[Runscott]

Originally Posted by tiger8mush

I agree, its something you don't think much about until it involves you. There are so many subects that can be included in that statement though, like spousal abuse and drug addiction and cancer treatment and alcohol abuse etc. I think the afformentioned get more $ allocated from the gov't than mental institutions because there is more awareness and more people afflicted with those illnesses/symptoms. I would chose to fund ALL of those programs, including mental institutions, over funding war and probably 1/2 of the other stuff that the gov't spends money on. I'm all for a reallocation of our tax money. But politicians have power and in order to keep their power they put money where the lobbyists (who give the politicians money) want them to put it, and the tax dollars don't end up in the areas that I feel they should be.

This is all perfectly understandable, and as it should be. I'm the same regarding all the programs you mentioned. Another wrench in the mix is that for each of those, the 'victims' begin crusading after they recover (or as they don't recover), but with mental illness, the ill who 'recover' prefer to get on with their lives and sort of pretend they never had it; i.e- best case is they take the lithium willingly and tell their family to quit talking about it.

Funding won't come until their is more public awareness. What I was hearing in that thread was BAD public awareness, which is even worse than none at all.

I'll stop w/the political rant as I really don't know what I'm talking about anyway

I haven't had direct involvement w/mental illness and I'm sure I'd feel differently if I did. Although, my mom is bi-polar and we believe my brother is. My mom takes medication and doesn't work because of her illness. I'm definiltely not as sympathetic to her as I should be.

My guess is that if your brother or mother had had a first manic break and killed someone (even planned it), then came down from the mania and was grief-stricken, you would want him to get treatment, as opposed to a lethal injection. But you might also believe that what I'm describing is impossible.

I guess I'm willing to help those who want to be helped. Who aren't looking for handouts and who want to better themselves etc. How do you separate those from people who are just mean/lazy/criminals?

Good luck finding such people. Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia affect the part of the brain that gives insight - this means that such people are incapable of knowing that they have an illness. Sounds weird, but I have been through it and promise you that is the case. Since schizophrenics never have insight that they are ill, they almost never want to be helped. Bipolar people don't want help while in the mania, and when out they either want to takes meds or want to be left alone.

How do you separate them? You have to educate yourself on the difference - there are plenty of books and websites.

I'm sympathic to your cause, Scott. Its good that you are raising awareness for the mentally ill and helping your loved ones. If there is a worthy cause/organization that you specifically favor, I'm willing to donate to it, please let me know the info.

It's not a cause yet. I'm just a family member who is recovering from shock. Thanks for your offer - if/when I find something, I'll post here. This is a very recent experience for my family.

In the particular case of Holmes, while its certainly possible he is temporarily ill or what-not (I don't know cuz I don't have the time/energy/desire to look into this subject specifically, so I resort to making uneducated statements like I've made in most of my posts), its just hard to believe that our society would help this person and he'd one day be able to be a contributing member of society without something like this happening again. Not given what he's done. He didn't flip out and beat up an ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend or go haywire cuz his professor gave him a bad grade or have road rage. This is something that took many days of planning and he had a lot of time in between to come out of his insanity and realize that he was planning to hurt a lot of people.

Rob

He is an extreme example, regardless of his mental state - murders like this, that are this well-planned and evil, and where the perpetrator makes no attempt to escape, or not common. Also, if manic, he might not have had enough time to come out of his insanity - manic breaks (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder both typically begin with one) can last for months, or even a year. If the person simply goes manic and is angry or vengeful, people who meet him during that phase will think that's just his personality. They do not all go psychotic (schizoaffective disorder).

But I understand your feelings. My experience was the same, even as I watched it happening. You try to reason with the ill person, appealing to his 'old brain' and how it thought. It just doesn't work. Then you wait for them to come down and understand what they are saying and doing, but nothing short of medication will speed up that process.

If Holmes were indeed in a manic state and someone close to him had noticed the personality change, and they had been AWARE of what mental illness is and how to deal with it (this is where the lack of public awareness is such a problem), they could have tried to get him to a psychiatrist and to take meds, which could have brought him down early on. Unfortunately, it seldom works that way. Generally what happens is that if lucky, a family member notices the change, is unable to get the person to get treatment, and simply follows them around until the illness manifests itself as a direct danger to the person or others, at which time they can try to get them committed involuntarily to a hospital for 72-hr observation. But this all hinges on family members recognizing the signs of mental illness and then understanding that they personally can't do much without medication.