Seeing Ourselves in Each Other

I used to think that people with “mental illness” were different from me. I did not have “mental illness.” But what I experienced in these meetings was that I was no different—I also had “mental illness,” just a different variety, one that is more socially acceptable because it is so much more common.

We all hear voices in our heads telling us all kinds of stories, and we all believe these stories. And how do I really know that my story is any more real than their story? So maybe “mental illness” is partly a constructed idea, or at least a misleading label. Maybe we need to drop the label and see everyone as sharing the same fundamental condition—just expressed in different forms.

In my brief encounters, I met people who understood this insight and were working to share it, both for themselves and for others. This was very encouraging. It is always easier to see someone else’s stories than to see our own. Those who help us see this are, in a sense, holding up a mirror so that we can recognize that there is really no “other”—only stories.

I am very grateful for my good fortune in meeting these people, and I would like to see all of us awaken to the light that shines equally in everyone.

What also stayed with me after these encounters was a quiet sense of humility. Not something I thought about in an abstract way, but something that came from seeing how similar the mind is across people. My own mind is not so different from what I had previously labeled as “disturbed” or “unreliable.” The basic mechanism is the same: thoughts arise, stories form, and then they are believed. Only the content and the level of social acceptance differ.

This does not take away from real suffering. That was also present and could not be ignored. There is pain, confusion, and difficulty that people live with in very direct ways. But I began to wonder whether the label helps me meet that suffering more clearly, or whether it actually puts a layer between me and the person in front of me.

Over time I noticed that what seems to help most is not understanding in the abstract, but simple attention. Being with someone without immediately turning them into a category, without explaining them too quickly to myself. In that kind of space, something more basic comes forward, and the usual separation between “normal” and “abnormal” becomes less fixed than I had assumed.

What I am left with is a sense that perception is always filtered, and that what I take to be solid reality is already shaped before I even notice I am looking.