodations.  However, higher education institutions continually ignore the laws regarding student with psychiatric disabilities and it’s a disgrace.  Not to mention that suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students, and the age for most mental illnesses are in ones late teens and twenties.   Even with this information, higher education institutions still do nothing to address the problem.  Still colleges continue to do nothing about it.  Student insurance doesn’t even cover mental health parity, and there is a lack of awareness on campus.  This is all a result of ignorance and bigotry. 

It’s time for people to get a clue about mental illnesses and stop the bigotry.