My point was not that mental health treatment is lacking, but that families and friends of the seriously ill have no power to get treatment for an unwilling patient.
As laws now stand, the dangerously ill cannot be stopped until they either commit an offense or are hauled by law enforcement before a judge who decides whether danger exists at the time of the hearing. I speak as one who has had to instigate proceedings, including arrest and evaluation by the court.
Even then, those living in a fantasy role are sometimes able to convince a judge it’s just a family dispute. Fortunately, it worked for us.
Nobody killed with that rifle he had hidden in the truck, crazy as a loon and angry at the world, driving all over the state.
There was plenty of treatment available, but there is also a brick wall between that help and the knowing adults who have no legal power to force the loony into it.
Sorry I was not clearer.
“Sorry I was not clearer.”
Sorry for my own misinterpretation of your comment. I haven’t followed every jot and tittle or this sad tale, but my general impression is that this individual was not known to be mentally unbalanced by his friends, family, peers etc. Most of the comments I’ve seen allude to this being very out-of-character behavior etc. So it sounds like your family “dodged a bullet” so to speak. Count your blessings.
Here is an interesting video of him at 18. Whether he was schizo or became too involved with his research might be a point of debate.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/31293702/detail.html
snips:
The video showing Holmes speaking at a science camp at Miramar College in San Diego when he was 18.
Holmes’ presentation is on “temporal illusion,” which he defines as “an illusion that allows you to change the past.” In the video, he said he studies subjective experience, calling it “what takes place inside the mind, as opposed to the external world.”
This is how he was explaining his mentor’s shared interest in fantasy versus reality in the video.
End snips.
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A new song out, called The Anarchist, has these fitting lines in it:
In all your science of the mind, seeking blind through flesh and bone
Find the blood inside this stone
What I know, I’ve never shown; what I feel, I’ve always known
I plan my vengeance on my own - and I was always alone
Oh - They tried to get me
Oh - they’ll never forget me.