Is all violent behaviour a result of mental illness? by Magonsdaughter

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, May 27, 2014 11:43 PM

WISHIMAY

I don't know about other people, but we went through about 7 different drugs to find on that helped hubbs. In our old place were dents in doors, a hole in the ceiling, and a car steering wheel he bent. He never hit either of us or he wouldn't be breathing, but it's much better here since the drugs...

No, I'm not comfortable with guns in the house, just strictly based on articles I've seen and that we aren't the most graceful people. He's almost dropped it LOADED twice. He's threatened to shoot people that break in but had not even considered our kid sleeps 20 feet away, and I doubt he would take trajectory into account in the heat of the moment.

That, and my first thought in the morning for the last 18 years is "I think I'd rather shoot myself than make it through one more dumbass day on this planet."

I wish I were kidding...

Having guns is just waaaay too easy. Any idea of control is a JOKE. They pass 'em around here like candy. EVERYONE has a dozen hidden away. The milk is already spilled. You can't take it back and like sooo many other things you can't fix it and you can't make it better. We're violent and we're stupid and we're armed...

I can tell you about a dozen conversations I've had with him, "Why do you think YOU can act like an ass-hat and break things, but it's not ok if I were to act like you??" or "How do you rectify the things you say you believe in Christianity about turning swords into plowshares with your obsession with guns, which are used for great amounts of violence??"
He doesn't really have an answer. He has said thing like guns are "just a thing" and I attribute to much to the gun and people would find a way and he wouldn't want to be the only one without one, but...

There is NOTHING I can say to make him less attracted to guns. It's in his wiring. Piles and piles of kids' dead bodies would mean NOTHING to him until it was his own kid, and then even then he STILL wouldn't blame the gun, he'd blame himself...

Kinda like this guy...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641027/Right-wing-icon-Joe-Pl
umber-rants-families-Elliot-Rodger-shooting-victims-Your-dead-kids-dont-trump-constitutional-rights.html

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 12:43 AM

Well, so much for my "Lighten up, Oonj" note.
What I see:

Our culture, our entertainment contributes hugely to this problem;
those who are good at violence are "Heroes."

In California, county Mental Health depts are nearly useless, a
waste of money.

Locally, I think parents who seriously abuse their kids, teaching
them that abuse is good & natural, get a free pass, 'cause the county
is strapped. Not enough money or personnel to deal with them.

There's a lot of broken people. Who can help 'em and how?

12-Step programs can and do work. Indeed, self-help is the key.
Team work, nurturing sports programs might also be as effective.

Whether Nature, Nurture or a Love of Malice is the key to one's
bad behavior, any long-term improvement must come from within.

(Barely scratching the surface.)

Last year, a very dysfunctional, very young man told me, "People
don't change." ... I said, "They can, and they do." He couldn't
hear me. I had no validity to him.

So perhaps ... charismatic leadership could take a key role in
good changes.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

I have a cookie. Now all I want is ice cream.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 3:51 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

Simply put - YES!!!!!

SGG

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 8:08 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Dont get me wrong, I'm all for having cheap accessable mental health services widely available, but does that mean that violent crime will decrease if this happens?

Yes, absolutely.

Quote:
Are all violent actions the result of mental illness?

Nope, not all - but I'd say prolly 75% are, either directly or other factors aggravated by such, the remainder generally a combination of desperation, frustration and lack of agency in a predatory society... very little violence is actually "meaningless" in that the folks who do it sans a hefty dose of crazy KNOW why, just that no damn body listens to them since it's easier to believe the old myths (like born bad/born better and whatnot) which allow them to dismiss it without taking action or responsibility for their part in creating the environment, the crucible, in which these problems are forged.

Quote:
How much can be explained by mental illness, and how much by being a self obsessed jerk who despite living a life of priveledge still felt entitled to more?

Me bein me, this might be a little biased, but IMHO that was mostly the latter, typical behavior for the type, really - scream a fit about others "sense of entitlement" when they desire such things as basic human rights, enough to eat, safe shelter, fair wages and decent medical care, but oh holy hell if THEY don't get their way an epic temper tantrum soon follows, escalating in damage by how much immediate, social, financial and political power they have - for what is the behavior of Oligarchs but one long extended temper tantrum at not getting their way ?
Hell, you see it HERE often enough when plain facts and cruel reality combine to curbstomp the pipedreams of typical Authoritarians.

Quote:
How much do mental health treatments really help those who have personality disorders, who take pleasure in hurting others? Does a couple of sessions, or even a year of counselling help someone who fantastises or acts out sexually with children?

This... is very complicated, but I do have something for you on this front, a speech by Andrew Vachss back in 1983 which upset a lot of people who dismissed it entire cause back then this notion was far more radical than it is now.

WHO IS THE SERIOUS, VIOLENT, HABITUAL OFFENDER?
http://www.vachss.com/av_dispatches/lifestyle.html
highlights

Quote:
This is the type of kid who will kill three people on separate occasions for no apparent reason, commit a subway robbery, do a push-in mugging, blow somebody away because they "looked at him wrong." He will show no remorse, and then come into the office of an institution just enraged, veins bulging out of his neck, sweat pouring off his forehead, eyes wild, incoherent almost to the point of tears ... all because someone broke his portable radio. And he'll see no contradiction whatsoever. He simply does not feel anyone's pain but his own. This is a learned response. People are not born like this.

