Preventable Tragedies: Mental Illness and Violence

It seems as though lately we have been living in an incredibly violent world. The recent shootings have prompted a heated conversation on gun control and how we need stricter gun laws. It seems to me that we are talking about everything else EXCEPT the one glaring similarity between the shooters: they all have a severe case of mental illness. A recent report on CBS News Sixty Minutes noted that most of these gunmen all have reported or we have found out about them hearing voices in their head telling them to do horrible and unspeakable acts of violence. This symptom is commonly diagnosed as schizophrenia, a disabling mental disorder that causes people to hear voices other people don't hear. They may believe other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. This can terrify people with the illness and make them withdrawn or extremely agitated. Its a dark, abysmal world that they inhabit, one that no one can understand unless you have been there. In the case of the Washington Navy Yard shooter, he went and told someone that he had been hearing voices and he was worried that something bad would happen. Nothing was done and he ended up succumbing to his illness and killing twelve people. Every single shooter that has killed mass numbers of people has had a red flag raised against them and people have been told that they were not only a danger to themselves but could possibly be a danger to another person as well. Nothing was done. 

In the late sixties when state hospitals were shut down, the patients (we're talking about a half of a million of them) there were supposed to be housed in residential treatment centers, supervised, and medicated. What happened? Well the programs were never adequately funded and so a half of a million severely mentally ill people were left to fend for themselves. Most of them are not being treated and suffering with their ailment. Instead of funding these residential treatment centers, we are worried about other things and not looking at the real problem here: These people need help. They need to be medicated, monitored, and have regular psychiatric care. Now I am not saying we bring back the state hospital system. That's a terrible idea. What I am saying is that people need to start paying attention to the fact that mental illness is a real issue when it comes to the safety of others. Its not the guns that are the problem, its the people pulling the trigger. 

It is incredibly difficult now to get help for someone suffering from either a psychotic break or having suicidal ideations, etc. Take the case with Virginia Senator  Creigh Deeds, whose 24-year-old son, Gus attacked him and then died by suicide in Nov. 2013. His son was suffering, and there were no beds available for him. This is a U.S. Senator, he has resources that average people don't and yet his son could not receive the attention he needed because of this messed up system we have for people with mental illness. 

Lets take me for example. I suffer from depression and anxiety, while now I am on medication and am doing okay, before I was medicated I suffered severe anxiety attacks which led to severe depression, and that led to suicidal ideation. I was so close to taking my own life last September that I nearly didn't make it to the hospital. Once I was there, the doctor said that my insurance would not cover my stay at that particular hospital and they said that they may have to send me up to Cambridge, MD where they have a hospital for people with mental health issues. Basically, I could not stay at my local hospital because my insurance didn't think it necessary for me to do so. I ended up staying at my local hospital thanks to my doctor's persistence but I couldn't help but wonder how many people that happened to. 

People with mental health issues also face a stigma that they are not "normal" or they are "special" in a bad way. This needs to stop. It's causing people to not go get the help they need, or even worse deny that they need help for fear of being ostracized. This world is tough and not everyone handles it the same way when life gets really shitty. There's not a day that goes by where I don't feel normal; I feel like I have to constantly apologize for my condition even though I know I can't help it. Because of this stigma, I feel like I'm...different, and not in a good way. 

So what do we have here? We have a broken system in need of repair, and a stigma that's permeated our culture. What can be done about it? Plenty. Write to your Senators, raise your voice and for gods sake remember that we are all human beings. Human beings are the same, no one can be more human than you. Just because someone has bipolar disorder, or depression, or schizophrenia, or anxiety doesn't make them alien. The world is a very difficult place, think of how much more difficult it is for them.