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LGF Poll: Do You Back Obama's Diplomatic Approach to Syria?

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Romantic Heretic9/18/2013 4:21:13 am PDT

re: #215 klys

Heh.

It’s a sad statement that in a lot of ways, the lucky ones are the ones who have their mental health issues show before they turn 18. At that age, parents can compel treatment.

Unfortunately, schizophrenia in particular generally doesn’t show until the 20s. For a recent high profile example, see Amanda Byrnes. It takes an incredible amount of shit to get named incapable of making your own medical decisions, and a lot of people are very resistant to treatment when dealing with mental health issues (sometimes due to those issues and sometimes not).

The biggest issue for both the sufferers and the people making many of the decisions about mental illness, i.e. the politicians, is that our society generally doesn’t believe in mental illness. It believes in mental weakness.

It is widely believed if a person ‘gets tough’, ‘grows a spine’ or ‘learns to buck up’ that they’ll stop hearing voices. They won’t wake up every morning thinking, “I want to die.” They’ll realize that their sudden, extreme furies are happening more often and will end in tragedy.

It has to do with our fetish for strength. ‘Strong’ people are good and ‘weak’ ones are evil.

Until this changes nothing else will.