The second characteristic is lack of perception of the future. He has none. If you ask a kid like this, "What are you going to be doing next year?" you will get an absolutely blank stare. Not because he's stupid, but because he simply cannot conceptualize such a distance from right now. If you want to speak with this kid, you have to speak within his time frame, and that time frame isn't ever more than a few hours from the present.

This kid does not relate behavior to consequences. He does not see a causal connection between his acts and a response. What do I mean? To this kid, life is a lottery. Everyone rolls the dice, but not everyone pays the price. He has no perception as to how the dice will come up. In his world, everyone commits crimes. Everybody. Some smaller percentage of that number are arrested. A still smaller percentage go to court; an even smaller percentage go to trial. A smaller percentage still are actually found guilty (or "adjudicated delinquent" if you prefer), and a smaller percentage of that group are committed to a youth authority. Lastly, an even smaller percentage are actually incarcerated.

That whole lack of time frame and perception of future consequences is WHY having force at hand is a necessity, because absolutely nothing else is any kind of deterrent.
And as for that whole roll the dice and "justice" being rigged and random, my opinion on it is that perhaps we should stop flaming these kids for seeing the truth of the situation and PRETENDING THIS IS NOT TRUE, and actually work towards resolving that problem instead of trying to force them to believe 2+2=5, because that then undermines the credibility of everydamnthing else we try to teach, yes ?

Quote:
Now here's the question: is he beyond our reach? If we can't say "No!" to that, we should give it up. We've been ducking and dodging that issue for too long a time. If we face reality, this is what "prevention" is all about. Part of the profession wants to say: "We can't deal with this kid; this kid is (you fill in the blanks with whatever you want ... an animal, a beast, a lunatic); we can't deal with him. Let the adult system take him. We'll work with the good kids, the other kids." Now part of our profession wants to accept and acknowledge our collective responsibility for this kid. But even that part doesn't say: "I'll take him." No. What we say is: "We're going to prevent him. We're going to stop this deadly flower from reaching full bloom." Well, people, that's a joke, a real joke. And the joke is on you and on the American public. You cannot prevent this kid if you persist in starting where you have been. There's a continuum of production that results in this kid being among us. There's a virtual assembly line, with components being attached at each stage until this human being has reached his full dangerous growth. By the time you start to "prevent," it's already too late.

This is why sentencing kids as adults is a complete fail, and early detection and intervention is so critical - by the time the juvie justice system, which is itself a lot of the time a problem instead of a solution (See Also: Kids 4 Cash scandal) gets a hold of these kids, they're working on the back foot against an entrenched mentality which has codified as part of the kids entire personality, and that is a really tough issue to handle even if they weren't kneecapped by using the wrong tools for the job.
The Criminal Justice system is a damn lousy tool to address issues of Social Justice.

Quote:
When Charles Manson said, "You can see me in the eyes of your ten-year-olds," that was not an original line. We have been producing the life-style violent criminal for generations, and the factory has been the child protective and juvenile justice system.

In order to create the kind of sociopathic, non-empathetic, violent human being I've been talking about, you need an institution. You need a controlled environment. You need an environment where might makes right.

You need an environment where there is a hierarchy of exploitation; where the rule is "be exploited or exploit others." For many, many years we have run our institutions on a jungle model where the strong not only survive, but thrive. And when the beast is released, we all pay.

And then blame them, flame them, and call it mental illness when they recognize this reality and throw it in our faces, which again cycles back to the lack of credibility and trust required to connect with, and eventually treat them - we cannot do that if we're so hell bent on avoiding and acknowledging our part in this, the failure of our society to uphold not only its own end of the basic social contract, but even simple human decency itself.

Quote:
We've been in hot pursuit of "rehabilitation" for a hundred years and we haven't caught it yet. We bought into a medical model that we knew in our hearts was pure junk. You break a bone, you go to physiotherapy, you work with the therapist, you follow the program, you take the medicine, the cast comes off, the arm works again ... it's rehabilitated. But the kids we're talking about today never functioned. They dysfunctioned starting before they ever came into the juvenile justice system. What can we return them to?

Child protective and juvenile justice professionals pay a terrible price for not being willing to take responsibility for these kids. That price is giving up the control we need to prove once and for all that we can do the job.

We don't want to bite the bullet and admit that there are certain human beings on this planet, in this country, in our cities who need basic socialization before they can be among us. I don't mean that these kids need exotic drugs; I don't mean that they need bizarre treatment modalities. I mean they need to learn how to be human beings. They can't learn that on the street. They can't learn that in group homes.

And that therein lies the key, these kids either never learned basic humanity and social mores, never developed empathy, or what they had was crushed out of them by institutional failure to even consider them human - frankly, if THEY were never given even that most basic level of decency, why the hell would they even be inclined to offer it to anyone else ?

As to why this is so damn important...

Quote:
I tell such people, "The cost-benefit analysis you do is a lie. Just a plain lie. You don't know how, or don't care, to put a value on a human life. One kid stalking the city streets, a dangerous, sociopathic human being reeking with the potential to take human life may not be worth the price of a .38 Special bullet to blow him away. But the life he can take, the destruction he can cause, is worth an enormous amount of money, especially if we perceive it as an investment. And it's like any other long-term investment: the earlier you invest, the greater the return at the end."

Pennies now versus Dollars later, even stripped of any morality at all the equation is very clear, but our sound-byte society itself is so dysfunctional that its all about the short term, immediate thing - a "lighter" version of THE SAME THING, only writ large, the same way our do-as-I-say-or-else foreign policy is the exact same thing as an abusive Authoritarian household, writ large.
And so we need to get in there BEFORE the damage is done, and prevent it FROM being done, which isn't easy in a society and legal system which is almost tailor-made to *DO* that exact kind of damage to people.

