We performed a still image of what a mentally ill person could look like experiencing the outside world for the first time, or seeing it when they haven’t in months or even years. Also their were other people around, like a witness walking past, or guards from the halfway house. We had to add them seeing something they’d never seen before like a car, a mobile phone and being amazed by it. Most of them were so amazed they fell down or just stopped still and stared. This shows how little things we take for granted can be the best thing in the world to another person.
In that same activity we thought tracked, how the mentally ill person might feeling and how the people around them were thinking.
The mentally ill person for example was usually thinking “I can’t believe what I’m seeing, is it real? Or am imagining it?”
The witness for example is usually thinking “What’s the matter with them?” and the guards are usually thinking “I just want to show them around and get them back inside.” Apart from the mentally ill person they’re all being very ignorant.
I also thought of some words people may associate the illness with, these views may not be fair but a lot of people do think this, which again is extremely ignorant of people. Some schizophrenics can be cured; it can sometimes be very mild. Whilst some are born with the illness.
We also played a game called the rumour game, one person spreads a rumour and you take it round the room but each time you change it, it’s similar to Chinese whispers. For example one of ours was: Did you know a husband killed his wife on their honeymoon?
But then someone could change this and say he killed her on their wedding day in front of everyone. It’s changing views on situations and how one rumour can get out of hand. The real rumour was that a woman had left her baby for a second in the bath and it had drowned. This is a lot like people treating mental disorders in a strange way. They take their illness and make it seem worse than it actually is. There is a lot of prejudice against mentally ill people, because their different and were scared of the truth about them. They are just like everyone else, but they do have something wrong with them, yet people treat them as outcasts and lock them away from society.
Overall this lesson helped me understand just what schizophrenia meant and how it can affect a person’s life and the people around them very seriously. I believe this lesson has enabled me to create more watchable drama. Also it has helped me to understand how I can make serious issues more interesting and hopefully improve my work in the future.