Is all violent behaviour a result of mental illness?

POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Monday, July 4, 2022 00:59
VIEWED: 10005
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MAGONSDAUGHTER

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:07 AM

I see a lot of talk - particularly in response to calls for tighter gun laws - about having better mental health treatments available.

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?

Are all violent actions the result of mental illness? The latest perpetrator had treatment, and by all accounts a caring family and yet he still carried out random acts of violence on innocent people. 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?

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? Are people suggesting there is some drug treatment that will assist?

What say you all? I have more questions than answers to all of this, but I'd like to hear the views of others.

MIKER

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:16 AM

WISHIMAY

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:43 AM

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

OONJERAH

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:43 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.

SHINYGOODGUY

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 1:51 PM

Simply put - YES!!!!!

SGG

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 6:08 PM

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

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KPO

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 8:39 PM

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.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 8:42 PM

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.

AGENTROUKA

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:43 PM

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.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:55 PM

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.

AGENTROUKA

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:48 PM

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.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 11:00 PM

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. :)

MIKER

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 11:27 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:11 AM

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

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:41 AM

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.

OONJERAH

Thursday, May 29, 2014 4:35 AM

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.

MIKER

Thursday, May 29, 2014 4:44 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, May 29, 2014 4:54 AM

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.

OONJERAH

Thursday, May 29, 2014 7:24 AM

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

What a great drug!!

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

CHRISISALL

Thursday, May 29, 2014 7:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:

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

What a great drug!!

MIKER

Thursday, May 29, 2014 8:06 PM

OONJERAH

Thursday, May 29, 2014 10:54 PM

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

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

BYTEMITE

Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:05 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?

MIKER

Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:07 PM

CHRISISALL

Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:23 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.

OONJERAH

Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:52 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 ...

CHRISISALL

Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:59 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!

OONJERAH

Friday, May 30, 2014 12:14 AM

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

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

CHRISISALL

Friday, May 30, 2014 12:26 AM

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

That's the generally accepted sequence.

BYTEMITE

Friday, May 30, 2014 1:00 AM

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?

OONJERAH

Friday, May 30, 2014 1:54 AM

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 ...

BYTEMITE

Friday, May 30, 2014 3:34 AM

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.

OONJERAH

Friday, May 30, 2014 4:11 AM

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

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

OK.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Friday, May 30, 2014 4:45 AM

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?

BYTEMITE

Friday, May 30, 2014 7:59 AM

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.

CHRISISALL

Friday, May 30, 2014 8:03 AM

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

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, May 30, 2014 11:34 AM

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 worki

MIKER

Friday, May 30, 2014 8:12 PM

SIGNYM

Friday, May 30, 2014 9:14 PM

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.

BYTEMITE

Saturday, May 31, 2014 12:39 AM

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.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Saturday, May 31, 2014 5:48 AM

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

MIKER

Saturday, May 31, 2014 6:52 AM

BYTEMITE

Saturday, May 31, 2014 8:25 AM

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.

MIKER

Saturday, May 31, 2014 9:21 AM

CHRISISALL

Saturday, May 31, 2014 9:39 AM

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.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Saturday, May 31, 2014 9:43 AM

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.

CHRISISALL

Saturday, May 31, 2014 9:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
what are you left with?

Nothing.

1KIKI

Saturday, May 31, 2014 1:18 PM

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.

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[/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."

BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 1, 2014 12:02 AM

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.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 1, 2014 12:08 AM

Quote:
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.

Yes, I actually agree. My point was that all of that being the case, we would want a society that can kind of buffer all those differences, and which isn't set up to exploit people like gears in a machine.

Which we definitely don't have right now.

OONJERAH

Sunday, June 1, 2014 1:46 AM

Violence: destructive, costly, perpetuated-inevitable. Personal.

Ping! Guess I'm not "qualified" to talk about violence as much
as some who've lived with it. In my family, emotional abuse was
the way of it. Violence can be a threat or a topic in emotional
abuse. Most of the time, the urge to violence is channeled into
emotional abuse or self-abuse.
(The harvest from emotional abuse I'm setting aside as bein'
more complex, difficult to track; am thinking that those who
stuff the pain & never resolve it will explode in violence. But
that's the rare episode compared to those who are caught up
in habitual violence. Yes, it's insane.)