About the only thing which gives me any hope is that despite being tailor made, in some cases precisely designed, to do exactly that... due to natural human empathy it still mostly FAILS, these badly broken kids are still a SMALL percentage of humanity despite every effort on behalf of those in power to make them a majority.
(because they're perfect mooks and cannon fodder for the Oligarchs, you see ?)

Looking at it from the angle of semi-intentional design, created almost inadvertently by those in power wanting to stay there, puts me of a mind of a line from V for Vendetta.

I had to see it. There wasn't much left. But when I was there it was strange. I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected. It's like I could see the whole thing, one long chain of events that stretched all the way back before Larkhill. I felt like I could see everything that happened, and everything that is going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern, laid out in front of me. And I realised we're all part of it, and all trapped by it....

But the loose thread to this tapestry, is human empathy, which despite every effort to abuse, crush, or medicate it out of them, tends to endure in all but the smallest percentage, those already badly damaged when they come into the care of our systems.
Address THAT, and it's a full win at a single stroke.

-Frem

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:39 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Are all violent actions the result of mental illness?

You know, I tend to think that way, to a point. E.g. men that beat, or rape women, have something bad in their brains, that ordinary/healthy men don't have (not just 'less self control').

But taking things to extremes, it's hard to see that the entire state of Nazi Germany fell mentally ill.

Quote:
Does a couple of sessions, or even a year of counselling help someone who fantastises or acts out sexually with children? Are people suggesting there is some drug treatment that will assist?

I think we're a long way from complete understanding of how the brain works, and even further from mastery over it. We'll get there, but that will come with its own Miranda-style ethical quandaries about what behaviours/thought processes we root out of the human brain.

It's not personal. It's just war.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:42 AM

Yes and no.

Heh.

All right, longer explanation. No, it's not all mental illness. Some kinds of violence are perfectly valid and not insane but rather what we'd expect any human to reasonably do.

A person is tackled to the ground. After struggling with their attacker for a while, they instinctively grab something their hand can reach, and hit them in the head with a rock and manage to kill them. Violent? Yes. Reflex? Yes. Not even the result of a conscious decision. But could we honestly say that none of us would struggle or do the same thing in that situation?

That said - EVERYONE is insane, though in different ways. And what I just described is a symptom of it.

As for what Frem said, teaching people empathy young can help, but I also think, given the right conditions and stimulus, anyone can break through. You just have to know what you're dealing with, because it's never the same for anyone.

I don't know if anyone here remembers, but there was a story in the news about a lady who managed to talk down a would be shooter. You want to know what heroism is? It's not the concealed carry permit who goes in guns blazing to take out the shooter madman riding on a wave of personal glory, who fantasized endlessly about just that situation before they found themselves in it. It's not the guy who finally takes down the suicidal gunman.

It's that lady. She's the kind of person who can not only solve the problem but make the situation better for everyone. She sees her own would be killer as her own son or daughter. It's the Tiananman Square Tank Guy, looking down the barrels of his own fellow countrymen and forcing them to rethink what they're doing to their own people. They're the people who rarely get noticed, rarely get remembered, often aren't recognized for being heroes, and they tend to disappear, but those kinds of people are actually everywhere. They're the fabric of society.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 11:43 AM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Are all violent actions the result of mental illness?

You know, I tend to think that way, to a point. E.g. men that beat, or rape women, have something bad in their brains, that ordinary/healthy men don't have (not just 'less self control').

But taking things to extremes, it's hard to see that the entire state of Nazi Germany fell mentally ill.

You'd be surprised.

Germany in the late 19th/early 20th century had a cultural profile that combined all that Victorian social hypocrisy with a fetish for military power. Remember, these were the times when teachers flogged students for slight transgressions and husbands beat their wives with impunity.

It was a thoroughly sick society, in other words.

Consider Colonialism as a precursor. The casual dismissal of people of color from the ranks of humanity by all of Europe and its global spawn was not fundamentally different from the mechanisms that allowed Germans to witness, perpetrate and tolerate the shoah. They just turned the dial from "enslave" to "destroy", and people tuned it out the same way we tune out vaguely uncomfortable facts today.

How often do we care to confront the issue of violence and rape in prisons? I mean, it's just prisoners, right? They probably deserve it. Best not to think about it at all and focus on other big issues like global warming (or, for comparison, WW2 as it is happening).

I'm very much with Frem on this. Children absorb the reality of society, and the sicker the message, the sicker the children. If you don't have parental love to buffer the harshness, to demonstrate and teach empathy, you're going to look at a mentally dysfunctional individual.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 11:55 AM

Quote:
If you don't have parental love to buffer the harshness, to demonstrate and teach empathy, you're going to look at a mentally dysfunctional individual.

A child might care about their parents, but when society doesn't match up with what the parents are saying, that's when you get a rebellious teenager.

I didn't learn about empathy from my parents. I learned about it from books. I think society has a bigger impact on kids than parents ever could.

Look at that shooter kid. His parents gave him everything, had him seeing therapists, and he still felt abandoned by them. And a lot of the stuff he saying and his hate he had for everyone I don't think he learned from them.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 12:48 PM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Quote:
If you don't have parental love to buffer the harshness, to demonstrate and teach empathy, you're going to look at a mentally dysfunctional individual.

