Miami Airport Shooting

[starrwriter]

About the Miami airport shooting yesterday: I don't blame the federal air marshalls for shooting the man. They did what they had to do under the circumstances. But the suggestion that mental patients like the shooting victim should stay on their meds misses the point entirely. By definition mentally ill people are not rational. That means they can't be counted on to do rational things like stay on their meds. Mental patients belong in mental hospitals where their actions can be monitored by doctors and nurses. Starting in the 1960s, the American psychiatric profession decided to empty most mental hospitals and dump patients on the street. The rest of us have been living with the consequences of this neglect ever since then.

There is no pill to cure mental illness. Medications simply lessen symptoms, but this only works in a controlled environment where the patient is guaranteed to take the medication. Yesterday's shooting death could have been avoided if the man had been hospitalized.

[Logos]

There are millions of people who deal with some form of mental illness. So, schizophrenics, people who suffer from generalised anxiety disorder, depression, personality disorders, tourettes, attention deficit etc. should all be kept in institutions?

Gee and here I thought the practice of medicine had advanced a few hundred years or so.

People take meds for all kinds of reasons. I'm not sure where you get your definition of `mental illness', but it doesn't fit into a little pigeonhole. Have you ever looked at the DSM? The scope and range of diagnoses, prognoses and ramifications vary widely under the umbrella `mental illness'. Or maybe you're one of the lucky few who don't have any relatives or friends who deal with any of this, but you're writing as if you take personal affront to one person's situation.

Of course people on meds should stay on them, and too bad that man's wife didn't help him stay the course especially when they were about to travel, a highly stressful situation.

I don't blame the air marshalls for doing what they had to do under the circumstances either. But there is no need to condemn everyone else, or paint all with such a wide and misinformed brush.

[starrwriter]

There are millions of people who deal with some form of mental illness. So, schizophrenics, people who suffer from generalised anxiety disorder, depression, personality disorders, tourettes, attention deficit etc. should all be kept in institutions?
After 9/11, any man who runs off an airliner screaming he has a bomb in his backpack and then reaches into the pack instead of laying down as ordered obviously suffers from more than a minor mental illness. If he had been under treatment as a hospitalized patient, he would be alive today and that's a very convincing argument to me.

[Shea]

My dad has the same condition that that man had. If that had been my dad, I would be completely understanding of the air marshalls for doing what they had to do. What that man did really is an example of what happens to people who are bi-polar and go off their meds. But my dad doesn't belong in an institution. My dad really is a regular guy. He only went off his meds once since he was diagnosed in '97. After years of taking his them, he went off them last September while my mom was away in Ireland. He never claimed he had a bomb or anything, but he assumes a superior attitude when he is manic. He "knows" that he's smarter than everyone else. He's fine now, but unfortunately his episode cost him some friends. They live in the woods of North Carolina, and a neighbor couple that live nearby can understand a broken arm or the flu, but they can't understand mental illness. But my dad is building a house on the lower part of their property. I mean he literally IS the contractor. And he loves it. I fully believe that if he were put in an institution when he was diagnosed, he would be dead now, like that man in Miami. The idea of my dad being institutionalized never occured to me until your post Star. He just simply doesn't need it. Everyone has good days and bad days. You just get through life the best way you can.

[Shea]

I've looked at the DSM Logos. I used to date a psychology major my second year of college. That's a monster book! You're certainly right about mental illness not fitting into a pigeonhole.

[starrwriter]

My dad has the same condition that that man had ...
I was afraid this might get personal rather than objective because so many people are under treatment for psychiatric disorders nowadays. Hell, I've been treated myself for anxiety disorder (not that the drugs did more good good than harm, but that's another story.)

I just want everyone to think about 2 points:

(1)Despite media reports, the man who was shot may have been have been misdiagnosed and was suffering from a mental condition a lot worse than bipolar disorder. This happens more often than people think. I've known several bipolar people, I've seen them at their worst manic stages, and I can't imagine any of them doing what that man did. In hindsight I think it's very clear that man would have been much better off in a hospital setting.

(2)I saw a TV special program about a mentally ill man in New York City who literally begged his doctors and mental health officials to place him in a mental institution. He heard voices in his head and was terrified of harming himself or other people. He was so disturbed he often failed to take his medication. Because so many mental hospitals had been closed, he was placed on a waiting list for YEARS. One day at a subway platform he pushed a total stranger into an oncoming train. IMO the woman victim died because of criminal neglect on the part of the NYC psychiatric profession.

[RobinHood3000]

Perhaps you're right, starr, that that particular man may have been better off in an institution. But in your first post, you said "mental patients belong in mental hospitals where their actions can be monitored by doctors and nurses," with the obvious implied "all." I realize this may seem like putting words in your mouth, but you could have easily made your statement more accurate and less offensive by writing "some mental patients" or "many mental patients" as opposed to simply "mental patients." So why didn't you?

[starrwriter]

...you could have easily made your statement more accurate and less offensive by writing "some mental patients" or "many mental patients" as opposed to simply "mental patients."
Obviously, I meant people with serious mental disorders. Listen to what I mean, not what I write.

And no one should be offended by a frank discussion of mental illness even if they don't agree with an opinion expressed. This is a forum, after all.

[Shea]

I'm not offended for the same reason I'm not offended by my parents neighbors. I know that they can't comprehend mental illness. It's not entirely their fault.

I still can't agree with you to a certain extent.

[starrwriter]

I still can't agree with you to a certain extent.
Who said you have to agree with me? Not moi.