Posted on 08/21/2008 7:59:15 AM PDT by Chickensoup
These are so-called conservative people which, really, I'm grateful to have out of my life.
Let me lay it out for you - in terms even a couple of fools like yourselves should be able to understand.
I know someone - a paranoid schizophrenic - who needs to be convinced that they needs treatment.
And I'll pay you $1000 an day to make the effort - provided you are willing to be locked in a room with them, along with a kitchen knife with a 8" blade, long enough so that you know you will be going to sleep.
Just sign this release and have at it!
Not willing?
Awww... what's the problem? After all, it's just an "inconvenience" if you get your throats slit - what are you, some kind of some kind of "narcissists"?
Meanwhile, if I understand you correctly, you are perfectly willing to sign up (for example) someone's aged parents for the job?
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How do you take care of someone who won’t take their medicine?
Also the legal climate has changed.
If you so much as grab someone nowadays that you share a household with, even to keep them from hurting themselves, that is Domestic Violence and if the Police are called they take YOU away.
There have been cases (at least one that I know of, and more such incidents that I have read about online) that even such a thing as a husband trying to take the car keys away from his wife who has been drinking and calling 911 so that the cops would help him get her under control got him arrested for Domestic Violence.
What was he supposed to do? Answers he got afterwards was to ask her for the car keys before she started drinking, or call 911 but don’t touch her.
Don’t believe me? Ask a therapist, a cop, or an attorney.
>>The “old ways” were when FAMILY took over the burden.<<
Have you had to deal with someone with a mental illness? Not all of them are alike.
While some can be cared for by family, a violent or suicidal person simply cannot. Period.
We had a young girl, Lord she was darling and sweet, who was cared for by the family. They thought they could deal with her depression. They thought she would be okay. They watched her like a hawk, mom even slept in her room. One day, the brother was watching her while dad was at work and mom ran to the store for milk.
When mom opened the garage door upon her return, there was her daughter hanging from the rafters. The brother dozed off. That sweet girl was 19.
You have no clue unless you have been there.
Wait, but on the other hand I have a sister with untreated Munchausen Syndrome that puts the responsibity of her life on everyone else.
I tried for years and years, paid tons of money, damn near raised her kids and she still was a victim and always needed more.
Sometimes one must cut the strings. At 15, your parents should have gotten you help and stuck by you.
When I am 35 and still taking care of my 43 year old sister, who refuses treatment, it’s time to cut ties.
My point was that people are too SELF ABSORBED to care about anyone else other than themselves ... .
I cannot compromise on my “solution” - family who is there at all times to “babysit” the person.
I know my solution is not acceptable to today's society but it is the right answer even if sacrifice is needed ... and that's where it doesn't fit in with today's society ... we don't sacrifice anything - heck we can't even live within our means ... mortgage “crisis” ... so caring for a troubled person is asking too much ... and then we wonder about “the times we live in” ... . I don't wonder about it ... we've lost our way - that is the “sane” people ... .
My “solution” doesn’t fit today’s society of convenience.
I should not have responded on this thread.
What I think most people want to hear on this thread is more laws to involuntarily lock up the insane people so the burden is shifted to the state. The state could then load em up wiht more chemicals and family wouldn’t have to be bothered and go about life as usual. It’s the shifting of responsibility that troubles me ... . This “solution” is not something I would advocate and yet I know what I’d like to see will not happen - insane or troubled people are not something that a typical person wants to be burdened with ... it interrupts their life and is an inconvenience.
People don’t want to give up their creature comforts, by and large, and want other people to shoulder the cost. It’s easier to imagine some greedy evil corporate bazillionaire than some regular joe who’s got his own problems. It amazes me how people have become less and less self-reliant over the years.
Cancer treatments could be made to meet market pricing if insurance gets out of the way. How can a family cope with a severely psychotic individual who is unsafe and at times suicidal or murderous? Or one who cannot take care of themselves?
Give me a hint? The wealthy can afford the round the clock care, but the middlc class cannot.
Everyone must sleep. If a person is psychotic and wants to either suicide or kill, they wait.
These are not stupid people, remember there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Some of the most intelligent people in the world are also very sick. When I worked Psych, I had poems written to me, songs recorded for me and was sketched more than once. They will plot to do what their minds are telling them to do.
No amount of “care” from the family can overcome that.
>>You cannot leave them alone because some will do what you described ...<<
She wasn’t alone when she suicided.
Now imagine if she was homicidal instead.
The meds dull his senses, slow him down. Reality isn’t nearly as much fun.
absolutely. What mental illness does to the people who have it and to families is tragic. I have lived it and I work it.
“My point was that people are too SELF ABSORBED to care about anyone else other than themselves ... .”
You’re wrong. Or just way too cynical about people.
“I cannot compromise on my “solution” - family who is there at all times to “babysit” the person.”
BABYSIT? BABYSIT? You think you can “babysit” people who are sometimes homicidal and completely delusional?
In some cases the state requires visitation AND co-op from parents..that is untill they are not able to-elderly.
But believe me..NOBODY who does not understand the SMI can take care of them.
Now for the drug induced mentally ill? Thats another matter because druggies who by their addiction caused their insanity are...I dunno what to say about them. I really cant pitty them.
I sincerely hope that you never have a family member with serious mental illness, because if you do, the words you’ve written on this forum will taste bitter indeed.
Ignorance is your only excuse.
I don’t but I fail to see where it should be a taxpayer problem. They are REMOVED from any emotion towards the victim.
If you are saying taht family should be involved in the care of the mentally ill, that could be true, if the mentally ill would let them. You misunderstand the basis of the problem. These people when psychotic are so adversive that mother will turn out child, and voluteers will run away. they are medicated to sleepiness because that is all that some of them can manage sucessfully. And they often dont take their medications without an instituional boatload of assistance from technicians.
Have it your way ... whatever that is ... .
This is so typical of today's society ...
enlarge the “nanny state” and dump the problem there and wonder why things don't change ... the problems only get worse ... . Lastly, personally vilify me for even suggesting the responsibility rests with the family.
Thank you for your gentle heart. More understanding is needed. But, is locking these people up the way to go? How do we go forward? Such a sad, sad situation.
I think you have it wrong.
I see no problem with a family paying to institutionalize their family member. No reason for the state to take on the burden. We care for our seniors, why not care for those who are ill.
The problem is that because the system is the way it is, there are NOT institutions to put them into. We fought to find one young man a group home to go into. Weeks and week while he ended up hospitalized for suicide attempts over and over (one was a Drano consumption that did damage that could not be undone). There was no where to put him.
Understand, there were five children in this family. All grown and all taking care of him in shifts. They still couldn’t overcome his desire to punish himself for his imaginary transgressions.
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