A child might care about their parents, but when society doesn't match up with what the parents are saying, that's when you get a rebellious teenager.

I didn't learn about empathy from my parents. I learned about it from books. I think society has a bigger impact on kids than parents ever could.

Look at that shooter kid. His parents gave him everything, had him seeing therapists, and he still felt abandoned by them. And a lot of the stuff he saying and his hate he had for everyone I don't think he learned from them.

I don't think the shooter kid is necessarily very representative of most people. We don't really know the dynamics of the family, the kind of psychiatric care he received, the biological vs. psychological causes of his mental state.

But what I meant was less what the parents are saying but what they are doing. If the parents aren't massive hypocrites but instead consistently practice empathy, honesty and responsibility (and there are people like this), then they are a living, trustworthy embodiment of their own values and more likely to pass it on to their child, especially if they acknowledge contrasting aspects of larger society.

It doesn't eliminate all potential outward harm. But it certainly equips the child with a much greater capacity for healthy choices.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 1:00 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Who are you to judge "mental illness"?

Seriously, if you spend more than 10 minutes a week in the RWED, I want a new judge for Insanity.

If you were even half as stable as you believe yourself to be, you'd be posting in the normal-people threads here and would steer clear from the RWED.

Fucking loony......

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 1:27 PM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:11 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
You'd be surprised.

Germany in the late 19th/early 20th century had a cultural profile that combined all that Victorian social hypocrisy with a fetish for military power. Remember, these were the times when teachers flogged students for slight transgressions and husbands beat their wives with impunity.

It was a thoroughly sick society, in other words.

Exactly - Alice Miller details it thoroughly here.
http://www.naturalchild.org/alice_miller/adolf_hitler.html

And while I've not the time to break it down the way I did the speech above, there is a LOT more here, which is worth the reading.
http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php

But a particular, and useful one, is THIS, the "Enlightened Witness".
I cannot stress how MUCH this matters.
http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=41&grp
=11

-Frem

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:41 PM

Gosh, great replies. Like the old days on the forum. Where is Niki on this issue? She hardly drops by these days.

Haven't got time to respond til later today.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 6:35 PM

Elliot Rodger killed 6 people.
Who's responsible?
Elliot Rodger.
(So too James Holmes, Jiverly Wong, Michael McLendon & Billy the Kid for
their murders.)

WHY do I say that he alone was responsible? Because it works. It works
a little bit. ... Well, it works better than endlessly passing the buck.

Violent behavior is a lesson in Personal Responsibility.
It is Not a lesson in What's wrong with our society, because that way lies
more insanity. I can't fix society. I can only fix me.
Society can't fix itself either, so I'm not gonna go there. Society is US.

If a child can learn by the age of 7 that he & he alone is responsible for
his own feelings and his own actions, it will save him a hell of a lot of
grief. He cannot, most likely, BE fully responsible at that age, but if he
gets the concept, he can start practicing. If he can't learn, he's screwed.

Yes. He needs nurturing and guidance. But ... every kid doesn't get that.
They're just not there. His parents never got those things, and now, they
don't have them to give. The kid is on his own. He'll either learn what works
or he won't. It's almost like a stone wall. He can't get thru it until he gets
thru it.

I am well aware of the fact that biochemical illnesses such as schizophrenia,
manic depression, Alzheimer's cause really diminished capacity. But even there,
the patient must be responsible for his behavior. He can't -- but he is. It's a
Koan. ... Things like stay on his meds. If his therapist sucks, find a new one.
A Lotta days will be like this: "OK. I'm crazy right now. And I am still respon-
sible for what I do."

Blaming others is an endless exercise in futility. It's irresponsible.

"If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take
responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim." ~Richard Bach

KISS.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

Lighten up, Oonj.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 6:44 PM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 6:54 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

MD, you are likely asking about the US problem.
The mental illness issue arose after "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was released and hospitals were required to release their patients. The crazy cannot be locked up, including this guy who's mother tried to get him admitted but the law didn't allow it.

Other problems with homicidal episodes are psychotropic drugs which are prescribed which cause psychotic breaks and then mothers kill their kids, people kill their friends, but the doctors are not held responsible in any way for causing the violence.

In general, roid rage and other drugs also causes violence, but that is likely not what you were asking about.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:24 PM

Alcohol brings out Mr. Hyde in many folks ...
while seriously impairing judgement and coordination.

What a great drug!!

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:

Alcohol brings out Mr. Hyde in many folks ...
while seriously impairing judgement and coordination.

What a great drug!!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 10:06 AM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 12:54 PM

I prefer to ask the alcoholics themselves.
(Replies may vary depending on state of inebriation.)

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:05 PM

Quote:
WHY do I say that he alone was responsible? Because it works. It works
a little bit. ... Well, it works better than endlessly passing the buck.

Violent behavior is a lesson in Personal Responsibility.
It is Not a lesson in What's wrong with our society, because that way lies
more insanity. I can't fix society. I can only fix me.
Society can't fix itself either, so I'm not gonna go there. Society is US.

Well, yes. But society is an unnatural construct within which we live in which has numerous pressures that affect our daily choices and beliefs. No one lives in a vacuum.

And when you're the one who's broken, it's a bad idea to try to fix yourself. Because you don't know what a non-broken state looks like. You've never experienced it. It's why doctors don't perform surgery on themselves.

