a different take in light of recent events

mickeyratmickeyrat Posts: 38,717
edited December 2012 in A Moving Train
we , who sit in judgement with half the facts and armed with little more than opinion would do well to see it a different way.
We will never know what was going on in that house but this article is a possiblity.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/1 ... 11009.html
Written by Liza Long, republished from The Blue Review

Friday’s horrific national tragedy -- the murder of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut -- has ignited a new discussion on violence in America. In kitchens and coffee shops across the country, we tearfully debate the many faces of violence in America: gun culture, media violence, lack of mental health services, overt and covert wars abroad, religion, politics and the way we raise our children. Liza Long, a writer based in Boise, says it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

While every family's story of mental illness is different, and we may never know the whole of the Lanza's story, tales like this one need to be heard -- and families who live them deserve our help.


Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.

“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”

“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan -- they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.

We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.

At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off.

Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18.

The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?”

“No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.”

His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.”

That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.
“Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?”

“You know where we are going,” I replied.

“No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!”

I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.”

Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer.
The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork -- “Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have…”

At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.

For days, my son insisted that I was lying -- that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.”

By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore.

On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”

And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise -- in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population.

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill -- Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011.

No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”

I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.

God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________

Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • oona leftoona left Posts: 1,677
    I read this earlier, and have seen it pop up on half a dozen sites since.

    I'm grateful this woman wrote this and shared it with all of us.
  • Thanks for posting this. A mental health nightmare from the inside.
    This is where I should have posted 'Oh for the innocents'.
    I'd like us to start talking about these 3 issues: mental illness, the breakdown of family and what happens when endless hours are being spent with such an array of techno-toys rather than real live family members in work & play. Also, these endless hours don't even have to be violent video watching though studies long ago showed what our brains look like when overdosed with such. But we, and not just our kids, are also numbing & overloading our own brains and though these studies are just starting to pop up there's a common sense bottom line to all of it: overindulgence of anything is just too much and that includes TV & computers.
    It's time to consider just what exampled lesson we are teaching our own kids.
    I will post this on "oh for the Innocents" as well. Hopefully, a few of us will stick to either thread for a bit.
  • I think riotgirl and brianlux discussed prevention in another thread. Such an important topic. There's such a disconnect among people. We don't talk, we don't connect, we don't develop empathy. Put a kid with a certain predisposition in an invalidating environment and you can create a personality disorder; someone who lacks empathy, who struggles to ever take any personal responsibility, who blames others for every problem they ever encounter and always sees themselves as the victim. Once created there is no easy cure...no medication, no quick fix, insurance companies aren't going to touch treatment with a 10 foot pole. As dancepartner said on the "Oh for the innocents" thread, we all have to take some accountability. What are the things we value in this world? What are our priorities? How can we changes this? Because we have to.
    tumblr_mg4nc33pIX1s1mie8o1_400.gif

    "I need your strength for me to be strong...I need your love to feel loved"
  • comebackgirl; good questions. Moving beyond bickering and hopelessness. Someone else posted a thread about a few good things that happened this year. I think part of getting over feeling like there's nothing we can do, is to first remember there's a great many good and decent people who'd like to. We need to build from that.
  • mickeyratmickeyrat Posts: 38,717
    monday evening, really needs to be addressed bump.
    _____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________

    Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
    you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
    memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
    another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
  • riotgrlriotgrl LOUISVILLE Posts: 1,895
    I think riotgirl and brianlux discussed prevention in another thread. Such an important topic. There's such a disconnect among people. We don't talk, we don't connect, we don't develop empathy. Put a kid with a certain predisposition in an invalidating environment and you can create a personality disorder; someone who lacks empathy, who struggles to ever take any personal responsibility, who blames others for every problem they ever encounter and always sees themselves as the victim. Once created there is no easy cure...no medication, no quick fix, insurance companies aren't going to touch treatment with a 10 foot pole. As dancepartner said on the "Oh for the innocents" thread, we all have to take some accountability. What are the things we value in this world? What are our priorities? How can we changes this? Because we have to.


