Complicated Issues With Mental Health.

I have spoken here in the past about the many complicated issues involving mental health including public stigma. And I think at least part of the problem with the policy regarding groups like the mentally ill is that it's guided by the public's misperceptions about the topic. Starting with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, in the U.S. policy shifts were often guided by people's ignorance. I was watching the trend then and it had me concerned, but people's preconceived notions can go both ways. What we need is a better way of informing the public and informing voters. Which includes all the ways people try to remain informed. I am of an older generation so I mainly use TV and news broadcasts for that. So maybe if there were some way to improve accuracy and accountability there. Including changes in the laws regarding media and the requirement all sides of the issues are told. Told and told with fact checking like they do on some websites. Like I said, we have to address complex and difficult issues that way. While respecting people's rights and using the existing institutions, both media and legal, as they are.

And this all includes the complex and difficult issues for mental illness and people who are developmentally disabled. I recently read online that the tendency towards violent crime is the about same for both groups, two to four times the rate of the general population, though the majority of each group isn't like that. But what we need for both is a common sense approach and a better way to prevent those incidents. Preventing those incidents and addressing the conditions that those people live in that leads to that is obviously a better approach than the type of approach we were using decades ago and that some want to go back to now. And we live in a very different world than that time too.

I was going to add to what I just said, that a lot of issues could be resolves for vulnerable groups like those for just making the policies for both groups meet in the middle instead of being different. As I've said, I don't think it should too easy to become a foster parent or too hard to become an adoptive parent. So why not have those standards the same? Or with confidentiality. I was talking to my former therapist about this subject once, only on the subject of reporting requirements for child abuse and how that was treated differently when I was a child. Things like family counseling had the same confidentiality requirements as most medical fields back then but the severely mentally ill had to live under the same system they always did when it came to that. And that is what I think is meant by having a common sense approach. Equal treatment, equal access, common sense reform and a rational approach for all involved.

 

Yeah, it's a funny thing. They don't talk much about social issues like crime with the intellectually disabled. But like I said, crime statistics show that their social problems are similar to the mentally ill, although for both groups most aren't that way at all. And eliminating the stigma and equal treatment is really the best approach to that problem. (Especially for the mentally ill, I should point out. Their condition is treatable with medicines. And if there is less stigma they will be more likely to get treatment and be compliant with it. But with as little coercion as possible. Because who would go to a dentist who everytime he cleans your teeth has two strong men strap you to the chair to do it? Again common sense, common sense reform is needed here.)

They often say things like most of the people in prison have an intellectual disability, which I for one think is very sad. Some say that is only because they are so cooperative with police. And here was some talk around the early millennia about the intellectually disabled and how some doctors wondered about issues involving them becoming parents. This was around the time they started talking about the Marie Noe case. She was diagnosed with several mental health issues and she was found to have an IQ of 78 which is considered a borderline intellectual disability. She allegedly killed eight of her children in Philadelphia between 1949 and 1968. She was severely abused as a child herself. Finally in 1999 she pleaded guilty to all the murders and was given probation. The issue of the intellectually disabled becoming parents is complicated because some of them often need help with that along with help functioning in general. Actually my understanding is there's a concern about child abuse with both groups. But mentally ill don't usually have to reach out for help for parenting. (And I just read on Google that parents with treated serious mental illness are not in any way at a higher risk of child abuse than the general population. And also for both groups the issue of poverty and substance abuse comes into play, as it often does for the subject anyways.) But like I've been telling people for some time now, I think things like monitoring their home life and dealing with the issue on a case-by-case can be built into the system that is there to help them. And the intellectually disabled, just like any group, is assumed to have the same rights as anyone until the opposite is proven which is very important. And marriage and other things related to a social life are very important. But that subject is a little different because you also have to consider the rights of the children involved. (And real quick, I just read that part of the reason why people with intellectual disabilities are overrepresented in the criminal justice system is because they often have comorbidities like ADHD or autism. And also, that like the mentally ill they are still overall more likely to be the victims of crime than the cause.)

 

I was going to say about the social problems people with intellectual disabilities face. I think according to crime statistics they are more likely do things like violent crimes. I'll have to check that one, but I think I read that somewhere. I know their problems are in many ways the same those two groups, them and the mentally ill.

That's weird because they never talk about that in this country. Like I told people earlier, I heard in my 2000 class that there was a lot of stigma in the US surrounding them and that claim. But most of the discussion is about the mentally ill and how they pose risks due to public safety, danger to themselves and noncompliance. I don't know what the discussion is in other countries.

Because you know like I said, back to mental illness now. Most of them are very treatable, especially with the newer medicines.

 

I was going to say about the reforms I think should be made in law, for both the mentally ill and the intellectually disabled. Like I said, I've been thinking about their rights to be parents specifically for some time. And everyone is presumed to have that right, along with the rest, until the opposite is proven. But I think for both their rights as parents can be built into the system that helps them. If they are receiving aid that requires them to have some assistance, IOW more than just financial assistance, it could be built into that. Checking up on them and their family periodically if nothing else. And I also think it should be easier to take away children when abuse is suspected, for everyone as I have been telling people. Anytime abuse is suspected in any home. I was also thinking things like a preexisting mental illness, and anything that could predispose them to problems in raising children, like lower than normal IQ. Like I said, Marie Noe had an IQ of 78 which is considered borderline functioning. Sadly in her case no one even suspected abuse. But if it is suspected maybe all those things can be taken into consideration. Preexisting problems, a history of that kind of behavior, maybe even their history growing up. I don't know, Noe was severely abused herself as a child growing up. She had a tragic story. And I read in my 1995 psychology class that being abused as child yourself, though it sometimes leads to becoming an abuser, should never be used that way. To determine if you should be a parent. Obviously it shouldn't be. But maybe take all those things into consideration when it's suspected. Use the existing system, and have changes that if they occur are commonsense, and don't go overboard in either direction.