That said, if everyone in the state were as knowledgeable and compassionate as you, toward the man in the original post, I can't see that it would make much difference. He killed his parents and that's a fact, as written. How could the attitudes of the general public change that?
This is absolutely not a knock on you or your post, but a genuine question.
This is absolutely not a knock on you or your post, but a genuine question.
Fair question, and I'll try to answer it the best I can based on my interactions with hundreds of families who have loved one's with mental illness. One of the big problems often faced by families and their ill relatives is that, because of the stigma that has been placed on mental illness, people who are affected (and their families) are often reluctant to really seek the kind of help they need.
When someone has cancer, they know that the community is going to surround them with compassion and love. But often with mental illness, people will be in denial because they fear the treatment that they will get from friends and society in general if people know they are mentally ill. They fear they will not get compassion, but rather judgement, as if their illness is a character flaw. So, that's how attitudes can affect the outcomes of illnesses like these. How many times have you seem someone being called "psycho," or "schizo" in a movie as if it were some joke? We don't see these kinds of thoughtless comments in movies towards people with cancer or other serious illness, but for some reason, as a society, we still think it's ok to make light of mental illness and treat people affected as second class citizens. If you were diagnosed with an illness that you thought would subject you to ridicule, wouldn't it be a hard thing to accept? So it is for people affected with mental illness because of societal attitudes.
This man killed people and that's tragic. Of course I can't "know" how things might have turned out differently because I don't know all the details of this particular case. But I do believe, based on my personal experience, that the less a person feels stigmatized by their mental illness, the more likely they are to seek treatment and stay on the kinds of medications they need. Attitudes towards people with mental illness in general can and does affect the degree to which they and their families will seek the kind of help they need.