Most the rest of us aren't in a non-broken state either, but we can kinda get an idea of what that might look like through averages and statistics. Then based on that we can attempt to measure conditions of the emotional environment which can affect people, and approach social change in an effort to create the best possible environment for the broad swath of differences that each human will exhibit.

And mostly we focus on changing society because to be honest, our current society sucks donkey balls from a mental health perspective. It almost seems (and probably is) engineered to create the most socially isolated and stressful experience possible for a human being as a motivating factor for labor resources. So why are we surprised when some people react in a very negative way to that, and why DON'T we try to fix it?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:07 PM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
why are we surprised when some people react in a very negative way to that, and why DON'T we try to fix it?

People have to learn to "Just say no" to mental illness when they feel it creeping up on them! It's simple 'Trickle-Down' Psychiatry.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:52 PM

Quote Bytemite: "it's a bad idea to try to fix yourself. ...
to be honest, our current society sucks donkey balls from a mental
health perspective."

Ok. Don't rely on myself. And don't turn to Mental Health.
So who's gonna fix me?

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Ok. Don't rely on myself. And don't turn to Mental Health.
So who's gonna fix me?

Why, the NRA of course!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 2:14 PM

Should I buy the gun first, then seek Bartender(Ph.D.) counsel?

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 2:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Should I buy the gun first, then seek Bartender(Ph.D.)

That's the generally accepted sequence.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Quote Bytemite: "it's a bad idea to try to fix yourself. ...
to be honest, our current society sucks donkey balls from a mental
health perspective."
Ok. Don't rely on myself. And don't turn to Mental Health.
So who's gonna fix me?

Do you know the mindboggling extent of self-diagnosis that happens nowadays, and the results of what happens when people try to self-medicate without knowing what the hell they're doing?

Because I do. I've seen someone die from alcohol self-medicating and addiction over years and years. And I just saw you make a joke about it.

You're looking at mental health and brain chemistry and structural issues like you would learning how to fix a car. It's not about what self-affirmative motto we can we slap on this person like patching a computer. It's not about how many self-help books we can get them to read. Helping a person is insanely complicated because the mind is insanely complicated and we still don't have a good idea how it works.

I was in remission for about five years due to medications I was on, and it made me such a lobotomized emotionally stunted moron that I decided I'm never doing that again. And that was with the help of trained professionals who knew more than I did at the time about chemicals and side effects. Can you just IMAGINE me trying to self medicate at 10-13 years old? Utter disaster.

And look at the stories Frem has to tell about having to help the people that this society has chewed up and spit out. It doesn't always end well. Because it is NOT EASY. And when you're the person it's happening to, it's even HARDER.

The point of my post is that genetics is the gun, but ENVIRONMENT pulls the trigger. I don't disagree that people have some responsibility for themselves, but I thought helping each other was kind of an in vogue thing to do.

So again, why SHOULDN'T we try to change society?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:54 PM

Quote Bytemite: "So again, why SHOULDN'T we try to change society?"

I didn't say we shouldn't try to change society; what I meant was: It
does no good to Blame society. It's passing the buck. To me, it's neb-
ulous, beyond my grasp. WE are Society. To make a positive difference,
we need to change the things we can. Grassroots changes.

In my case, the 1st person in my society that needed fixed was me. So
I started there and stuck with it til I got a handle on some stuff that
works. Not finished yet.

Am I well/strong enough to participate in larger society? The direct oppo-
site of some more responsible people, I ignore my local town & govern-
ment. (A long time county supervisor is on trial here; I don't even know
what he's charged with.) A few years ago, I did attempt to join in & be
constructive. I joined a club and worked hard in it. My social skills suck,
& I got tossed. Haven't healed from that.

Using energy & resources at my disposal, I try to help neighbors while
I take care of myself. They help me too. It's sharing.

When I talk to kids who are broken, I tell 'em what worked for me.
At best, this is uphill. Mostly those who need help desperately aren't
able to listen, can't even define their problem yet. They need to stop
running, get quiet inside, find a few moments of honest contemplation.
But that's the furthest thing from their minds.

I know what I am. I know what I have to give and what I don't have.
So now I'm in different club(s).

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 5:34 PM

Quote:
Itdoes no good to Blame society. It's passing the buck. To me, it's nebulous, beyond my grasp. WE are Society. To make a positive difference, we need to change the things we can. Grassroots changes.

Ahh. Okay, that makes sense.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 6:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Ahh. Okay, that makes sense.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

OK.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 6:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

You're looking at mental health and brain chemistry and structural issues like you would learning how to fix a car. It's not about what self-affirmative motto we can we slap on this person like patching a computer. It's not about how many self-help books we can get them to read. Helping a person is insanely complicated because the mind is insanely complicated and we still don't have a good idea how it works.

I was in remission for about five years due to medications I was on, and it made me such a lobotomized emotionally stunted moron that I decided I'm never doing that again. And that was with the help of trained professionals who knew more than I did at the time about chemicals and side effects. Can you just IMAGINE me trying to self medicate at 10-13 years old? Utter disaster.

And look at the stories Frem has to tell about having to help the people that this society has chewed up and spit out. It doesn't always end well. Because it is NOT EASY. And when you're the person it's happening to, it's even HARDER.

Yep, that's my experience too. Offering help to people, well firstly you have to have some capacity for insight. Counselling/behaviour change groups have low success rates with mandated clients. You have to accept that you have some capacity for change and need to change. There are those people who externalise everything. It's all other people's fault.