Violence is instinctive. It's pretty natural for toddlers to throw
things & hit each other.

Violence is also learned. Being beaten or seeing someone else
beaten affirms that violence is The Way: it hurts, but it's "proper."
It reinforces the instinctive urge to violence. It can become ever
present, as one is alert for the next blows to come his way while
controlling & channeling his own urge to violence. For the child
to adapt to violence this way is survival, not insanity.

I'm thinking violence is the most common cause of violence.
People who are/were beaten a lot have a huge resevoir of pain
& anger. When a parent beats a child, the child can't fight back.
He has a need to strike out. So he will bully-beat anyone smaller
& weaker. If he sticks to "mere" beatings, he may not have to kill.

Violence creates a chain of violence. Thus it is reactive, natural,
a relief for the perp, but not insane.

As I've said, our entertainment glamorizes & encourages violence.
That may be the "insanity" aspect of it. Our culture is insane.

I personally contributed to this by watching violent movies --
haven't seen one in quite a while. Planning to do so at the 1st
opportunity.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

1KIKI

Sunday, June 1, 2014 1:51 AM

I had just gotten that far in my thinking - but no further. So I figured I'd post what I had.

I was trying to make sense of what I think of as inborn neurologically biased function, the brain development that comes early ... (people in the know now think that empathy develops before 3-4 years old ... but I wonder what that means. to develop empathy you have to experience emotional fallout from physical distress, to have a functioning supply of oxytocin, adequate receptors, the experience of receiving emotional comfort ... So what makes a sociopath different from an autistic? Autistics focus on people more when you give them a shot of oxytocin nasal spray. I believe therefore that their oxytocin system is functional, but they're at too high of an internal stress level caused by neurological malfunctioning for ordinary levels of oxytocin to have an effect. Note to self - what are the baseline levels of stress hormones in autistics? But that sociopaths simply don't experience the emotional distress associated with physical unpleasantness, rendering their oxytocin system moot. Note to self: what are the baseline stress hormones in sociopaths? has anyone tried oxytocin nasal spray on them? ...)

Too many unanswered questions to proceed along that path.

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."

OONJERAH

Sunday, June 1, 2014 2:03 AM

Quote Kiki: "Too many unanswered questions to proceed along that path."

Maybe we are experiencing/studying violence, because we don't understand
it yet?

OTOH, if we analyze it to death, will that show a way to prevent it?
Hmmmmm.

Note: the people of my acquaintance who are violent embrace it. They
have rationalized that what they are doing is right.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 1, 2014 2:10 AM

Quote:
Note to self - what are the baseline levels of stress hormones in autistics?

Even the higher functioning ones self-report that they tend to experience more stress than their non-autistic counterparts. I've heard them describe it as being unnerved by a fast moving and dangerous human, social, and technology-driven world that they can barely process, let alone always understand.

They also tend to get along better with animals, because they feel animals are simpler and more trustworthy. Many of them even say they compare how their brains work more with animals, more instinctive, more survival oriented, more flight vs. fight.

I don't know what the data says specifically about their stress hormone levels, but considering the anecdotal information, I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher than normal.

OONJERAH

Sunday, June 1, 2014 2:34 AM

The Horse Boy ... autism + horse.

I love this movie. It's not "rational" -- but I believe it.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

MIKER

Sunday, June 1, 2014 2:41 AM

1KIKI

Sunday, June 1, 2014 3:30 AM

Oonj

I was thinking about those who can't look inside for change as they don't have the wherewithal for it.

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."

MIKER

Sunday, June 1, 2014 7:38 PM

SIGNYM

Sunday, June 1, 2014 10:47 PM

Yes, how competent does one have to be in order to be considered "competent"?

You must be motivated and able for basic self-care- eating, toileting, hygiene, dressing, shopping, cooking, housecleaning and laundry, exercise and sleep.

You must be able to talk, or communicate in some other way, and speak up and ask for help.

You must be able to understand the basics of money- earning, saving, spending.

