Back in the “bad old days” he’d have been in an institution where he couldn’t hurt himself or others.
But . . . but . . . but we have those Magick Pills that make them safe! /sarc
You mean back in the bad old days when the mental health facilites were worse than prisons and people were jammed into over crowded facilites and covered in their own fecal matter? The bad old days when people were thrown into mental health facilities to be left and forgotten and there wasnt enough money to keep conditions at even a sanitary minimum. Do you have even the slightest clue as to why mental health facilties were closed nation wide? Have you watched the documentaries and learned the grisly and absolutely disgusting history of what the greatest generation and their parents did to people? Animals were treated with more dignity and respect.
Whos going to pay for all this mental health? The State did a horrible job of it to the point it was a crime against humanity. You cant have it all for nothing. The money has to come from somewhere. Unless you want to pay more in taxes, we are going to have to cut it from somewhere.
We had a member of the extended family that was often severely depressed, manic, suicidal, sometimes all three at once. The whole family would try to help the person, call the police when it got really bad— but if the person can hold it together when the police arrive and cover up that they are not a danger to themselves or others when the police are there, nothing is done. Even if they go to a mental health facility they are usually out in 2-3 days and they can’t make a person take any medication or go to any therapy. So you can threaten to kill yourself, be stuck in mental health for three days doing nothing to get better, and then walk out. Who knows what else the person is thinking? In the 1980’s this same individual would be taken in and told they couldn’t leave until they were better, not just not a threat. And if that meant medication and therapy you had to do it. We would have a healthy family member emerge from the hospital. I remember the doctor saying,when this relative was having another bought with mania, and I was just a teen, that he could no longer force medication or therapy, but with keeping this person in for a month or two they would be in a safe environment and generally come around to where they were ok with receiving treatment. Than all that ended and we would get this relative to the hospital but they would emerge 3 days later with the same scary look in their eyes. Nothing was different. It’s crushing trying to take care of a seriously mentally ill person. This relative always seemed like a threat to just themselves (suicide) and never was violent with others. But what if they were to became so? Mental health services have really gone downhill. And one last thing— when people say the meds cause things to get worse— I don’t know, maybe they can in some people. We saw improvement in my relative when we made sure they took what was prescribed everyday as prescribed. They were worse than worse if you couldn’t control it because they would take it one day, skip a few days, take more. I really saw some scary, crazy behavior when said person did this. I think 20 year olds are really susceptible to taking meds, skipping, than taking some more. I really think that’s how the newer meds make people really nuts. It’s in there system, out, back in Crazy levels up and down. It’s just my theory. They have some longer lasting schizophrenia meds that can be given by injection so the doctor knows you’re taking it. But I don’t know if that’s the answer. I do know guns don’t get mental illness and shoot people.