It Hurts Like Crazy

By JAMES WILLWERTH /LOS ANGELES

DC Comics Superman editor Mike Carlin, hoping to boost newsstand sales, declares that "an escapee from a cosmic lunatic asylum" named Doomsday will murder the Man of Steel. The state of Pennsylvania touts itself as a place for "multiple personalities" to suggest it has much to offer tourists. A character on Roseanne argues that only "murderers, psychos and schizos" can beat a lie-detector test. On election eve, Ross Perot tells a cheering crowd, "We're all crazy again now! We got buses lined up outside to take you back to the insane asylum."

At a time of growing sensitivity to racist and sexist language, no such caution governs the use of the vocabulary of mental illness, whether as a metaphor, a plot device or a put-down. "There is hardly a moment when we turn on television or read newspapers that we don't see violent stereotypes or hear bad jokes at the expense of the mentally ill," says Nora Weinerth, co-founder of the National Stigma Clearinghouse, which organizes protests against prejudicial images of mental illness in the media. "When children are told that a superhero will be killed by someone who is mentally ill, it stigmatizes us." Backed by research showing that mental illness is biological in origin -- like cancer or heart disease -- patients and advocates are gearing up a national anti-defamation campaign.

With the help of the New York State Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Weinerth and New York City activist Jean Arnold set up the clearinghouse operation in January 1990. Its efforts reflect more than concerns over hurt feelings or political correctness. A stream of negative images, advocates argue, makes it harder for recovering patients to find work, obtain housing or participate fully in society. "We're not language police," concludes Arnold. "We don't expect the word crazy to disappear. But we're hoping for the day when these stereotypes are as unacceptable as racist and sexist remarks."

The stigma borne by present-day patients "is harder to live with than the illness itself," laments Joanne Verbannic, a Michigan grandmother employed at the Ford Motor Credit Co., who at age 25 had paranoid schizophrenia diagnosed. "Every time I read about a 'paranoid killer' or hear on TV that the weather will be 'schizophrenic,' I feel like someone has put a knife in me."

Experts who work with the mentally ill are especially concerned about the misinformation spread by the jokes and casual use of medical terms. When TIME uses the word schizophrenic to describe internal conflict within the Republican Party, the metaphor perpetuates a misunderstanding, as does a New York Times article describing the hyena's laughlike calls as "psychotic in pitch." Schizophrenia, a brain disorder whose symptoms can include hearing voices, has nothing to do with multiple or "split" personalities. Psychotic refers to a period of severe, treatable and often terrifying disorientation.

The label psychotic killer, a favorite of headline writers and Hollywood producers, reinforces an inaccurate link between mental illness and violence. According to recent studies, slightly more than 11% of the mentally ill are prone to violence, roughly the same percentage as in the general population. In reality, most mentally ill patients are withdrawn, frightened and passive. For 25 years, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication tracked television portrayals of the mentally ill in prime time: more than 72% of the characters were portrayed as violent.

Activists have directed much of their fire at Madison Avenue. In late 1991, the communications giant GTE ran an ad featuring a man who was "temporarily insane" because he heard strange voices on his non-GTE system. The New York State Lottery game Crazy 8s last year had an ad showing a "typical" customer bragging that he was "crazy, nuts. I'm out of control." Ads have run recently for "psycho" sunglasses and "Skitzocolor" T shirts.

Some of the protests have been successful. Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, a leading mental-health advocate, persuaded one North Carolina company to pull ads featuring cans of peanuts in straitjackets promoting a product line called Certifiably Nuts. One of her annual mental-health-policy symposiums at Emory University's Carter Center was devoted entirely to stigma issues. "We are all concerned about stigma," she says. "It holds back progress in the whole field."

Deere & Co. listened to protests and pulled catalog ads for a "schizophrenic" power mower, putting in its place a public service ad ; that read, "The most shocking thing about mental illness is how little people understand about it." Wordstar took "loony bin," "booby hatch" and "funny farm" out of its thesaurus list of synonyms for "institution."

But such victories are sporadic at best. Last spring a Manhattan and New Jersey discount clothier named Daffy's ran an ad showing a straitjacket with the caption, "If you're paying over $100 for a dress shirt, may we suggest a jacket to go with it?" Protesters picketed a store, wrote letters and petitioned the New York City Commission on Human Rights. A Daffy's spokesperson insisted that the ad was humorous and called the protest unfair.

The stigma is even being passed on to the next generation. DC Comics insists that Superman's killer was never meant to be portrayed as mentally ill, but another of its comics features a character named Shade. "Greetings from the mental states of America," said one of its early promotion circulars, "where every citizen has the right to remain deranged!"