Comedian Rodney Dangerfield gained fame with the trademark line, “I get no respect.” Compared to the respect mental illness gets, though, he was as revered as Mom, baseball and apple pie.
“D’ja hear about the man who waited nine days to get into Broughton?” No joke. The average wait for a bed in a state psychiatric hospital is 2.7 days.
“How many schizophrenic centenarians does it take to screw in a light bulb?” There aren’t any. Life expectancy for the 3-6 percent of the population with severe mental illness is 25 years less than average.
