Privacy or Dignity?

Our family in happier times

Question:  Is it right to post details of my brother's recovery from brain surgery and about his mental illness on Facebook?  Am I invading his privacy and dignity?  Recently I did some soul searching to see if I was exploiting my brother's condition to gain sympathy or poking fun at his mental illness.
     Actually I admire my brother's wit.  Who else could come up with the term Congoleum juice for Cherry Coke or give himself the title of Pope President?  Finding humor in tragic situations has always been my family's coping mechanism. 
     Is it my place to tell his story, even if he has no idea what Facebook or the Internet is for that matter?  Maybe not, but I know my brother could care less what other people think of him.  He is much more concerned with his internal critics than the opinions of people in what we call the real world.  
     Nor is privacy a big concern for him.  He lives in a facility with more than 300 people, with only a thin curtain separating his bed from the next guy's.  He's oblivious to the disparaging looks of other people in restaurants or on the street.  Embarrassment is not in his emotional repertoire.  Sometimes I envy his ability to just be himself without worrying about the reactions of others.
     While my brother has the protective cloak of his own private world, my sister was all too aware of the indignity of being a mental patient.  The first time I took her to the psych hospital at her request, she packed all her best dresses in a suitcase, saying she wanted to go with dignity.  Of course we ended up taking the suitcase home with us as she traded her best dress for a hospital gown.
     The next time I saw my sister she had succumbed to the patient shuffle.  It was as if she had aged 20 years overnight and had lost all muscle tone in her arms.  Within two months, on April 27, 1989, my sister was gone.  There is no dignity in having a mental illness.