If an illness is seen to be a result of choice, it is more likely to be stigmatized. Mental illness is often viewed as a choice or a moral weakness, as are some kinds of heart disease and cancers. And even when there’s no evidence of a clear link between character and illness, we will invent one: It was long believed, for example, that cancer resulted from social isolation, or from bottling up one’s feelings. Even when these explanations are cruel and dehumanizing, we embrace them—because tiger got to sleep, and bird got to land, and man got to tell himself he understand.
