Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 209 posts

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#81

Post by fusiongyro »

debacle wrote: post #33
fusiongyro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fatalistic attitude isn't wrong, but it is manifestly unhelpful and surprisingly expensive. Being homeless is not a zero-cost alternative to real treatment; in many cases, the cost of lavish treatment is far lower than the cost of ER visits and criminal proceedings that would otherwise be incurred. I believe Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about chronic homelessness a few years ago, about Denver rolling out a…

It's 2012 - no one in the world should go homeless, unclothed, or hungry. It's inhumane. But I don't think that's what this article was about.

The author is arguing that his son would not be homeless if institutional care had not be shut down, not that his son would be a productive member of society. It's practically tautological.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#82

Post by wooter »

wonderzombie wrote: post #43
ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when it makes both ethical and financial sense. It saves money on a small scale because no one's trying to defraud it yet.

On the other hand, you have to ask whether the cost of trying to make sure not a single dollar is given to the undeserving outweighs both the monetary savings and benefits to society overall. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I envision this to be a lot like crime. You'll never get rid of it completely, so you put into place some (ostensibly) cost-effective measures to mitigate the worst of it.

> On the other hand, you have to ask whether the cost of trying to make sure not a single dollar is given to the undeserving outweighs both the monetary savings and benefits to society overall. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

based on no data, what-so-ever? I believe the parent claiming that there would be no monetary savings at-scale or in the long term

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#83

Post by 7952 »

littlegiantcap wrote: post #57
xk_id wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm let me try… Psychedelics -> Social rejection MDMA -> Problems with parents Weed -> Infantilism Alcohol -> low IQ NOTE: they are not absolute (e.g IQ below average), but relative to what would make that particular individual comfortable given the life challenges he deals with at the time.

Alcohol abuse has actually been correlated with High IQ and is most commonly abused by this group because of the despair they see in the world due to their high IQ's. Essentially, because they tend to be more educated, and aware of global problems that makes them depressed.

The causality of that is highly suspect.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#84

Post by btilly »

debacle wrote: post #30
btilly wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His son might not have been contributing, but having him homeless and bouncing in and out of jails is more expensive to society than appropriate institutional support. Furthermore one of the stated issues is his unwillingness to take antipsychotic medication, and one of the characteristic traits is that in a structured jail environment, where he's presumably receiving those medications, he is able to function well. T…

Anti-psychotic medication isn't like taking Tylenol. It can completely change a person's personality, and people have likened it to living in a fog.

I am fully aware of this. My phrasing might have a shot was meant to indicate that he would face an uphill battle and success was still a somewhat unlikely proposition.

However when he's left to drift around homeless and without medication, his odds of success are currently 0. "Somewhat unlikely" is a significant improvement on that present reality.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#85

Post by jessaustin »

acroyear wrote: post #71

Author's first impulse is to look to the state for the care of his child. WRONG!!!! YOU and your family are the primary folks responsible for this kid. Your wife had about the same chance of success as any set of teachers or state gov't goons but with much more incentives. What the hell was she doing? (probably getting her 'career' on - woo hoo!) Why are ppl so apt to think that state employees are miracle workers? C…

I'd speculate that anyone "political" enough to be elected to the legislature at the tender age of 25 will never be able to step outside the mentally-crippling assumptions of the total-services state. Note the unrecognized contradiction between "the state should provide this service and provide it well" and "when I was in charge of things for the state, the LAST thing I or any of my colleagues cared about was providing this service".

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#86

Post by gojomo »

Shorel wrote: post #73
hristov wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of research showing that marijuana speeds up the onset of schizophrenia in patients that are already genetically predisposed to it. See: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2005559-2,00....

Both alcohol and tobacco are legal, and have worse health consequences than marijuana. The only real reason is that 90-70 years ago, the white people smoke tobacco and the black people smoke marijuana.

Do you have evidence that alcohol and tobacco are worse in the specific context of schizophrenia?

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#87

Post by VMG »

cletus wrote: post #64

Things like this are easy to say: > If I were a legislator today, I’d mandate — and provide funding to ensure — that every teacher receive training in recognizing symptoms of mental illnesses. but teachers aren't psychiatrists or clinical psychologists and can't really be expected to be. I was recently watching a program talking about the somewhat controversial theory that schizophrenia (and other mental disorders) a…

I heavily doubt that there we'll find a single cause for what essentially can be described as faulty wiring in the brain. Drugs, genetic predisposition and a whole lot of other causes could be the trigger just as well.

Upvote for the first point though.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#88

Post by efa »

debacle wrote: post #10

You can blame the schools for misdiagnosing ADHD, and you can blame them for a poor IEP, but you can't blame them for a child not having a normal life due to one of the most tragic diseases known to man. Schizophrenia is not the kind of disease you can treat with an IEP, and it sounds like the author's son fell out of the system from a very young age. Trying to blame anything but genetics and development for his son'…

I completely agree with you. I think these demands on society are unrealistic. You can't expect that out of teachers and pediatricians.

My experience with the school system (I have a daughter with autism) has been much better then his sounds (I hope so given it's 40 years later). We have no push back in getting our developmental pediatricians' input into our daughter's IEP. Our school provides speech and occupational therapy. But as you mentioned, schizophrenia is a whole other world (even from autism in my opinion). There is no cure. There are only lesser of many evils. You can't expect society to fix that.

One thing that really bothers me are these crazy statistics - "one in every five children and one in every four adults has a diagnosable mental illness. A quarter of all mental illnesses are considered serious." One in four? Come on. If the bar is so low that one in four have a mental diagnosis it makes the term meaningless. It drives my wife and I crazy when parents claim there kid had autism but after a month on this fad diet or other they are now cured. Guess what - your kid never had autism! Don't tell that to a parent who knows their daughter will likely never leave home, never marry, and probably never hold down a meaningful job. It's just insulting.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#89

Post by lwat »

cletus wrote: post #64

Things like this are easy to say: > If I were a legislator today, I’d mandate — and provide funding to ensure — that every teacher receive training in recognizing symptoms of mental illnesses. but teachers aren't psychiatrists or clinical psychologists and can't really be expected to be. I was recently watching a program talking about the somewhat controversial theory that schizophrenia (and other mental disorders) a…

It may well be that parasites contribute but there is also a genetic component to schizophrenia.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#90

Post by kyebosh »

debacle wrote: post #10

You can blame the schools for misdiagnosing ADHD, and you can blame them for a poor IEP, but you can't blame them for a child not having a normal life due to one of the most tragic diseases known to man. Schizophrenia is not the kind of disease you can treat with an IEP, and it sounds like the author's son fell out of the system from a very young age. Trying to blame anything but genetics and development for his son'…

> it's very unlikely that his son would have ever been a contributing member of society.

I'm having trouble getting past this comment. I don't wish to malign you debacle - I'm sure you're not being malicious - but it seems like a very unkind & privileged mindset. I hope this isn't representative of the community.

Paul Gionfriddo certainly doesn't consider his son to lack contribution.

Post reply on HN