It seems perfectly acceptable to still make Ghoulish references to mental health on Halloween. You can see it in the costumes on offer this year:
The straight up offensive straight jacket:
The “side show psycho”:
The “sexy psycho”:
At some point we need to acknowledge that this is just as unacceptable as dressing as a cancer patient for Halloween. Cancer is scary too but is not Halloween fodder and does not have a place in a haunted house.
I saw an ad today for a haunted house that features an “insane asylum” section and it made me want to go protest. Why is that still okay? Why am I still seeing viral fb junk posts of the “top ten scariest places” that are mostly closed down psychiatric facilities that include statement like “they used to even do electroshock treatment on people there.”
Really? I know people who have undergone ECT this year. It has saved their life.
The dialogue needs to change. I love Halloween but there are so many more creative costumes to choose from. These are analogous to putting a sheet over your head and cutting holes in it.
