re: #162 albusteve

yes, here’s a bit more
[Link: online.wsj.com…]

From the article at your link:

The motivation for such killings is usually based on psychotic thinking, not political thinking. Dennis Sweeney killed Allard Lowenstein because he believed that Lowenstein had implanted a transmitter in his teeth that was sending messages to him. Russell Weston stormed the Capitol because he believed the government had hidden a machine there that could reverse time.

The solution to this situation is obvious—make sure individuals with serious mental illnesses are receiving treatment. The mistake was not in emptying the nation’s hospitals but rather in ignoring the treatment needs of the patients being released. Many such patients will take medication voluntarily if it is made available to them. Others are unaware they are sick and should be required by law to receive assisted outpatient treatment, including medication and counseling, as is the case in New York under Kendra’s Law. If they do not comply with the court-ordered treatment plan, they can and should be involuntarily admitted to a hospital. Arizona has such a provision in its laws, but it is almost never used.

Check the bolded parts.

People suffering delusions find them to be quite real, and most often cannot be convinced that they are ill and that the delusions are illogical and make no sense.

Which leads to the next piece, which is they are unaware they are ill and won’t voluntarily seek treatment or take their meds.

My youngest brother is convinced that:
1. The home alarm system my mom & dad had in their house was really some sort of recording device that was recording information about him and sending it - somewhere. He was so convinced of this that he tore the wiring apart to disable the thing.
2. That when he lived in Texas, not only were his neighbors stalking and harrassing him, they had recruited a whole bunch of other folks as well, and whenever he went somewhere, there was a whole line of cars following him for the purpose of spying on him and harrassing him.
3. When he moved from Texas to Louisiana, these same people sold their property in Texas, followed him to La. and bought the house next door to my parents house (where he was living) for the purpose of spying on him and harrassing him.

There was nothing, not one thing we could tell him, about how illogical that was, to convince him otherwise. HOWEVER, he is just savvy enough so that he doesn’t talk about those things to a physician performing a cursory exam - it would take some time with a specialist to build enough trust that he would talk about this. So he appears quite sane; but he isn’t.

He’s been in treatment twice; and walked away both times. I know I’ll get a call one day that he has hurt himself or someone else, and I dread the day.