Can you tell whether someone has a mental illness just by looking at them? I've been around the mentally ill long enough to tell instantly whether they're ill or not. Their gait, their size, the greyness of their skin, the expression on their faces, all signal either the use of powerful psychiatric drugs, or an intense discomfort at their surroundings. A major problem for me has been depression. When I am depressed I look down, I don't communicate, I look unkempt. And in a few instances, I have been asked to leave a High Street shop, because I have for one reason or another made staff feel uncomfortable. I don't rant and rave at people. I'm not even rude. But at a local coffee shop, as soon as I walk in there is a distinct change in atmosphere among the staff. They look nervous, and they look nervously at each other, as if searching for reassurance, that the other staff know I'm there - safety in numbers and all that.
A number of years ago, I struck up a cordial friendship with a female shop assistant. She seemed to like me. She was friendly and smiled at me, in a way that suggested she was comfortable with me. But as soon as I crossed the line and offered her my phone number, the next time I went in the manager was lurking behind me. As soon as I finished paying for my things he attempted to ban me from the store. I tore a strip off him and accused him of breaking disability laws, not just to release me from the breaking of etiquette of passing a member of staff my number, but because I knew they knew I had a mental health problem. However, I could not prove it. The store manager rescinded his ban, but I never stepped foot in that shop again, until it changed hands a couple of years back. In my dealings with their law department, they were determined that I had 'harassed' staff and because I could not prove what I knew to be true I had to drop it.
I also had my books in the local Waterstones. They had stocked all my books since I started publishing myself in about 2005. I then began to get offered book signings before the current Chief Executive James Daunt took over, who put a stop to them. Now and again I would pop in to check sales. I didn't do this very often, but on the last occasion, I was accused of harassing staff again. I complained to Mr Daunt, again citing disability laws, given the fact that my autobiography detailing my breakdown had been in their shop for a while, in the 'Difficult lives' section. Plus I had been in the local paper commenting on local health issues for years. He appointed a health and safety director to deal with me, but I dreaded the spectre of the corporate lawyer and knew I wouldn't get anywhere. In one of the emails I received he all but admitted his staff didn't want me in the store, checking sales, I'm guessing because I made them feel uncomfortable. The corporate lawyers got involved and that was that, even though I felt I had a real chance in court, I had no representation and I had no resources to fight them.
Two weeks later another bookshop removed my books from their shop - a shop which I had tried and tried to work with to get my book from the back of the store, into a more prominent position.
In other stores, I was followed by panicky store managers and security guards. I suspected my details were being passed around like the details of prolific shop lifters are. Again no proof. And the trouble with disability discrimination laws are... I don't sit in a wheel chair, carry a white stick, or have a severe limp or scars from serious accident or operation. I have a mental condition. It's easy for High Street shops, restaurants and cafe's to claim that they don't know that a customer has a mental illness because it isn't visible. Many of us could claim that they we go through our lives and blend in completely. But those of us with more serious illnesses cannot. We look ill. We look unapproachable - dangerous even, despite the fact that we're nothing of the sort. The solutions being banded about right now, are to have a separate law of discrimination specifically for the mentally ill, remembering that Mind and its colleagues recently won a case against the DWP for the PIP assessments being inadequate for the mentally unwell. Whatever laws may come, the issue of whether an ordinary member of staff working in a High Street shop, can tell, just by looking whether someone carries the great burden of mental illness or not, is a big one. And without some well defined research, that part of the equation is going to be difficult to implement, let alone define in law.
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