The C Word

The c word is crazy and I am ready for it to go the way of the n word (no need to spell it out) and the r word (retard) and I mean gone. Here I will add the quote that brings me to this rant, I mean these thoughts. “As an attorney, I have some level of understanding of why we have to go through this charade, but it is difficult to forget we are here because of the actions of a crazy person who killed her kids,” said attorney Thomas Foley, who represents the father of the two slain boys. The mother in this quote called a crazy person, also killed her daughter by slashing her throat before drowning her and the two boys and was found not guilty because of mental disease or defect in their deaths. This mother has also survived two suicide attempts, jumping from a second story window and swallowing home cleaning fluids. Now there is a possibility that because she was not convicted (found not guilty by reason of mental disease) she could claim a share of her dead children’s estate and people are justifiably upset by this. I don’t think she should get the money either but I am also incensed that an attorney, presumably an educated man with a juris doctorate and who has passed a bar exam, used the c word to describe a person suffering from mental illness. The c word just gets to me. I think it has its place when used to signify other meanings just as I don’t have a problem with flame retardant pajamas. I can’t think of an acceptable use for the n word but that’s just me. I looked at Leatrice Brewer’s photo and I couldn't see anything that gives an obvious clue to her mental illness but her actions and a jury of her peers assure me that it exists. The problem I do see is that the c word demeans people who are successfully coping with and/or are suffering with the stress of mental illness every day, people whose actions have not gone the way of Leatrice Brewer. The thing is I also am guilty of misuse of the c word (shades of Paula Deen, perhaps?) but I am cleaning up my act and I hope others, in particular Thomas Foley, will too.