Mental health stigma - A blight on our society

[AnOminous]

There really should be a wider movement to de-stigmatize mental illness as a whole. Why can you break your leg, go to the hospital, and talk about it on Facebook for sympathy, but if you go to counseling for depression, it has to be some dark terrible secret?

Depends on your job really. If you are suicidally depressed I do not want your ass flying a plane I'm in.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Depends on your job really. If you are suicidally depressed I do not want your ass flying a plane I'm in.

Someone who is suicidal probably would not crash a plane with 30+ innocent passengers along for the ride. Usually people who are suicidal feel like they are a burden on others, which is a contributing factor to their diagnosis. They want to destroy themselves because they feel the world would be a better place without them. That's the opposite mindset of someone who would intentionally crash a plane.

 

[Taargus]

We need to bring back involuntary commitment.

Commitment went away for a reason. There was a planned substitute in the US, a bunch of community treatment centers. Money got sucked out of the program and only a few were built, now over a third of our homeless people are schizophrenic and every town has a Sexy Vegan.

tl;dr until we socialize mental health care autistic people are going to keep pouring into deviantart

 

[AnOminous]

Someone who is suicidal probably would not crash a plane with 30+ innocent passengers along for the ride. Usually people who are suicidal feel like they are a burden on others, which is a contributing factor to their diagnosis. They want to destroy themselves because they feel the world would be a better place without them. That's the opposite mindset of someone who would intentionally crash a plane.

Tell that to the 149 people in the plane Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed.

 

[MW 002]

I think many of the mental health awareness needs to stop focusing exclusively on teens and extend it to adults- 68% of the homeless population have severe psychiatric disorders.

I admit I do get peeved when in the event of a school shooting, people are extremely quick to go "mentally ill people aren't violent!" While not all mentally ill people are violent, there are mentally ill people who are violent. There are mentally ill people who hurt other people and/or animals.

My schizophrenic father spent 12 years terrorizing my mother and subjecting her to his fits of violence.

While it does suck that mental health isn't covered by social healthcare, it is still the patient's responsibility to seek out help.

 

[AnOminous]

I admit I do get peeved when in the event of a school shooting, people are extremely quick to go "mentally ill people aren't violent!" While not all mentally ill people are violent, there are mentally ill people who are violent. There are mentally ill people who hurt other people and/or animals.

After a schizophrenic, autist, or whatever murders a fuckton of people is probably the absolute worst time to start babbling about how they aren't violent. If the only time people hear that shit, someone is standing in a pool of blood while saying it, the message gets kind of lost.

 

[Load Bearing Drywall]

After a schizophrenic, autist, or whatever murders a fuckton of people is probably the absolute worst time to start babbling about how they aren't violent. If the only time people hear that shit, someone is standing in a pool of blood while saying it, the message gets kind of lost.

TBF, it's also shitty to say that these mass killers must be mentally ill when they're not diagnosed with anything. Like, we just call a spade a spade (they're fucking assholes) when a black guy or a muslim guy goes around a shoots a bunch of people. When a white guy kills a bunch of people, suddenly it's the fault of mental illness/vidya/autism when it's really 90% of the time "that guy is an asshole".

If they're not remanded as unfit for trial (and I think the guy who shot the senator and the one who opened fire on the theatre playing Batman were, so I'll give you those) then it's not the fault of mental illness IMHO. Some people are just monsters.

 

[AnOminous]

TBF, it's also shitty to say that these mass killers must be mentally ill when they're not diagnosed with anything. Like, we just call a spade a spade (they're fucking assholes) when a black guy or a muslim guy goes around a shoots a bunch of people. When a white guy kills a bunch of people, suddenly it's the fault of mental illness/vidya/autism when it's really 90% of the time "that guy is an asshole".

I can't think of many mass shooters who anyone would consider sane by any measure, actually. Charles Joseph Whitman (the '66 Texas Tower shooter) had a brain tumor. The Columbine shooters were both diagnosed. Adam Lanza was a flat out autist. James Holmes was a psychiatric patient. Seung-Hui Cho was also a psychiatric patient, maybe autistic. Also not white.

If you can think of any totally normal people who just suddenly went weirdo and murdered a bunch of people out of nowhere, I'm sure such a case exists, but in general, if you kill a bunch of people with no real motivation, odds are you're bugfuck.

