Utah father gets attacked in Walmart for bringing his 5-year-old daughter into the me

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Abner, May 27, 2016.

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  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Last edited by a moderator: May 27, 2016
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Apparently, at least some of the crazies have been stirred up by all the noise.
     
  3. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Well, this particular crazy got a little taste of his own medicine. I say good for the dad.
     
  4. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    That kind of thing happens all the time, and has for years, way before the Great Bathroom Debate of 2016.

    Since the mass closing of state psychiatric hospitals and the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill back in the 70's-90's, there are a lot of people out and about in society who would have been in a state hospital 35 years ago, and probably should still be hospitalized.
     
  5. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    No kidding there. Where I live, there is a very noticeable number of mentally ill people roaming the streets arguing with themselves and punching at the air. A few months ago I witnessed a man get into a physical altercation with himself, punching and throwing himself around as if he was in a fight with another person.

    It's something we've come to accept in this neck of the woods. We've all learned to just cross the street when we see it flaring it up, and everything tends to work out fine.
     
  6. RAM PhD

    RAM PhD Member

    Perhaps this guy was fighting a demon that could be seen by no one but himself, which would make it look like he was fighting himself.
     
  7. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    That's the conundrum with the mentally ill; a very small percentage of them who act out in public like that are dangerous to anyone but themselves, but they scare the crap out of people, especially children.

    However, some of them are dangerous, and they can hurt a lot of people. So, the problem is, do you/can you lock someone away for what they might do? Right now, we take them to the hospital ER (by force if necessary), where they got shot up with anti-psychotics by the ER physicians, then get evaluated by a mental health crisis team member. For the most part, they're no longer considered a danger because they're heavily medicated, so they get released, and the cycle continues.

    What's the solution? I have no idea, but there has to be a better way than the revolving door, pass-the-buck system we have now.
     
  8. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Unfortunately for that thesis, it has been determined that being mentally ill is not illegal.
     
  9. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Touché (especially since I believe in such things).
     
  10. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    It's not a thesis, it's an informed observation.

    Being mentally ill is certainly not illegal, but it is illegal to run into traffic, dance in the middle of a state highway at rush hour while pulling your clothes off, and accost people such as in the original story of this thread. All of these, I deal with on a fairly frequently basis. Are such people better off, both for themselves and society, being in a psychiatric facility?

    I don't know, see my post above your last.
     
  11. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Of course

    We have no idea if this guy is literally (crazy) as per Steve's word, or if he is just agitated by the current hysteria. I tend to think it is the latter. I don't think Steve meant literally crazy, as in mentally ill. At least, that's how I took it.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 30, 2016
  12. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    While it is true that all of those things are illegal the maximum sentence for all of them combined doesn't typically add up to confinement for life. One of the problems of the institutional system before institutionalization is that people could receive a "life sentence" for one episode which, if handled solely by criminal courts, would have resulted in a fine.

    Both systems have their extreme examples. Before we can look to individuals who, perhaps in their youth or under a period of fleeting stress, did something that got them locked up and cost them their freedom for the rest of their lives. We can look today at people who might very well belong locked up.

    The answer is somewhere in the middle. And, in many ways, we are hovering near it at present but there are still interesting questions to be asked.

    If you have a person who may very well do something in the future can we institutionalize them indefinitely for the crime we think that they may commit? How do we balance that against the need to protect the civil rights of individuals who didn't, but may, commit a crime down the road?

    I don't think there is a neat answer.
     
  13. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    That was my point; it's currently a ping-pong game between police, hospital emergency rooms, and mental health agencies. The problem, at least around here, is that the state is pretty near being out of the mental health business, except for sex offenders and the seriously mentally ill who pose a real danger to society, such as this guy;

    Che Sosa Strikes Again | Boston Magazine

    The state has farmed out much of their mental health responsibility to private agencies, which, like all businesses, need to make a profit to stay solvent. So, the mentally ill who come to them from hospital ER's need to have insurance in order to get any meaningful treatment, but the problem is that many of them are homeless, so they have no insurance. The end result is that they get medicated to get their psychosis under control, then get released with a follow-up plan that they never stick to, and the cycle repeats.

    I would like to see more transitional housing, where they can live in a group environment and get the medication & therapy they need under supervision. It's done all the time with alcoholics and drug addicts, who had a choice in their fate, so why not the mentally ill, who had and have no such choice? I think the issue is that the politicians look at alcoholics and addicts, and think that could be them, while they see mental illness as always happening to someone else.
     
  14. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I think a lot of work went into de-stigmatizing drug and alcohol abuse to try to encourage people to seek treatment. You want the soccer mom addicted to Vicodin to try to get off of the pills before she causes a car accident so you run the PSAs about how you can seek help without being labeled a junkie.

    We want the kid with dark thoughts to seek help as well. But, aside from the stigma that mental health issues still have in our society, the kid with the dark thoughts might not be in the frame of mind to seek help in the same way as the mostly lucid but drug abusing hypothetical soccer mom. Maybe that all plays into the "why" of the disparity between addictions programs and mental health services. Maybe it doesn't.

    I do agree that more transitional services would be ideal. I feel that our country has a tendency to let the pendulum swing too far in one direction and then compensates by letting it swing too far in the opposite direction to try to correct the first swing. Focusing on transitional services and community support would be that far less sexy middle ground that might actually accomplish a goal but would probably not get anyone re-elected.
     
  15. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Just to be clear, I'm not advocating more transitional assistance for the mentally ill at the expense of programs for alcoholics & addicts, quite the opposite. Both are needed, and in the case of the mentally ill, can bridge the gap of the ridiculous system we have now, where it's usually all (lockdown confinement) or nothing (roaming the streets while manic/psychotic).

    There's a woman I deal with all the time who is very mentally ill (she's the one who likes to dance on the state highway at rush hour), but if you can catch her when she's on her medication, she's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. The problem is that she's homeless, and banned from the shelter because of her manic outbursts, so she's either on the street or couch surfing with whatever guy will have her for the night (you can fill in the blanks there), neither of which is conducive to a regimented medication schedule.

    She's not dangerous in that she wouldn't attack anyone or hurt them intentionally, but I'm waiting for the day that she gets hit by a car (injuring or killing herself, and traumatizing the innocent driver), or victimized by someone who has more on their mind than having her sleep over. A transitional facility would be perfect for her, but as always, it comes down to the almighty dollar.
     

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