Then there are those who have big pay offs for their destructive behaviour. They gain power, money, priveledge through what they do. Their behaviour is rewarded. Are they mentally ill?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 9:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:

Then there are those who have big pay offs for their destructive behaviour. They gain power, money, priveledge through what they do. Their behaviour is rewarded. Are they mentally ill?

Can be. Depends on if it's still self-destructive despite the benefits they gain from it.

Mental health is usually defined as functional and not liable to hurt oneself or others through ingrained behaviours and habits.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 29, 2014 10:03 PM

Elliot Carver: "The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success."

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 1:34 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Thoughts/Followup

MIKER

Quote:
Right now the mentally ill’s rights are blocking what judges can do. We need to fix that.

Now, while the rest of that post was insightful and had some good ideas... this right here is, is... how to even put it in words?!
Like nuking an anthill ?

Any time, ANY, the notion of Human Rights as an OBSTACLE is presented, it's worth remembering that "obstacle" is there for very fucking good reasons.
Case in point, Police conduct, when they start seeing Human/Civil Rights and Legal Protections as an "obstacle" to them doing their job - in fact that, more than the "War on (some) Drugs" is the primary core issue responsible for the epidemic of brutality and outrageous conduct coming from that quarter, and replicating that failure within the Mental Health System would be a disaster of unprecedented proportions, ESPECIALLY when it would be misused by a Legal/Social system already hell bent on classifying resistance of any kind as an illness or disorder.

How Teenage Rebellion Has Become a Mental Illness
http://www.alternet.org/story/75081/how_teenage_rebellion_has_become_a
_mental_illness

Are the Young People That Shrinks Label as Disruptive Really Anarchists with a Healthy Resistance to Oppressive Authority?
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/anarchists-oppressed-psychiatr
y-and-underground-resistance?paging=off¤t_page=1
(See Also: Hellcamps)

Of particular interest to me, especially given the mention of police behavior above, is how *NOT* being a brutal thug is prelude to accusations of Mental Illness.

God vs. Taser: Officer Sues APD
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2006-12-29/432110/
This for refusing to Taser an old man which his partner had just shoved from behind unprovoked.

Quote:
Indeed, Logan's four-page report mentions nothing about word games and instead focuses almost entirely on Perez's moral and religious beliefs, which Logan concludes are so strong they are an "impairment" to his ability to be a police officer. The report concludes that Perez, a self-described nondenominational fundamentalist Christian, is in fact so impaired by his moral convictions that he is incapable of taking in and processing information – especially that which may be in conflict with his already-held beliefs. Perez is "defensive" and not able to take in "feedback" from supervisors, she wrote.

Officer Regina Tasca Goes "Rogue"
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2012/04/officer-regina-tasca-goes
-rogue.html
This for stepping in and STOPPING an unprovoked thugscrum beatdown on someone having a bit of a breakdown.

Quote:
After being put on suspension, Tasca was subjected to a psychological evaluation by Dr. Matthew Geller, a psychiatrist who does contact work for New Jersey law enforcement agencies. Geller provided the diagnosis he had been paid for, ruling that Tasca was unfit for duty. At the same time, the Bogota PD’s internal affairs officer produced a report concluding that Tasca’s refusal to assist Officer Fowler in the April 3 incident demonstrated her unfitness.

Not meaning to have at you personally, MIKER, just that it really needs to be brought into sharp focus and addressed that the notion of Rights-as-Obstacle is wholly destructive and should be rejected completely.

G

Quote:
One thing that hit me - especially in the context of forums where people come to be heard - was your line, "no damn body listens to them." Makes me think we need professional listeners. Maybe that's the (un)intended but real benefit of psychiatrists - somebody listening. I know that ranks up pretty high on my list of what torques me up in real life.

You're probably onto something there - in both directions.

One reason a lot of the kids I have dealt with became psychiatrically iatrogenic, and saw mental health personnel as "the enemy" was that not only were they NOT listened to by shrinks working for or in league with the school, but that such shrinks actively ignored and overrode them, becoming complicit in helping railroad them into hellcamps.
I could even name some names, cause some of them are the schools go-to-guys for that very purpose.
Reason this is so important is that once a person HAS become psychiatrically iatrogenic, the difficulty of helping them AT ALL multiplies exponentially, and even in cases where the patient isn't, the fear of being "ratted" by a shrink who may or may not be legally mandated to do so is often enough to cause people to avoid treatment because they cannot trust in the confidentiality of that relationship.
My specific case in this is a little different in that some of the things which might become topics of discussion might be considered classified and/or involve admission of some pretty serious criminal activity, which not only raises concerns about them not keeping their damn mouth shut, but also about putting the poor bastard in the sights of folks not particularly inclined to respect Human Rights even when the law requires it.

In the other direction, hell yes, in fact just having someone listen - EVEN IF THEY CAN DO NOTHING TO HELP YOU, is as far as we can tell, *THE* deciding factor between whether someone severely abused turns out a monster or not - still not all that sure as to why, demonstration of empathy, certainly, but with everyone hell bent on the same old tired excuses and blameshifting, not a lot of research has been done on this outside of Doc Perrys work, and even that is still pretty basic stuff.
I re-iterate one of the links above.
The Essential Role of an Enlightened Witness in Society
http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php?page=2

Quote:
When I began to illustrate my thesis by drawing on the examples of Hitler and Stalin, when I tried to expose the social consequences of child abuse, I encountered fierce resistance. Repeatedly I was told, "I, too, was a battered child, but that didn't make me a criminal." When I asked for details about their childhood, I was always told of a person who loved them, but was unable to protect them. Yet through his or her presence, this person gave them a notion of trust, and of love.
I call these persons helping witnesses.