    Thank you. This is exactly what I am seeing as the root of so many of our problems. I see good kids day in and day out that do things that are surprising and shocking (like beat another child within an inch of their life, true story and shocked me to my core when I found out the student that did it) if they were raised in a different way and a different environment that would turn out ok. However, our modern culture creates people completely lacking in empathy that lead to the very problems we are now trying to address. Yes, what do we value? Seems like we value the wrong things and then can't seem to fathom why we get negative, destructive, self-harming effects.
    Are we getting something out of this all-encompassing trip?

    Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...

    I AM MINE
  • CosmoCosmo Posts: 12,225
    Dear Lisa,
    Just a hint... do not purchase guns. Especially, do not purchase a semi-automatic rifle. Extra-especially... do not purchase a semi-automatic weapon and 50 cases of ammo. Oh, and no 9mm, either... or shotguns... no shotguns either.... in fact, please, do not purchase ANY guns.
    Now... if you MUST purchase guns... get a .38 revolver. Only buy bullets when you go to the range. When at home, around Michael... remove the cylinder... stash it... someplace safe... away from the rest of the gun. Better yet, see if one of your trusted shooting buddies can keep your guns and ammo in his gun safe... because we all know that truely responsible gun owners keep their weapons in gun safes.
    If you don't feel safe in your home because you are afraid of intruders... try moving to sompleace where you do not need a gun. Move to Cypress, Ca. It's pretty safe here. I know, violence can strike anywhere... but, do what you can to avoid facilitating internal violence by making a weapon readily available to Michael.
    ...
    Good luck with Michael. There are a lot of capable and caring health care givers that will do what they can you provide you advice and help in your life. Seek them... use their expertise.
    peace... love... surf...
    cosmo.
    ...
    P.S. Did I mention, don't buy guns?
    Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
    Hail, Hail!!!
  • JeanwahJeanwah Posts: 6,363
    Cosmo wrote:
    Dear Lisa,
    Just a hint... do not purchase guns. Especially, do not purchase a semi-automatic rifle. Extra-especially... do not purchase a semi-automatic weapon and 50 cases of ammo. Oh, and no 9mm, either... or shotguns... no shotguns either.... in fact, please, do not purchase ANY guns.
    Now... if you MUST purchase guns... get a .38 revolver. Only buy bullets when you go to the range. When at home, around Michael... remove the cylinder... stash it... someplace safe... away from the rest of the gun. Better yet, see if one of your trusted shooting buddies can keep your guns and ammo in his gun safe... because we all know that truely responsible gun owners keep their weapons in gun safes.
    If you don't feel safe in your home because you are afraid of intruders... try moving to sompleace where you do not need a gun. Move to Cypress, Ca. It's pretty safe here. I know, violence can strike anywhere... but, do what you can to avoid facilitating internal violence by making a weapon readily available to Michael.
    ...
    Good luck with Michael. There are a lot of capable and caring health care givers that will do what they can you provide you advice and help in your life. Seek them... use their expertise.
    peace... love... surf...
    cosmo.
    ...
    P.S. Did I mention, don't buy guns?

    I read the OP's article yesterday and the first thing that ran through my mind is your first sentence. It's not just a mental health issue when those who are sick have access to guns.
  • The Liza story; After reading this, I wondered if the Lanza mother knew her son was like this Micheal and if so, why did she have all those guns? Well actually, I don't understand why anyone stockpiles guns even in "normal" circumstances. I do understand why anti-gov zealots think they must but even within my family, most every male has a variety, (though mostly hunting guns) yet in the scheme of things, not a one of them are militant-minded fanatics.


    Of the letter above; "They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

    This statement points to yet another attitude to add to lack of empathy, and I'd stretch empathy to include a sort of insulation barrier where emotions & priorities encompass a short-sighted me-me perception with little expansion towards community-mindedness. "This is America & I have rights" speaks of an entitlement mindset and "bitch" speaks of no basic common decency; respect or manners.
    Anyone, including Micheal, can pick up on these attitudes from the air. For the sake of argument and the fact that I'm optimistic, I'd say a good 80% of us are living examples of what constitutes basic common decency which does include empathy. However, for the other living example here, I'd say me-me and entitlement examples prevail. It's said that only 10% of any given mass is community-minded. This, I believe is something we can easily improve.
    If more of us took a stint at any of the given community issues and get out of our me-me boxes more. It doesn't have to always be at the soup line. There's a ton of other groups which are always starving for active participation; PTA, chambers, little leagues, Big Brothers & sisters, clean ups, fun runs etc....
    We want change. We start with ourselves.
  • SmellymanSmellyman Asia Posts: 4,524
    Where's Harry when you need him? He needs a code....
  • If he had a mental illness, then it was his mothers fault for having an AR 15 in the house! As mental illness rises, responsibility amongst the parents or gun holders, must rise!

