[Jedidah]

Thanks for telling the truth, although you will get flamed for it.

We’re already hearing cries about tighter gun laws. The common thread running through last night’s massacre, Arizona, Columbine, and many other such incidents are the deranged minds of the shooters. Yet mental health assessment and intervention is so very hard to get in this country.

We don’t understand it, we don’t want to talk about it, and some people don’t even acknowledge that mental illness exists.

They are those who have never encountered it.

For those of us who have, we know that getting help for someone who adamantly refuses to acknowledge a problem is nigh impossible. Keeping a schizophrenic or violent bipolar patient on meds is also very hard, because they feel better and stronger and on top of their world unmedicated.

Treatment facilities can keep them only until they’re medicated enough to no longer be considered a threat. Then they’re released, go off the meds, and it starts all over again.

Flame away. I just told a truth that needs to be a national discussion. These kinds of tragedies can be avoided, if this guy was, indeed, mentally ill.

Maybe he isn’t ill, just evil. Remains to be seen. However, if he was, betcha his family knew it and were powerless to intervene.

[EEGator]

Why would you get flamed for your post?

[SCalGal]

For those of us who have, we know that getting help for someone who adamantly refuses to acknowledge a problem is nigh impossible. Keeping a schizophrenic or violent bipolar patient on meds is also very hard, because they feel better and stronger and on top of their world unmedicated.

My daughter is schitzophrenic. Getting help is difficult and very expensive - and that's if you're willing and able to pay for it. Keeping them medicated when they don't want to be is impossible - and the medication isn't a cure. It just makes the voices a lot quieter - the patient is still mentally ill, although perhaps functional.

[silverleaf]

Amen

You have been through this

Once your kid is 18 you can’t even see his medical records or talk to his doctors without his permission, heck you can’t even see his school attendance and grades

You know he is aticking human time bomb and there is nothing anyone can say or do unless he goes off

God Bless

[jacquej]

Thank you for this post.

We closed most of the mental health hospitals back in the late 70s, early 80s, thanks to the bleeding hearts who decided they were cruel.

So those with serious mental health problems now live on the streets, go off their meds, and break their families’ hearts.

And some can be very dangerous to others when unmedicated. I suspect this young man was suffering from schizophrenia, which develops at about his age. His poor mother - she may have known, but been unable to convince medical authorities.

Some schizophrenics are able to hide their illness very well, until the delusions take over completely.

[chooseascreennamepat]

“However, if he was, betcha his family knew it and were powerless to intervene.”

Chose NOT to intervene.

[ilovesarah2012]

Can you have a severe mental illness and still get a degree in neuroscience? I’m going with evil. Of course, he will probably be deemed not guilty by reason of insanity, spend a few years in a mental hospital, and be released. I do feel for his family, though.

[DrC]

“Yet mental health assessment and intervention is so very hard to get in this country.”

I seriously doubt that inability to get MH care was this guy’s problem. A) there’s community mental health centers all over the country that provide free services to patients who can’t afford it; B) virtually every major college/university also provides ample MH resources to his students. It’s inconceivable Holmes didn’t have access to such services as an undergrad at UC-Riverside or at UC-Denver as a doctoral student. So your general observation may have validity, but I don’t think that solving that issue would in any way have affected this guy’s behavior etc.

[Gay State Conservative]

For those of us who have, we know that getting help for someone who adamantly refuses to acknowledge a problem is nigh impossible. Keeping a schizophrenic or violent bipolar patient on meds is also very hard, because they feel better and stronger and on top of their world unmedicated.

Neither I nor any member of my family is/has ever been schizophrenic but a 20+ year career working in a major hospital's ER has taught me a thing or two about the disease.One of the main thing's I've learned is that,particularly given this country's current laws and the headlong rush to close down psychiatric wards over the last 40 years or so,schizophrenics usually do very,very poorly here in spite of the fact that medications exist that are usually effective in controlling symptoms.To explain further would take time but anyone in the medical profession will confirm this.