How to NOT manage mental illness- a poem

Dr Javed Latoo

Ignore it, call it a frailty 
of our resilience, confuse it 
with a fleeting worry or sadness, blame 
witchcraft, black-magic or a Jinn.

Mystify it. Call it 
an illness of soul, use
Cartesian Dualism to explain it,
separate it from the brain. 

Let every Tom, Dick, 
and Harry, philosophise, float 
an expert opinion, about 
its causes and treatment.

Invent an imaginary 
gulf, a stigmatising barrier, 
between our mental 
and physical health.

Leave it, for healing, at the mercy
of celestial bodies, quacks, 
Dr Google, 
and street drugs.

Use a priestly vocabulary, 
"mind, body and soul",
to promote the ghost 
in the machine mindset. 

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