Note: This is an opinion based on my experience and verifiable facts. I am not a psychiatrist. You should not diagnose yourself or anyone else based on this blog entry. If you are experiencing symptoms of mental illness, please see a qualified clinician immediately. Any potentially identifying information such as names, places, etc has been changed. As an experienced psychiatric nurse I become both annoyed and frustrated whenever a mentally ill person commits a crime and has to stand trial. Inevitably, the prosecution introduces the following idea: the individual was clearly sane when they committed the crime because they were able to plan the attack, assemble all the tools or weapons they needed, stalk the victim, etc. If they were truly mentally ill, the logic goes, they couldn't have done these "sane" things. I'm sorry to tell you that someone in state of psychosis or mania or extreme depression is still able to drive to someone's house and point a gun at them with deadly aim and then drive to the airport and buy a ticket to somewhere far away. It's completely possible and it happens a lot. When I worked with the criminally insane in forensic psychiatry, the staff had a phrase they used often: crazy, not stupid. Most people who are mentally ill can do all the same things you do: brush their teeth, eat a meal, go grocery shopping, drive, ride a bike, access public transportation, use a cell phone, watch TV, etc. Some of them do these things in strange or bizarre ways, but many of them do these things with obsessive dedication and precision. Just like you. The public perception is that people who are actively experiencing symptoms of mental illness are drooling idiots or wild eyed cartoon characters who laugh maniacally and look like Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining.” If being mentally ill meant that you couldn’t function, then all mentally ill people would just stand in one place all day, staring at the sun, lost inside their minds, until they starved to death and keeled over. And there are some like that. But there are others who a behind you in the supermarket checkout line who may have body parts in their freezer. Seriously, Jeffrey Dahmer had neighbors, you know. One thing “The Shining” does illustrate with accuracy is the fact that patients with mental illness who become violent rarely “lose it” all at once. It’s a process, a slow erosion of the person’s ability to distinguish between reality and non-reality. Which is another reason that “crazy” people can appear sane - the full blown whirlwind of violence that gets them onto the evening news is the result of living with their symptoms for weeks or months or even years. Weeks or months or years of voices telling them this or that, of building paranoia that makes them afraid to breathe in public, of depression and hopelessness that sees no future. If it were possible to correctly identify violent people with mental illness, they would rarely get to shoot up schools and malls and movie theaters. They would be stopped before they murdered their family. They'd be taken into custody before they kidnapped and killed 12 victims, not after. But you can't spot people like this before they commit their crimes because, until they commit the crime, they look and act pretty much like you or your friends. Or co-workers. Or that guy in church who knows all the words to all the hymns. They appear normal on the outside. Maybe a little weird or flakey, but essentially normal. It’s the inside that’s the problem. When a person who is mentally ill commits a crime, you’re seeing an outward expression of what goes on in their head. Here’s something to think about. When you hear that some guy walked into the motor vehicles bureau in his underwear and started attacking people with a sword, what’s the first thing many people say? “Holy cow! What a nut! What a crazy sonofabitch!!!” Later, when the same person gets to court and pleads not guilty by reason of insanity or the court orders a psychiatric assessment, what’s the first thing many people say? “Faker! He’s crazy like a fox! He knew what he was doing.” Here are two truths that exist side by side, whether you like it or not:
I'm not opposed to hunting, but i'm an anti-gun person. But I've come to believe that gun laws won't stop the crimes committed by Adam Lanza in Newtown and Dylann Roof in Charleston. Why? Think about it: you can't deny mentally ill people the right to own guns if they haven't yet shown you they are mentally ill. Sadly, we have to let the Adam Lanzas and Dylann Roofs kill a bunch of people before we can act. We have to let them own the gun, then slowly build to the point of exploding internally. That's when they look around the house and think "Wow. Good thing I've got this gun and plenty of ammunition. Time to make my stand. Time to fix the situation. This'll be the last time they push me around. This'll make the voices stop." |
charles o'meara, r.n.I have worked as a registered nurse for more than two decades, ninety percent of that time as a psychiatric nurse. Archives
June 2017
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