    Also, I think this kid was a "gamer" with many hours of video games. Its also the parents duty to see what games he is playing and take a second look at him from a different perspective.

    Also, the culture we speak of so much is HOLLYWOOD and video games. We are creating our own HELL on earth. This shooting is a repercussion of our freedoms. We choose to have movies glorify shooting a gun and having evil rampant in our lives, we will pay a price for indoctrinating our children with that culuture.

    To me, its very simple.....tougher ratings for our movies and games. How about ban some games and movies, yeah that would help! Im not a fan of banning things however, we are teaching our youth the things we shouldnt be teaching them. My nephew asked me what a 4 hour erection is. LOL WOW If we watch one football game on sunday, he is exposed to erections, ED, sex, games, guns, etc. over 10 times during one football game. We are doing it, not the guns! We need to change from within.

    Stop the madness! Put rated R's on PG 13's! Toughen restrictions on assualt rifles. Teach parents and adults to look twice at kids with mental dissabilities. Put security in all schools but keep it out of sight from kids.

    I believe the actual coverage of the story does as much harm as anything else. The more popular the shooter becomes, the more another troubled kid thinks about doing something like it!

    Live and die by the sword!
    Theres no time like the present

    A man that stands for nothing....will fall for anything!

    All people need to do more on every level!
  • Go BeaversGo Beavers Posts: 9,104
    The child in the OP would likely benefit from a longer stay at a psychiatric residential treatment facility instead of repeatedly getting a band-aid with brief hospital stays. Her story highlights the downside to our value of the individual over the group. The mom obviously feels very desperate and like she has few alternatives, so the question is for the collective group that is our country. Are we willing to pay for the services her child needs? The mother's private insurance, if it covers a residential stay, I would probably guess would approve a one or two week stay. So if the child needs a longer stay, are we going to cover the cost, or is it a case where the government shouldn't be taking care of people?
  • Here's the problem too... what happens when the child in this letter is 18?

    Our family is dealing with an inlaw (in her 50's) who has mental issues. Everyone knows it, and at times so does she, and has been into a few facilities. But, she is an adult, she can leave whenever she wants or thinks that she is feeling better. Unless she hurts someone (or clearly threatens someone), the hospitals won't commit her for anything other than a 24 hour evaluation.

    It's a fine line to cross as well... do we want families to have the ability to commit someone against their will who really hasn't done anything wrong? Should people be medicated adults against their will if they have no past history of violence?
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • Here is a followup to that letter. Actually more of a response to the people who are trashing the mother for writing it (sad). It leaves you feeling just as helpless and heartbroken.


    SORRY EVERYONE, NOW WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH EITHER
    by REBECCA SCHOENKOPF
    There was a terribly sad post yesterday from a woman whose 13-year-old son is violent, coming after her and his siblings with knives, threatening suicide regularly. He’s as yet undiagnosed. They don’t know what’s wrong with him. I told my mom about the post, and she cried for that woman she doesn’t know.

    Within minutes, people were tweeting a takedown of the “garbage” post. The woman was “stigmatizing” mental illness by saying her son was violent. One graf:

    The article, with this link established, implies a desire to stop violent crime allegedly perpetrated by those with mental illness should motivate better care and provision for those with mental illness, and not, say, the lower life expectancy, unemployment, isolation, suicidality, homelessness, victimization or in general the suffering endured by those with it. The continual disregard for this reality perpetuates stigma on all levels of society and further exposes those with mental illness to harm.

