{"id":60,"date":"2007-01-19T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-19T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html"},"modified":"2007-01-19T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-19T10:45:00","slug":"lies-lies-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html","title":{"rendered":"Lies, Lies, Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I always knew that a person had to be without disabilities to work (I’m self-employed) or have health-insurance coverage (I’m on Eric’s company plan). But I was reminded today–while renewing my driver’s license–that you also need to be perfect in order to drive.<\/p>\n

“Do you have any physical or mental disabilities that could interfere with your operation of a vehicle?” asked the nice bureaucrat at the MVA<\/a> station.<\/p>\n

I immediately flashed back to the morning I smashed into my neighbor’s Land Cruiser<\/a> on my way to the outpatient program, that afternoon I drove over the sidewalk because my shaking hands (a panic attack) couldn’t hold the wheel, and that night I was crying so hard (with the kids in the backseat) that I didn’t see the car in front of me slam on its brakes.<\/p>\n

“Nope,” I replied to my MVA friend, as confident as ever.<\/p>\n

I lie so often regarding my mental illness that I sometimes forget the real story.<\/p>\n

I recently fibbed on a job application. Would my prospective employer really let a crazy lady tutor the impressionable young? And I took it a step further. I pleaded with all of my references to lie, too–to “forget about” that recent trip of mine to the psych ward.<\/p>\n

“For all you know,” I instructed them, “I’m a perfectly normal, capable person with no mental baggage.” (Ha!)<\/p>\n

Regarding my half-truth today, I don’t know how the cops ensure that no panic attack happens on the road. I suppose they could randomly pull over cars for psychiatric evaluations (“Who is the president of the United States?”) like the alcohol testing stations<\/a> set up on New Year’s Eve. If I start to cry or shake at a red light, a policeman might handcuff me and send me back to the OT (occupational therapy–but having nothing to do with employment) room, where I painted a birdhouse with my fellow inmates as our meds kicked in.<\/p>\n

But come on. If I were completely candid, I’d never be allowed out of my house.<\/p>\n

Until the government and health-care insurance companies and bureaucracies of every kind swap their discrimination against the mentally ill for a well-informed and nuanced understanding of mental health, I am stuck with no option but to lie, lie, lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always knew that a person had to be without disabilities to work (I’m self-employed) or have health-insurance coverage (I’m on Eric’s company plan). But I was reminded today–while renewing my driver’s license–that you also need to be perfect in order to drive. “Do you have any physical or mental disabilities that could interfere with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"\nLies, Lies, Lies - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lies, Lies, Lies - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I always knew that a person had to be without disabilities to work (I’m self-employed) or have health-insurance coverage (I’m on Eric’s company plan). But I was reminded today–while renewing my driver’s license–that you also need to be perfect in order to drive. “Do you have any physical or mental disabilities that could interfere with…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-01-19T10:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lies, Lies, Lies - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lies, Lies, Lies - Beyond Blue","og_description":"I always knew that a person had to be without disabilities to work (I’m self-employed) or have health-insurance coverage (I’m on Eric’s company plan). But I was reminded today–while renewing my driver’s license–that you also need to be perfect in order to drive. “Do you have any physical or mental disabilities that could interfere with…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2007-01-19T10:45:00+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html","name":"Lies, Lies, Lies - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-01-19T10:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-01-19T10:45:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/lies-lies-lies.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lies, Lies, Lies"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/402\/402821b1a7d57eb8e3888da97f18b37fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/402\/402821b1a7d57eb8e3888da97f18b37fx96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/beyondblue"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}