Manderscheid: Our Destination Is Dignity - The Alliance for Rights and Recovery

�� Note: County behavioral health and developmental disability directors from across the nation were very well represented at Monday’s Destination Dignity March in Washington by the dedication and passion expressed by Ron Manderscheid. Here’s a wonderful piece from Ron about the meaning of the event in today’s issue of Behavioral Healthcare.

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Our Destination Is Dignity

by Ron Manderscheid, PhD ��Behavioral Healthcare ��August 26, 2015

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“What do you want?” In unison, they responded, “Dignity!” “When do you want it?” “Now!” they shouted, “Now!”

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With the clarion cry, “Our destination is dignity,” they set out across the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on one of the hottest days of our southern summer. They came from all corners of America—California, Georgia, and ��—with the solitary purpose of seeking dignity for all persons with mental illness. What a noble goal for very honorable people.

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The Destination Dignity March proved to be a landmark event in the annals of American mental health. Almost a thousand people gathered on the National Mall at noon on August 24 to demand the simplest of things, that which most of us take for granted and never think twice about—basic human dignity. Just imagine being required to seek one’s own basic human dignity. The National Mall has never before been witness to such an event.

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Many present had been robbed of their human dignity by traumatic events in their lives, by stigma from their neighbors, by a care system that did not care. Now, they were here to reclaim that simple human dignity loudly and proudly. They were here reclaiming the voice they had lost in their own past.

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