In other words - Someone LISTENED.

BYTEMITE

Quote:
I don't know if anyone here remembers, but there was a story in the news about a lady who managed to talk down a would be shooter. You want to know what heroism is? It's not the concealed carry permit who goes in guns blazing to take out the shooter madman riding on a wave of personal glory, who fantasized endlessly about just that situation before they found themselves in it. It's not the guy who finally takes down the suicidal gunman.

It's that lady. She's the kind of person who can not only solve the problem but make the situation better for everyone. She sees her own would be killer as her own son or daughter. It's the Tiananman Square Tank Guy, looking down the barrels of his own fellow countrymen and forcing them to rethink what they're doing to their own people. They're the people who rarely get noticed, rarely get remembered, often aren't recognized for being heroes, and they tend to disappear, but those kinds of people are actually everywhere. They're the fabric of society.

Very cogent - but also worth the mention is the person who, with a few quiet words or deeds, heads this off even long before that point, making it never happen AT ALL, in the first place.
I recognize this more directly cause it ties in with my paying job, given that I have a copy of the Peelian Principles on the back of my office, which includes one that our so-called-police forces have forgotten in their efforts to get publicity and high profile busts even if they themselves have to manufacture the plot which creates one.

Quote:
To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

In *MY* work, the words "no substantial activity" are the win-condition.
Alternatively this can be used to mindscrew the bad guys too.

Quote:
Cmdr. Susan Ivanova: Absolutely nothing happened in Sector 83 by 9 by 12 today. I repeat, nothing happened in Sector 83 by 9 by 12.

But yeah, as a rule, those who's actions defuse situations before they ever come anywhere close to that point, save uncountable lives in the doing.

BYTEMITE

Quote:
A child might care about their parents, but when society doesn't match up with what the parents are saying, that's when you get a rebellious teenager.

Yep, as above where I pointed out that trying to tell them 2+2=5 and force them to deny the realities of things they see clearer than we do cause they have no yet forced themselves to do so undermines our credibility and causes them to discard even the useful and necessary information.
Never forget that the first person we teach children to lie to, is themselves.

MAGONS

Quote:
Then there are those who have big pay offs for their destructive behaviour. They gain power, money, priveledge through what they do. Their behaviour is rewarded. Are they mentally ill?

In short, HELL FUCKING YES, and probably *worse* off, or would be, in any sane society which didn't reward that shit.

Why Does the World Feel Wrong?
http://strike-the-root.com/91/groves/groves1.html

Quote:
Our battle for liberty appears not just as a conflict between those who want freedom versus those who want control, but instead as the battle between normal people and the psychopaths. I have found incredible explanatory power of our world within the psychopathic hypothesis: The world feels wrong because psychopaths run it. In a country trained to discount and ridicule all ideas more than a standard deviation from the average, coherent explanations of observable social phenomena don't get much press. Without understanding physical laws, we would never have gained the massive improvements in our quality of life from technological developments. Similarly, without understanding our social systems, we will never escape from the tyranny unleashed on us by psychopaths. We should spread the word and explore this rich vein of thought with vigor.

Really, look at it, scale it down all the way to single family.
The United States is an abusive household writ large, in our conduct, in our legal system, in our foreign policy - THIS IS WHAT IT IS.
And also how it got there.

And in closing, YES, if society is to blame, then you land the blame there.
But the blame for this sorta thing isn't mutually exclusive, there's a lot of other factors, sure - but inanimate objects or their availability ain't one of em and ain't never gonna be, THAT, more than anything else, is the real buck-passing.

I do favor the notion of being the change you wish to see - but my growing cognitive impairment weakening the leash on my temper is doin me no damn favors on that front, sadly, and this is a medical, more than psychological issue, which due to our fuckedup healthcare system, I can do effectively nothing about.

-Frem

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 10:12 AM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 11:14 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Interesting question, interesting replies.

IMHO, the same thing applies here as in the Fat Kids of Boston thread- you have a variety of people each with their own hormonal makeup and preferred set of responses and (in some cases) pathologies (You can see this in babies: some are quiet and observant, some are boisterous, some need a lot of sleep and others are more wakeful, some have seizures...) interacting with a wide variety of circumstances. There is no single answer for "all" violent behavior. All we can do is talk about averages and outliers.

Knowing how some neighborhoods are, violent behavior is sometimes the only SANE response. Heck, when you grow up in fear for your life just walking to school, PTSD is probably baked into your personality pretty early. The fact that it is self-perpetuated violence* doesn't make violence any less of a sane response. It would take a supremely conscious person or group of people to be able to look past the immediate environment of constant threatened personal violence to do something INSANE and break the pattern.

However, there are people with pathologies, whose behavior really is internally driven. Despite circumstances, some aren't in the real world (ie they hear/see/feel things that nobody else does) or respond in violent ways that only a rare few do. Those people would be a problem in ANY society. I expect that they (the violent disconnected) make up less than 1% of the overall population, since most people with pathologies tend to be self-injurious rather than violent.

*These subcultures would never exist in a non-exploitative society.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 2:39 PM

Oh. Oh no.

Miker, you must flee, you know not your peril.

