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I found my father living on the street

bbc.co.uk

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Re: I found my father living on the street

#81

Post by SpaghettiCat »

chris_wot wrote: post #70
SpaghettiCat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is he has a genuine medical problem: a mental disorder , i.e. it's in the DSM.

The DSM? Don't make me laugh. The DSM has plenty of things in it that you can't say would require someone to be institutionalised. I'll bet there is something I could find in the DSM that you would fit into. I'm not about to commit you though.

Not every mental disorder warrants institutionalisation; I never said that. My point was to clarify that a medically diagnosed person who does some crazy action should be institutionalised, whereas a person who does the exact same crazy action but has no mental disorders should not be.

Re: I found my father living on the street

#82

Post by vidarh »

chris_wot wrote: post #67
vidarh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many other good answers, but here's an anecdote: In Oslo, near the university, there used by a "cave dweller". A by all accounts bright student who at 25 decided to stop washing himself. He was soon thrown out of his student accommodation because of the smell. He then decided to take up residence under a tarp in a makeshift "cave" in a hillside next to the university where he stayed for the following two and half dec…

It is very hard for a mentally ill person to defend themselves. If they are in a mental institution, they can complain but even legitimate complaints get treated like a mentally ill person being difficult or delusional. That's sort of understandable - if you are around people all day who hear Satan, or have obsessive compulsions, complaining that you don't have enough bedclothes or the food is bad is just seen as par…

I can't imagine what it must be like to be in that kind of situation. I know how angry I get even when just dealing with customer service people who seems to have a different view of reality than me - being in a situation where people with actual significant power over my life have a different view of reality must be brutal...

Re: I found my father living on the street

#83

Post by giardini »

SpaghettiCat wrote: post #6

What kind of society lets a mentally ill man roam the streets, deteriorating, instead of institutionalising him and helping him recover?

To answer your question in general "Every society!".

But if you're talking about the USA and want to understand why so many are not institutionalized see the single-page summary:

"A Brief History of Mental Illness and the U.S. Mental Health Care System":

http://www.uniteforsight.org/mental-health/module2

From that page:

"...the deinstitutionalization movement has been widespread, dramatically changing the nature of modern psychiatric care.(7) The closure of state psychiatric hospitals in the United States was codified by the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, and strict standards were passed so that only individuals “who posed an imminent danger to themselves or someone else” could be committed to state psychiatric hospitals."

Re: I found my father living on the street

#84

Post by DanBC »

SpaghettiCat wrote: post #59
DanBC wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're asking for is that people who have the ability to chose (where to live; what medical treatment to have) are denied that choice. > In a psychiatric institution you could for example inject the medicine into them. Schizophrenia is a lifelong illness. Do you keep someone imprisoned for the rest of their life so that you can forcibly medicate them against their will?

> Schizophrenia is a lifelong illness. Do you keep someone imprisoned for the rest of their life so that you can forcibly medicate them against their will? No, until the mental disorder is controlled. After all avenues of curing are exhausted, and it's still not under control, then they can be released, provided there's no significant risk that they'll harm others or themselves.

Schizophrenia is not cured, but treated.

So you risk getting into "revolving door" admissions to hospital. A person with a psychosis becomes ill, rejects medication, is detained against their will in hospital and given medication against their will (sometimes by force) until they "become well" enough to be let out of hospital. At which point they're free to decide to stop taking the medication.

I'm not sure that this style of revolving door admission is better for the person than just letting them be homeless. (Although preventing people getting into that situation would be a good idea).

Re: I found my father living on the street

#85

Post by chris_wot »

SpaghettiCat wrote: post #81
chris_wot wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DSM? Don't make me laugh. The DSM has plenty of things in it that you can't say would require someone to be institutionalised. I'll bet there is something I could find in the DSM that you would fit into. I'm not about to commit you though.

Not every mental disorder warrants institutionalisation; I never said that. My point was to clarify that a medically diagnosed person who does some crazy action should be institutionalised, whereas a person who does the exact same crazy action but has no mental disorders should not be.

Define "crazy action"? And under what mental disorder should someone be institutionalised? All you've referred to is the DSM, so it's very unclear which illnesses and disorders you are referring to.

Incidentally, are you aware that there is a difference between a mental disorder and a mental illness?

Re: I found my father living on the street

#86

Post by kriro »

I think it's very unethical that she published the initial pictures without consent (from what I understand, sounds like he didn't know the pictures until she showed him when he was better) even if she is a family member and did it "in good faith" and even when he gave her implicit permission after the fact.

I also can't help but wonder why she didn't bring him to a hospital when she first saw him in the streets. I'm actually shocked that she basically let him wander around knowing his condition.

Thankfully this turned out fine but it leaves me fairly disheartened. Why wasn't he brought to a hospital by someone, people clearly saw him wandering around. I mean I can understand letting him be and live free if you know nothing about him (other people passing by daily) but she knew his condition and should have intervened herself imo.

Re: I found my father living on the street

#87

Post by chris_wot »

vidarh wrote: post #82
chris_wot wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very hard for a mentally ill person to defend themselves. If they are in a mental institution, they can complain but even legitimate complaints get treated like a mentally ill person being difficult or delusional. That's sort of understandable - if you are around people all day who hear Satan, or have obsessive compulsions, complaining that you don't have enough bedclothes or the food is bad is just seen as par…

I can't imagine what it must be like to be in that kind of situation. I know how angry I get even when just dealing with customer service people who seems to have a different view of reality than me - being in a situation where people with actual significant power over my life have a different view of reality must be brutal...

It was very, very difficult and I lodged a complaint with the complaints commission over it. The hospital had to apologise to me. I think they realised I wasn't their average patient very quickly, and they had a big problem on their hands!

Re: I found my father living on the street

#88

Post by leroy_masochist »

SpaghettiCat wrote: post #79
leroy_masochist wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder in the DSM until the mid-1970s. The understanding of relatively highly-occurring afflictions such as PTS and schizophrenia is evolving to this day and it's a near-certainty that the DSM will be a different document 10 years from now. I don't think we should be so cavalier about taking freedom away from people whose main transgression against the rest of society is making…

>Homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder in the DSM until the mid-1970s. The understanding of relatively highly-occurring afflictions such as PTS and schizophrenia is evolving to this day and it's a near-certainty that the DSM will be a different document 10 years from now. Just because it had errors before doesn't discredit the document in its current state; it's the product of scientific investigation. By it'…

I don't think the word "transgression" means what you think it means.

Re: I found my father living on the street

#89

Post by chris_wot »

kriro wrote: post #86

I think it's very unethical that she published the initial pictures without consent (from what I understand, sounds like he didn't know the pictures until she showed him when he was better) even if she is a family member and did it "in good faith" and even when he gave her implicit permission after the fact. I also can't help but wonder why she didn't bring him to a hospital when she first saw him in the streets. I'm…

She couldn't. You cannot make someone go to a hospital if they aren't harming themselves or others.

Re: I found my father living on the street

#90

Post by chris_wot »

s_kilk wrote: post #42
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well maybe if we stopped declaring people Useless or Sinners and deliberately pitching them overboard ...

My point exactly :)

On my darker days I believe the hell I live in is my own mind. It's not really possible to escape it, though sometimes sleeping helps.

Luckily dark days are few and far between, and I get help. Medication helps, and when it occurs I tell myself it's not reality because, well, it isn't.

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