    It is somehow a zero-sum game between stopping violent crime “allegedly” perpetrated by those with mental illness and addressing their sad prospects. Also, only people with mental illness suffer because of mental illness, and not, say, their caretakers who love them. Also also, the woman had told only her own point-of-view instead of her son’s, as if that were possible. There are six such points. I found none of them convincing. Maybe you would! I’m not the boss of you! (Who am I kidding, of course I am.)

    Within hours, other people on the web pointed out the woman loved Reagan, made her son hike up mountains, and even wrote about fantasizing about throttling him.

    I want to murder my son all the time. I probably want to murder him right now, and he just cheerfully fetched me a cup of coffee. That, however, is not the point. The point is that now, if you say someone must have been insane to shoot up a school full of children without a state-sanctioned purpose, you are saying people with mental illnesses are all mass murderers.

    This is — how to say — not a rational response. Which is more dehumanizing: saying someone who would shoot up a school must have something wrong in their brain (an “illness,” “mentally,” as it were) or saying the person is an evil monster?

    I got it for hours on Twitter yesterday from people who said I was slurring the mentally ill by saying anyone who would do that kind of violence must be, by definition, mentally ill. I got dozens of haranguing, aggressive tweets from a man who claimed he’d just logically shown there was more of a correlation between rape and mass murder than mental illness and mass murder. (He hadn’t.) He asserted the problem was the “changing narrative” in our culture — so “violent video games” I guess. People said I was an ignorant hack, tarring all mentally ill people with the violence brush. It didn’t matter how often I explained that nobody was saying all mentally ill people are violent, or even more likely to commit violence. There is a difference between depression, bipolar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, and whatever it is that causes someone to go on a spree killing. I am a big fat asshole.

    The picture above is my big brother Jesse. Jesse was the handsomest, funniest guy in the world. Where the rest of us were awkward poorly socialized nerds, he was popular, golden, built like two brick walls. Once he wore girls’ boots to high school, thinking they were unisex. Nobody said a word.

    Then he called my mom, from New York, where he’d gone to live after high school. He’d gotten beaten up by a guy for staring at him too long. He didn’t sound right. He came home. He was 19, and believed he was the reincarnation of Brian Jones. He was textbook, classic, immediate diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

    He rarely talked, just rocked back and forth on his heels. In one of the few conversations he had with my mom where he told her what he was hearing, he told her it wasn’t fair: my little brother, then just seven, got to be Brian Jones now.

    We believed this meant my little brother would have to die so Jesse would get to be Brian Jones again.

    He was 21 years old when he hanged himself in our back yard, from the rope swing that the police thoughtfully threw up into the tree branches so we wouldn’t have to see it, still there, up too high to cut down. He’d already tried it twice before: throwing himself a cliff, and, the night before his 21st birthday, eating a bowl of rat poison, with a spoon. He’d gotten out of the mental hospital a few weeks before maybe, I don’t remember. Oddly enough, the doctors had declared him well enough to go home the very day my mom’s inpatient insurance ran out. So weird!

    To this day my mom and I are convinced that the reason Jesse hanged himself was to protect us and my little brother. He didn’t want to give in and harm us. My mom sees him as Christlike, in fact. I don’t think she’s far off.

    Living with my brother was scary and sad and enraging. I was 17 when he died, and it was up to me to watch both my brothers until my mom dragged in from her hour-on-a-good-day commute. The day he was released from the mental hospital after his second suicide attempt (again, the very day my mom’s inpatient coverage ran out), he called me from a payphone to come get him. They didn’t call my mom. They gave him a quarter and had his 17-year-old sister pick him up.

    My brother was dead within weeks. My little brother, who’d just turned eight, was the one who found him. Jesse had hanged himself in the tree outside John’s window. He was wearing his soft, warm flannel pajamas. He never hurt us. But the only help we got — from our community, from the state — was the cops who cut him down too fucking late.

    Maybe Liza Long, who wrote about her violent son, is a lying monster who only cares about pageviews. Or maybe she is at the end of her rope, and her “media tour” I’m seeing ripped apart online springs from actually trying to get help for families like hers. What the fuck do you know about it, you nasty fucking mean girls on Twitter?