But before you go, ask yourself if some of the same arguments were made about why women had to have special protections (which were actually restrictions) under the law. Ask yourself why women weren't given the vote, and why it was okay for a husband to hit his wife.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 7:48 PM

Do you expect a 2 year old to have the same cognitive capacity as an adult woman?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 8:52 PM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 10:25 PM

Quote:
One is absolutely wrong and oppressive, even cruel and very abusive. The other is needed to help protect the health and well being of another.

These are actually the same thing. If a man thought his wife was unable to make decisions for herself, and that he had to step in for her health and well being, that would be abuse. And it certainly doesn't demonstrate respect for the person subject to those rules.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 11:21 PM

Once I found Serenity

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 11:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
I am talking about in this country and the truly mentally ill who are functioning with a limited grasp of reality, or intelligence. Someone who can not function in the world without the use of drugs and shows that even with them they continue to show unhealthy judgment or behavior.

Oh. Politicians.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 11:43 PM

Its a good thing to think carefully about the impact on rights of the individual, because they can so often be removed for the wrong reasons rather than the right, but again its a spectrum isn't it? Preserving one individuals rights should not impact on the safety of society at large, and I guess those are the difficult decisions Miker refers to. It's easy to get it wrong either way.

The whole business of classifying, understanding and treating mental illness if far from perfect. In fact its incredibly flawed.

If you look at the vast difference of 'disorders' from mild depression (gee my dad just died and I feel down, I guess I must have a mental illness) to severe psychosis or severe depressive catatonia, to the whole other ball game of personality disorders. Then there is the whole host of childhood diagnoses like ADHD and ODD. Then there are addiction issues. These 'illnesses' are streets away from one another in terms of the impact on the individual and society at large, but also on the treatment.

Treatment of personality disorders is extememly difficult because sufferers often don't have the insight to work out something is wrong, and often alienate loved ones before they intervene. And in the end, if someone refuses treatment, and treatment options are less than effective anyway, what are you left with? People who create havoc throughout society, not necessarily violent.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 30, 2014 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
what are you left with?

Nothing.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, May 31, 2014 3:18 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

How much do mental health treatments really help those who have personality disorders
we went through about 7 different drugs to find on that helped hubbs
There's a lot of broken people. Who can help 'em and how?
predatory society
Some kinds of violence are perfectly valid and not insane but rather what we'd expect any human to reasonably do.
Children absorb the reality of society
And a lot of the stuff he saying and his hate he had for everyone I don't think he learned from them.
If the parents aren't ... consistently practice empathy, honesty and responsibility
The chemicals in the rugs that are in our homes
Right now the mentally ill’s rights are blocking what judges can do.
All that we can do will lower the hostility rates and give more people hope that they are being dealt the same hand in life as everyone else.
better background checks for those wishing to purchase a gun
it works better than endlessly passing the buck
A Lotta days will be like this: "OK. I'm crazy right now. And I am still respon-
sible for what I do."
The mental illness issue arose after "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was released and hospitals were required to release their patients.
our current society ... probably is engineered to create the most socially isolated and stressful experience possible for a human being as a motivating factor for labor resources
Their behaviour is rewarded. Are they mentally ill?
ask yourself if some of the same arguments were made about why women had to have special protections
Do you expect a 2 year old to have the same cognitive capacity as an adult woman?

I just picked those phrases out to remind me of specific things.

You gotta remember the brain is the most complex thing we've run across in the universe to date. I can see how it could take a lot of tweaking before it becomes completely non-functional and the person dies. So I see a lot of latitude for people not working right. And it's not always the parent's fault, the fault of schools, or a messed-up society - at least not directly.

Look at autism. They used to think it was exceedingly rare and caused by refrigerator mothers. They thought in the not too distant past it was maybe 1 in 10,000. Then 1 in 1,000. Then 1/800 ... 500 ... 88 ... at last check 66. And now it's been demonstrated in utero. I have absolutely no doubt that this society is exploitive. But it doesn't cause autism, at least not directly. What is the problem exactly? That's the billion dollar question. But it isn't refrigerator mothers or bad schools.

And dropping lead levels (goodbye tetraethyl lead and lead oxide pigment) are linked to dropping violence. This is an example of a social ill that is also a stupid dumb mechanical problem with a (substantial) stupid dumb mechanical fix.

There's genetics. There's epigenetics. Chemicals. Viruses. Hormones. Diet. My thought is that brains are nearly infinitely able to be biased or scrambled in a non-fatal way - and all before birth.

If it wasn't so we wouldn't see the infinite personalities that exist.

[img]

[/img]

OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.

"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, May 31, 2014 2:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Quote:
One is absolutely wrong and oppressive, even cruel and very abusive. The other is needed to help protect the health and well being of another.

These are actually the same thing. If a man thought his wife was unable to make decisions for herself, and that he had to step in for her health and well being, that would be abuse. And it certainly doesn't demonstrate respect for the person subject to those rules.

If a man thought his wife was unable to make decisions for herself, and that he had to step in for her health and well being and she was not really mentally ill then he is a moron. The courts should not allow it and she should move on.

I am talking about in this country and the truly mentally ill who are functioning with a limited grasp of reality, or intelligence. Someone who can not function in the world without the use of drugs and shows that even with them they continue to show unhealthy judgment or behavior.

We were talking about mental health... Then you mentioned children.

Frem is a big advocate of equal rights for kids in order to stop the abuse and how people look the other way.

And I kinda agree with him, but I'm not going to flame you like Frem inevitably is going to.

And for that matter, we shouldn't treat people with mental illness like second class citizens either.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, May 31, 2014 2:08 PM