 

[Ruin]

I can't think of many mass shooters who anyone would consider sane by any measure, actually. Charles Joseph Whitman (the '66 Texas Tower shooter) had a brain tumor. The Columbine shooters were both diagnosed. Adam Lanza was a flat out autist. James Holmes was a psychiatric patient. Seung-Hui Cho was also a psychiatric patient, maybe autistic. Also not white.

If you can think of any totally normal people who just suddenly went weirdo and murdered a bunch of people out of nowhere, I'm sure such a case exists, but in general, if you kill a bunch of people with no real motivation, odds are you're bugfuck.

Holmes and Lanza are particularly egregious cases because it was known that they were dangerous and yet society did nothing. Holmes gave his shrink a notebook containing illustrations and detailed plans to commit a mass shooting and yet she did nothing and refused to turn it over to police after the shooting even when presented with a court order. MSNBC broke the story that Lanza's mother tried to have him committed twice but was refused because he presented an "inadequate threat."

@Load Bearing Drywall this is the kind of thing that results from being politically correct about serious mental illness. 50+ dead most of them children. Yes we shouldn't be dicks to people with anxiety/depression but at a certain point protecting the innocent has to be more important than not offending people.

 

[AnOminous]

@Load Bearing Drywall this is the kind of thing that results from being politically correct about serious mental illness. 50+ dead most of them children. Yes we shouldn't be dicks to people with anxiety/depression but at a certain point protecting the innocent has to be more important than not offending people.

If we actually intervened when any sane society would, and stopped the mentally ill from committing these heinous crimes, both society and the people themselves would probably thank us for it, and the mentally ill would have less (mostly undeserved) reputation for violent crimes, because in many cases, they WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

I blame Ronald Reagan for the criminally irresponsible policy of deinstitutionalization, just to save a few bucks in the short term, at the cost of vast long term damage.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Tell that to the 149 people in the plane Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed.

There's obviously a lot more going on here than Lubitz just being suicidal. It's a big difference between "I want to die" and "I want to die and take 149 people down with me." When a guy enters a building to gun people down and shoots himself just as the cops arrive, we call it a mass shooting and the killer a monster. The guy who drives his car off a cliff while he's the only passenger is a hell of a lot different psychologically from the guy who drives a passenger plane into a mountain. It's not a fair comparison.

 

[Cosmos]

I just want to point out that virtually all research shows that the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent, nor are they more likely to commit violence than mentally healthy people. Only 3%-5% of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. In fact, people with severe mental illnesses are many (I've seen anywhere from 3-11) times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. Research also suggests that violence by people with mental illnesses — just like violence in the general population — stems from multiple overlapping factors interacting in complex ways rather than being motivated simply by mental illness.

• http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/04/mental-illness-crime.aspx
  
• https://news.ncsu.edu/2014/02/wms-desmarais-violence2014/
  
• http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter....dy-mentally-ill-are-often-targets-of-violence
  
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525086/
  
• http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/mental-illness-and-violence
  
• http://depts.washington.edu/mhreport/facts_violence.php

 

[Ruin]

I just want to point out that virtually all research shows that the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent, nor are they more likely to commit violence than mentally healthy people. Only 3%-5% of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. In fact, people with severe mental illnesses are many (I've seen anywhere from 3-11) times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. Research also suggests that violence by people with mental illnesses — just like violence in the general population — stems from multiple overlapping factors interacting in complex ways rather than being motivated simply by mental illness.

• http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/04/mental-illness-crime.aspx
  
• https://news.ncsu.edu/2014/02/wms-desmarais-violence2014/
  
• http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter....dy-mentally-ill-are-often-targets-of-violence
  
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525086/
  
• http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/mental-illness-and-violence
  
• http://depts.washington.edu/mhreport/facts_violence.php

Yea I've seen those. I've also seen "studies" that assure me that walking around in the south side of Chicago is perfectly safe and that the unease I feel is just my subconscious racism. I'm still going to be wary of people talking to themselves or displaying suicidal behavior, if people want to call me a bigot or what ever fine. I care way more about being alive than I do about being politically correct.

 

[AnOminous]

There's obviously a lot more going on here than Lubitz just being suicidal. It's a big difference between "I want to die" and "I want to die and take 149 people down with me." When a guy enters a building to gun people down and shoots himself just as the cops arrive, we call it a mass shooting and the killer a monster. The guy who drives his car off a cliff while he's the only passenger is a hell of a lot different psychologically from the guy who drives a passenger plane into a mountain. It's not a fair comparison.

