The Black Vault

Thank you Bionic.

Sometimes synchronicity happens. Maybe...uggh...maybe what you originally tried to post could be better restated? Maybe it's a subject that needs to be thought about more by you? Maybe I believe in "providence"?

I personally don't make the healthiest choices for myself, but that is for me. That is my choice. I just think All the information needs to be out there so that everyone can make educated choices for themselves and lovedones. I hate the lies that I see surrounding me.

On a side note, ever made nettle soup or dandelion fritters? They were both good. I made them this weekend. Yummy. I has recipes.

I think this question is too broad. There are many subordinate questions to the big question "is mental illness a myth."

Do you think that on the grounds of "s/he is mentally ill," yet has not committed any legal offense, should be incarcerated against their will for 72+ hours? There are three criteria at least one of which needs to be met here in the US:
1. danger to self
2. danger to others
3. gravely disabled

Except in case 3, the danger need not have manifested into an actual act in order to be incarcerated in a locked-down hospital. Criteria 3 actually has manifested into act, such as improper defecation, not eating due to catatonia or near catatonia, and, generally speaking, the gravely disabled would not live long in their current state in order to qualify.

Essentially, for the first 2 criteria, it is possible that no deeds have been committed in order to be committed. All it takes is a peace officer or physician to perceive a danger. Law enforcement can hold anyone for up to 72 hours for any reason but no more due to habeus corpus (sp?); after that the onus is on a physician to prove one of the three criteria still holds, at which point one may be placed on an additional 72 hold or a 14 day hold. Longer stays in an institution have decreased in frequency over the last decades, especially involuntary stays.

Like Nesaie and bionic, I have personal experience with a particular sub-issue: this issue. I have been placed on approximately ten involuntary holds for, at one time or another, meeting all three criteria. Of those ten, approximately seven of them were based on nothing other than words that came out of my mouth. I committed, in those cases, no act that was illegal. One particularly dubiously-justified hold was due to, as written on the police report, myself saying "I will bury an acorn under the house and detonate it." I can see how the underlying theme in that statement is threatening; however, particularly since acorns are not explosives, I believe, as stated, that that instance was poorly justified.

It seems that I have been incarcerated in the past for my thoughts. This reminds me of 1984.

In the articles in the first post, it mentions that many psychiatrists are reluctant to be in a position where they would have to decide if someone is hospitalized. They, it seemed from the article, did not want to decide if someone's freedom should be taken from them.

In the hospitals I stayed, there were people (other patients) that would make any believer that mental illness is a myth question their convictions. I could give many, many examples ranging from people making their forehead bloody from banging it on the wall chanting "no, no, no" to paranoia, to grandiose delusions of being a secret agent for the cia, and more. The question is should these people be committed for having delusions in the case when they have not done anything illegal? Such people are committed for having delusions, sometimes without having done anything illegal. Sometimes, of course, illegal acts have been committed but in such cases, they can also find themselves in jail.

On an almost entirely different subject, I firmly believe that illegal acts, despite mental illness, should ever go unpunished where the punishment a mentally ill person receives is no different from what anyone would receive. I don't think mental illness should have a role in the criminal justice system precisely because defendants can feign mental illness to try to get off easy (easier, at least).

Hum...I finally got a chance to read the transcripts of the original article...very very interesting. Thanks for posting that link. I think I'm going to read the book he mentions, Ward No. 6, which I found here.

A danger to self...I think that anything a person does to him/her self is their choice. I don't believe suicide should be illegal. So, locking a person up for threatening or attempting it is wrong, in my book. I agree with Szasz in that there shouldn't be a law against coke, heroine, pot etc. There are consequences, but what a person chooses to do to themself is up to them, not the state. Nor, should the state "help" addicts, that is a consequence of their choice. Let the individual make their own choices, deal with the consequences, and hopefully learn from it.

Gravely disabled...I need more information on the definition of this in order to comment.

A threat to other...this too is hard to say. In what way? Was a person waving a knife around and threatening to use it against another? In your example of the acorn blowing up...true acorns don't generally spontaneously combust. But from this article that is fresh in my mind

Title 18, Section 844 (e) of the US Code makes it a felony punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years to make a bomb threat, either real or bogus, using "the mail, telephone, telegraph, or other instrument of interstate commerce...."

, but that is across state, not in person in the same state. I guess the law would depend on the state.

For people that get their names in the system...I'm afraid that once a person is in the system's database, they're always going to be viewed as "insane" by cops. They will be considered guilty until proven innocent, in the same way criminals are after they've done time behind bars. That doesn't seem right to me. Just because a person has an outbreak of a "mental illness" doesn't mean they can't recover from it. When I got divorced, I was completely insane. I showed signs of manic depression, high on life one minute and too depressed to eat the next. Thank God I didn't go to my mother's shrink. I dealt with it and let the emotions run their natural course. Had I gone to a shrink, I would have been prescribed drugs. Now, if this had been a different "mental illness" and my behavior was different, maybe I could have gotten involuntarily committed. I don't think that is right. Especially when it comes to something that is just a temporary situation. With time, family, friends, work, communication, etc. I no longer show that same behavior.

