Posted by 10derHeart on October 19, 2009, at 1:23:52
In reply to psycho donuts - mental health stigma, posted by psych chat on October 18, 2009, at 12:55:19
Here's their website:
http://www.psycho-donuts.com/home.html
I suppose people could email them as there is a link, although not sure how effective anything like that would be unless it comes from locals. It is a local business, and from a bit of digging, looks pretty popular in that area...
Several years back, Vermont Teddy Bear blundered like this and launched some sort of bear (Valentine's Day, I think) in a straightjacket, under the guise of "madly in love" or "psycho for you" or something, I can't recall. I emailed and wrote them by snail mail, as apparently did *many* others. Being a nationally advertised, high-end mail order business, VTB removed that bear from their inventory and apologized for any perceived insensitivity, saying their intentions were benign, but clearly they hadn't really thought about it enough.... So that was good, because that bear was so wrong.
However, this shop is worse. The nurse's outfits, a padded cell with straightjackets as an area to take your kids' photos??!! Really? What parent would have their child pose for such a photo?? Please don't answer that, don't think I want to know...
I looked over the menu, extensive merchandise, etc. They are very focused on the prefix 'psycho' naturally, considering their name. I try to gently and educationally correct people I encounter who say, "What - are you psycho?", or "He's really such a psycho, " or "I went psycho when I heard that, " and on and on and on. But it's quite an uphill battle. That term has really become ingrained in the lingo of Americans and I find most people don't even know what the heck they are saying. I have heard the terms bipolar, nuts, schizo (HATE that one), OCD and a few others thrown around like this as well, but none as often as psycho.
While I totally agree with you and NAMI how inappropriate and awful this is, I think this is pure ignorance, with some measure of innocence (possibly - I can't be sure without knowing the business owners, obviously) I think they may have taken the word "nuts" in the word donuts, and run with it, resulting in some of their menu item names, etc. Then it blossomed into a whole theme for the place. I am NOT defending them by any means, just trying to reason out HOW this would have happened, even naming your business Psycho Donuts - wouldn't one person, family, friend, business partner have had personal experience with mental illness, and said, "Hey....waaaait a minute, what are we saying/doing here?"
It's almost unfathomable to me, but I am attempting to 'fathom' the meetings where all this was brainstormed and found to be okay. It's so strange.
I dunno. Are whole communities really this desensitized? And do they really NOT realize, when it is nearly 2010, that MI IS A REAL DISEASE??!! argggghhhhh.
Or is it some backlash against requiring PC speech, gone amok? As in, "oh, lighten up, we're just kidding, don't worry about it".....kind of thinking??
poster:10derHeart
thread:921400
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090930/msgs/921527.html