Whatever. I still don't want a crazy person piloting a plane I'm in.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Whatever. I still don't want a crazy person piloting a plane I'm in.

I agree with you on that point. He should have been on paid leave and not allowed in the airport. Someone who is suicidal shouldn't be working in a high stress job like that for any reason.

 

[ScrewTheRules]

I agree with you on that point. He should have been on paid leave and not allowed in the airport. Someone who is suicidal shouldn't be working in a high stress job like that for any reason.

I don't know about pilots, but you can't become an air traffic controller in the UK if you have any history of mental illness, and particularly depression, anxiety or ADD/ADHD. Odds are that nobody knew what was going on with Lubitz. Reducing the stigma around mental illness would mean more of these people would come forward before stuff like this happens, since they could expect to get paid leave, an psychiatric help, and if they do have to leave their job not worrying about it stopping them from finding a new one. As it is, they can more likely expect to lose their job and have a very hard time finding a new one with that hanging over them. It keeps people from seeking help until things boil over into something like this.

If we actually intervened when any sane society would, and stopped the mentally ill from committing these heinous crimes, both society and the people themselves would probably thank us for it, and the mentally ill would have less (mostly undeserved) reputation for violent crimes, because in many cases, they WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

The problem is, it's damn hard to tell who is going to be a danger and who isn't. Granted, you get some who are pretty fucking obvious, but mostly is just 20/20 in hindsight. There are far more people with mental illnesses that there are resources to institutionalise all of them, and you only need to make the wrong call once for something like a mass shooting to happen.
We can't afford to just fire everybody who might be depressed, or hospitalise everybody who might be schizophrenic, and diagnosing there sorts of conditions is just too dependent on people coming forward when something's up. Reducing mental health stigma is going to increase the number of people who come forward when they or a relative are showing signs of severe mental illness.

 

[AnOminous]

The problem is, it's damn hard to tell who is going to be a danger and who isn't. Granted, you get some who are pretty fucking obvious, but mostly is just 20/20 in hindsight.

This is why in those cases, like piloting planes, you just keep those people the fuck out of that particular responsibility.

 

[Vitriol]

there are more than a few posts in this thread that contravene the shallow thoughts rule and the OP is inadequate. I've been away a few weeks so i will let them slide but try and keep discussion focussed and at least semi serious from here.

How to treat the mentally ill from the twin failures of Care in the Community and asylum style policies is an interesting subject that merits discussion.

 

[Ruin]

I don't know about pilots, but you can't become an air traffic controller in the UK if you have any history of mental illness, and particularly depression, anxiety or ADD/ADHD. Odds are that nobody knew what was going on with Lubitz. Reducing the stigma around mental illness would mean more of these people would come forward before stuff like this happens, since they could expect to get paid leave, an psychiatric help, and if they do have to leave their job not worrying about it stopping them from finding a new one. As it is, they can more likely expect to lose their job and have a very hard time finding a new one with that hanging over them. It keeps people from seeking help until things boil over into something like this.




The problem is, it's damn hard to tell who is going to be a danger and who isn't. Granted, you get some who are pretty fucking obvious, but mostly is just 20/20 in hindsight. There are far more people with mental illnesses that there are resources to institutionalise all of them, and you only need to make the wrong call once for something like a mass shooting to happen.
We can't afford to just fire everybody who might be depressed, or hospitalise everybody who might be schizophrenic, and diagnosing there sorts of conditions is just too dependent on people coming forward when something's up. Reducing mental health stigma is going to increase the number of people who come forward when they or a relative are showing signs of severe mental illness.

You can make reasonable inferences based on the type of mental illness though. Stuff like schizoid disorders and serious mood disorders like BPD are more heavily correlated with other anti social traits that are indicators of potentially violent behavior.

 

[Kartoffel]

I don't know about pilots, but you can't become an air traffic controller in the UK if you have any history of mental illness, and particularly depression, anxiety or ADD/ADHD.

I don't think you actively have to deter people with ADD from a job in traffic control because they should take 5 minutes tops to recognize that this work is torture for them.

I think the mental stigma goes slowly away; I found most people react quite understanding if you disclose to them (on the other hand I mostly hang around smart people). The stigma results in my eyes mostly from people not knowing what specific mental illnesses entail.

But when we talk about mental illnesses and their stigma, what do you think about firms that specifically employ people of the autism spectrum like Spezialisterne?