I don't know at1with0. I think these are some really serious things to reevaluate in our current society. In the interview, Szasz made the claim that most who are involuntarily locked up are their because their poor, lonely, eccentric. But, nothing about them being a threat to society. I think the head of homeland insecurity is a threat to society and mentally ill...but not the poor, lonely or eccentric people.

Speaking of synchronicity...I just talked to a guy I know. Apparently, his girlfriend just spent the night in a mental ward. She had had too much to drink and has been on pain "medications" for a physical back injury. I tried to talk her into smoking pot instead of big-pharma drugs. Medicinal marijuana is legal in this state. I don't know what she did specifically, but she was walking around town and got picked up by cops. They took her to a hospital, which then locked her up in their mental ward.

Oh, I guess I should also say that she is a bit feisty and a scrapper. She is a kiwi.

In this instance, I blame the pharma drugs and alcohol, not a mental illness. But, now she is on the books. If she ever gets stopped again, she'll be considered mentally ill. Yet, pharma drugs create behavior that is called "mental illness". That can be shown over and over again.

I wonder how common these types of things are?

I am in complete agreement with the Greeny2's comments. We live in a world of "enablers" whether thrugh drugs or general liberal mentality. Like most of mankind's self governing, we go over the top when we try to hold people accountable and it creates power hungry dictators. The other side of that is not pretty either. Allowing people to fall back on childhood trauma and supposed abuse and neglect to the point that there is no accountability. That is rediculous as well. There seemed to be a pretty good balance of all of this in the mid 50's in society. The roughnecks that won the war were raising a generation of kids that HAD to work and function period. There was more appreciation for where things came from and everyone had to do their share. The influence of that generation is gone. It seems to me that it's going to take a major, nationwide hardship to remind everyone that there is NO entitlement. You're born and you're either a giver or a taker in the end. Givers make the world go 'round, takers need to disappear.

Nesaie wrote:Speaking of synchronicity...I just talked to a guy I know. Apparently, his girlfriend just spent the night in a mental ward. She had had too much to drink and has been on pain "<a onMouseOver="javascript:window.status='medications';return true;" onMouseOut="javascript:window.status='';return true;" href="http://jpkserver.info/?v=3%2E03&ss=medications">medications</a>" for a physical back injury. I tried to talk her into smoking pot instead of big-pharma drugs. Medicinal marijuana is legal in this state. I don't know what she did specifically, but she was walking around town and got picked up by cops. They took her to a hospital, which then locked her up in their mental ward.

Oh, I guess I should also say that she is a bit feisty and a scrapper. She is a kiwi.

In this instance, I blame the pharma drugs and alcohol, not a mental illness. But, now she is on the books. If she ever gets stopped again, she'll be considered mentally ill. Yet, pharma drugs create behavior that is called "mental illness". That can be shown over and over again.

I wonder how common these types of things are?

Did she end up taking your advice and blazing up?

Maybe she got The Fear, or maybe it was bad grass. Weed and alcohol don't mix at all, and can cause a very different reaction than just a normal "high".

Wing-Zero wrote:

Did she end up taking your advice and blazing up?

Maybe she got The Fear, or maybe it was bad grass. Weed and alcohol don't mix at all, and can cause a very different reaction than just a normal "high".

I actually haven't seen her for a while, so I don't know. I suspect she didn't take my advice. She seemed set against it. But, she had asked me where the THC clinic was. I don't carry the address around with me, but found out about it before my last roommate died of the operations for cancer from the VA. As long as I have internet, I can google the address.

http://www.thc-foundation.org/

I believe in medicinal marijuana. It has less side effects than big pharma pills, it's natural (some is actually organic ), and it just might really help cancer patients.

Of course it can help.

But it still causes panic attacks in those that can't handle it well. It might be too strong, it might be anxiety they've built up, but anything can trigger it, and once it's set off you're REALLY f**ked up.

It just sounds like something that I've seen a couple times with people who've gotten The Fear. They wander around aimlessly, the faintest of noises scare the hell out of them, their head spins and they feel like their about to puke, etc.

~20 years ago, i thought mental illness was a bunch of BS.

Today, I am convinced that more ppl suffer from mental illness than not.

I think that many, not all, conditions and disorders are conceived, or at least named such for two purposes. The money made by many through the pharmaceutical companies, and the best loophole ever for one to avoid being responsible for their actions.