[birbear]

But but but some people WANT to be offended.

It's not about being offended, it's about the double standard (at least for me)..

I've seen this same list every year for the past couple of years, and admittedly it's funny.


But consider this:


Would anybody on this thread dare to make a similar list about illnesses like diabetes, cancer, or losing a limb?

of course not. It would be disrespectful and in bad taste.

But how come it's okay to poke fun at the mentally ill?

I'm a supporter of NAMI -- the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (http://www.nami.org) we're just trying to create parity between mentally ill people and physically ill people. Jokes like this, while, again, hilarious (and frightfully true in some cases) undermines our ability to be taken seriously. It classifies us as something that somehow is okay to be ridiculed.

There's a lot of things in this world that are funny. Mental illness is not one of them.

[null and void]

*shrug* I have diabetes and depression. I'm starting to notice that my mind is getting fluky - CRS, Can't Remember Sh!t. My mind is slipping, I can feel it slipping.

And now you want to take away my ability to laugh at my own foibles?

Nope, I ain't playing my life by your rules. It would kill me.

[ctdonath2]

Would anybody on this thread dare to make a similar list about...

A little web searching will find you plenty of those.

Sometimes such jokes are indeed out of place.
Sometimes such jokes help us deal with difficult subjects.

[TChris]

Would anybody on this thread dare to make a similar list about illnesses like diabetes, cancer, or losing a limb?

Alex Zanardi, the guy who lost both his legs in a CART racing accident, was recently on David Letterman's show and had a terrific sense of humor about it! I think he embarrassed Letterman with how comfortable he was with the subject. (At one point, he swiveled his artificial leg upwards and set a coffee mug on the sole of his shoe)

It marks a great person when he can accept his situation, struggle to overcome it, succeed and get on with his life. Zanardi is racing again.