    I drove to Thousand Oaks last night to have dinner with my big sister’s friends I’ve known since elementary school. Their little sister — who was my friend — died three years ago from mental illness. A woman I hadn’t met before was good friends with my other brother’s best friend, before he killed himself a year or so back. He’d been diagnosed as depressive for a long time. There were seven people at that dinner party. We all had someone who was dead. None of them got a lick of help.

    Before I got there, I drove to the house where Jesse hanged himself, while I listened to the interfaith vigil on NPR. I sat outside for a minute. Looked at their lights, the new paving stones on the driveway, the flat-screen glowing through the window. It looked warm, nice. The tree’s still there.


    Read more at http://wonkette.com/493344/sorry-everyo ... yhoYVxD.99
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • Fear for freedom, Go beavers & blackredyellow; (I'd clip from each of your posts except I don't think it'd work)
    Fear wrote; "I believe the actual coverage of the story does as much harm as anything else. The more popular the shooter becomes, the more another troubled kid thinks about doing something like it!"
    Hell yes. I agree.
    Go Beavers writes about adults who need help * both he and balckredyellow ask the biggies: what are we willing to pay for and who gets to incarcerate another? Makes me think of the song daughter.
    These are hard questions. This is good. While the gov focus is currently only on gun control, I'm concerned questions like these will get dimished and these are the ones we can find common ground on much easier than gun control.
  • Here's the problem too... what happens when the child in this letter is 18?

    Our family is dealing with an inlaw (in her 50's) who has mental issues. Everyone knows it, and at times so does she, and has been into a few facilities. But, she is an adult, she can leave whenever she wants or thinks that she is feeling better. Unless she hurts someone (or clearly threatens someone), the hospitals won't commit her for anything other than a 24 hour evaluation.

    It's a fine line to cross as well... do we want families to have the ability to commit someone against their will who really hasn't done anything wrong? Should people be medicated adults against their will if they have no past history of violence?
    This can be such an incredibly frustrating situation. There's always a balance between honoring someone's right to self-determination and stepping in to act on their behalf when they're not capable of doing so. We have gone from committing people to mental institutions for a lifetime, to making the guidelines very strict about when we can intervene. The problem is that when people start to feel better, that's usually when they'll stop treatment (whether it be therapy or medication). We tend to do the same thing when we're ill physically. We can't do anything as we start to see someone decompensate...we have to wait until they are a threat to themselves or others before we can treat involuntary patients...and then they are hospitalized just long enough to stabilize them. Establishing a psychiatric advance directive with the person can be helpful sometimes because they empower the person to have a voice in their care. http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGrou ... ctives.htm
    tumblr_mg4nc33pIX1s1mie8o1_400.gif

    "I need your strength for me to be strong...I need your love to feel loved"
  • polaris_xpolaris_x Posts: 13,559
    this is where accurate stats would come in ... what is the incidence of people with michael's behaviour? ... how many are not being diagnosed and how many are improperly diagnosed? ...

    if the incidents are higher in the US - what is the cause? ... could it be something hereditary? ... the environment? ... diet? ...
  • polaris_x wrote:
    this is where accurate stats would come in ... what is the incidence of people with michael's behaviour? ... how many are not being diagnosed and how many are improperly diagnosed? ...

    if the incidents are higher in the US - what is the cause? ... could it be something hereditary? ... the environment? ... diet? ...

    I think it would be almost impossible to compare different countries. Guidelines on diagnosis, and availability of diagnosis probably vary a lot from country to country.

    We even see that now with statistics like the autism rate rising so much in the US. How much is that a true increase, and how much is it that more and more kids are being tested, and awareness has grown so much in recent years?
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • polaris_xpolaris_x Posts: 13,559
    I think it would be almost impossible to compare different countries. Guidelines on diagnosis, and availability of diagnosis probably vary a lot from country to country.

    We even see that now with statistics like the autism rate rising so much in the US. How much is that a true increase, and how much is it that more and more kids are being tested, and awareness has grown so much in recent years?

    definitely ... hence my term accurate stats ...

    i do believe as a culture and nation ... america is over-prescribed and what is allowed to enter not only the food system and environment has likely contributed to an increase in mental related illness ... we already know that many conventional illnesses such as diabetes over-index in america ... why not an illness of the mind?
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