You must have the capability of holding down a simple job. I realize in today's markets, simple jobs are filled by college-degreed 50-year olds.

I'm sure all of this has already been answered, by Social Security, among other agencies. But if a person can perform those basic functions, aren't the competent enough?

MIKER

Monday, June 2, 2014 12:55 AM

OONJERAH

Monday, June 2, 2014 4:12 AM

@Miker

Awareness.

"those with mental health issues" : many of these get by OK if they are aware & have an income.

"those who see no future for themselves, have the yoke of oppression around their necks and
are continually acting out because of it."
I can talk about that. You mean the ne'er-do-well or the petty crook? Outlaws, outcasts.

"Change is hard and takes some character." <<--= Truer words are rarely spoken.

Yes. I'll go East on this. Karma means Work.
This Outlaw has a very hard head, he's unteachable. But I guess some of them do reach a point
of surrender: "Man, I am So effing tired of bein' pounded & deprived all the time, I may want
to go straight ... a little." In their travels, they meet a lot of others who are like them, but
further along on the path. These guys will help each other. They will go straight when they're
tired of the trouble & pain ... but they like to do it on their terms.

Perhaps what it takes is sight ... the ability to see from a not-Ego view.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

MIKER

Monday, June 2, 2014 4:56 AM

OONJERAH

Monday, June 2, 2014 5:20 AM

Outlaws I have known aged 16-25 have four very specific goals:

Eat, get drunk, get loaded, get laid.
They also have to get and maintain a set of wheels. That's a real challenge for some.

Getting money is necessary for this person. But steady job often not on their list.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

MIKER

Monday, June 2, 2014 6:32 AM

OONJERAH

Monday, June 2, 2014 9:48 AM

Family with 4 kids. Middle class neighborhood. Each kid takes on a different role.
If they got an Outlaw-Outcast, it's prolly #2.
.
.
Uhhh -- what Are we talking about?

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 2:45 PM

I was actually holding back the flamethrower till the position in question was clarified - I still side on the human rights end of the scale though, better to err in that direction than the other, given what the scale of the consequences can be (a few through the net, versus state-run re-education camps a'la Stalin) so there's that.

Ironic that we had a problem here at the main site which involved just this issue, a longterm resident gone senile to the point of being unable to care for themselves, not eating, wandering off and coming back to the wrong unit thinking it was hers... and was so far gone we couldn't get any useful information out of her as she kept trying to speak to family members who were long dead and buried.

It may surprise some of you, but there are agencies and personnel who are trained properly to make those kind of decisions, and render such aid as appropriate - normally I'd worry about the seniors insurance quality in such a situation (some care facilities border on hellcamps in their awfulness) but that wasn't an issue here, thankfully.
Nor, thanks in large part to city councilman Yousef Rahbi, and his getting us a massive funding and logistical support upgrade to mental health care services in this county, was the quality of service going to be an issue.

But WE could do nothing for her directly since all we had to go on was her very outdated lease paperwork, so the appropriate agencies were contacted and took over the situation from there, AFTER we had tried working with her to resolve the issue elsewise - but when someone is wandering off without a clue as to who and where they are, getting lost, and no longer able to feed themselves, well that's a damn obvious call even for them outside the mental health profession.

There was also that one of the effects of senile dementia is ragefits, which concerned some of the other residents, although I don't really see how an elderly lady could possibly be so very threatening, well... most of em, my gramma-ma was pretty goddamn scary even into her 90's.
*twitch*

-Frem

MIKER

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 7:45 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

Sunday, July 3, 2022 6:04 PM

Do quack psychologists ask a Dog, Chimpanzee, Wolf, Lion, Crocodile, Gorilla if they are mentally ill?

Gruesome murder, reaction to it highlight violence against women in Egypt

https://www.aol.com/news/gruesome-murder-reaction-highlight-violence-1
45507148.html

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, July 4, 2022 12:59 AM

An interesting and thoughtful thread by MD. I knew there were reasons I liked her.
Seems like a complement thread to my Pax thread, drug addicts killing folk.

Of course, Libtards needed to immediately derail it with nonsense about the emotional stability of guns and whether guns suffer mental illness.

Looks like lots of posts deleted.