I UNDERSTOOD fairly early on in the movie that is was all in Arther Fleck’s head – one huge hallucinatory delusional thought process in a world where mental health services are actually continually cut and people left to their own devices. I have actually been through that myself….loss of mental health services for 1.5 years. I was not alone, as I know of others living w/o services even now. Thank goodness for NAMI, but it’s not enough all the time 24/7.

Also I can understand that some might see this movie as “stigmatizing mental illness,” but it was never promised to show anything other than a dark story of a fictional character. No different than the movie Fatal Attraction which showed extreme Borderline Personality Disorder in what some would call stigmatizing. At least the world woke up to what BPD is. That movie was also extremely important to me. It was the first time I ever saw others experiencing things as I felt back then.

To those of us who livewith horrible and or violent thoughts erupting daily in our heads (over decades, but never acted out, in my case) …movies such as these both are clearly a spotlight into jumpstarting society to education about extreme examples of mental disorders. (Not everyone will watch the Hallmark Channel for a “positive” movie depicting mental illness!) So let them watch anything which will lead to the hundreds of thousands of online articles, discussions, movie reviews and first hand accounts of living with extreme forms of mental illness. I call this the trickle down effect. Any awareness is better then none. Maybe at first it’s stigmatizing, but soon, there will be education, discussion, and real education. Bring it on.

I also feel this movie is no worse in violence then any number of movies shown each month in theaters. The violence was not gratuitous…as it is in 99% of movies (which warrant no media backlash) nor was there a lot of it. I also feel that mental illness is often depicted negatively, but without any real content as to why someone could have been traumatized enough to think violent thoughts. Arthur Fleck had valid reasons to have this fake world in his head. I accept his reasons.

I loved the movie…it was artistically made, beautifully edited, and the saturated colors, soundtrack and the acting superb. I will see definitely see it again. For those of us living with intense traumas, and extreme delusions…who have learned over the decades to silently keep those thoughts secret, this was a breath of fresh air. At least now, we all are talking about the most extreme forms of mental illness…and not merely medicating it into silence, or locking it up away in an institution. As one who is recovered enough to know my delusions are not real, but to accept the violence still lingering in my head is never going to end and just accept it as mere annoyance, I found this movie deeply important. Maybe someday Arthur Fleck will find recovery also. Because he of course, is not the Joker, but just a regular man living with deeply challenging mental illness.