You can't help but go among mad people. We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad. You must be mad, or you wouldn't have come here.
~Cheshire Cat

18 August 2012

Curioser and curioser

I apologize for the recent themes of my posts being about crime and the mentally ill. I can't help but be drawn to these stories and react to them.
Pardon my language, but it really pisses me off that mental illnesses are sensationalized in the news and treated as a prerequisite to someone committing murder. Drug use, abuse, neglect, and mistreatment can all be environmental causes of distress that often result in mental illness-type symptoms, but they do not directly cause mental illness.
They are often contributing factors for people who are predisposed to mental illness.
It is a growing problem in this country.
Mental illness is not taken as a medical condition, but rather as something criminally punishable.
Most people don't understand how to "deal with" or "handle" those who are mentally ill, often labeling them as crazy, insane, and essentially not worthy of medical attention.
I read this story today and I can't help but feel my blood boil.
How is this happening?
Police Shoot and Kill Mentally Ill Man - Over 30 Shots Fired

Law enforcement is supposed to "protect and serve." I wonder when they will start doing that...



‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,’ said Alice very
 politely; but she added, to herself, ‘Why, they’re only a pack
of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’

‘And who are THESE?’ said the Queen, pointing to the three
gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as
they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs
was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell
whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or
three of her own children.
‘How should I know?’ said Alice, surprised at her own
courage. ‘It’s no business of MINE.’
The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her
for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with her head!
Off—’

‘Nonsense!’ said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the
Queen was silent.
The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said ‘Consider, my dear: she is only a child!’


09 August 2012

Someone told me:

In the midst of the recent Colorado theater and Wisconsin Temple shootings, it has been brought to my attention that many people in the media, as well as those who respond to the media (bloggers, etc), have very strong opinions when it comes to dealing with the mentally ill.

(For argument's sake, I will leave out the fact that neither suspect was ever diagnosed with a mental illness; that was just the assumption of the court)
In a Facebook thread recently about all white criminals being mentally ill, someone told me the following:

"He's clearly mentally ill. No crime in stating that. It's the biggest contributor [for the crime]."
To which I responded: He didn't receive the right treatment. And sorry, but, that's his fault. I have bipolar disorder and my greatest fear is that I could be capable of something like this. Mental illness or not, he is just evil.and he's never been officially diagnosed, either, so it's just an assumption at this point which is really unresponsible

Her reaction: Isn't being "evil" just the lack of a conscience? Evil and several mental disorders go hand-in-hand.I'm saying mental illnesses are just a lack of conscience"





I am baffled. Speechless. I guess we have a long way to go in our understanding of mental illness and crime. 

05 August 2012

Semantics

Bipolar Schmipolar.

"I didn't know you were bipolar."
"I'm not. I have bipolar disorder."
"Oh..."

I love messing with people ^_^

“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real Turtle.”
 These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, “Thank you, Sir, for your interesting story," but she could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.
"Laughing and Grief," The Mock Turtle's Story
“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—”
“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked.
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily. “Really you are very dull!”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!” and he went on in these words:
“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—”
“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice.
“You did,” said the Mock Turtle.
“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on:
“We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—”
I’ve been to a day-school, too,” said Alice. “You needn’t be so proud as all that.”
“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle, a little anxiously.
“Yes,” said Alice; “we learned French and music.”
“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle.
“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly.
“Ah! Then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. “Now, at ours, they had, at the end of the bill, ’French, music, and washing—extra.’”
“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom of the sea.”
“I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”
“What was that?” inquired Alice.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
"The Mock Turtle's Story" by Ken Wong
“I never heard of ’Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “Never heard of uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.”
“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.”
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it: so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said, “What else had you to learn?”
“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers—"Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.”
“What was that like?” said Alice.
“Well, I can’t show it you, myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon never learned it.”
“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classical master, though. He was an old crab, hewas.”
“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh. “He taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”
“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.