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

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

#121

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

potatolicious wrote: post #56
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.

This argument irks me. Have you been on the inside of a homeless shelter? The constant bed bug invasions, bunking right next to a paranoid schizophrenic, living in constant fear of rape (yes, even for men)? Treated like a social pariah on a good day, non-existent the next? This isn't even the tip of the iceberg, I assure you. Life inside the system is not nearly as rosy as you might think. Often I feel like people sh…

Nothing in the GP post says anything about the rosiness of life inside the system.

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

#122

Post by barry-cotter »

mcguire wrote: post #104
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ADHD or blindness are not even in the same room a schizophrenia. 25% of prisoners are there because of ADHD. In aggregate it probably causes much more harm than schizophrenia.

" 25% of prisoners are there because of ADHD " Source?

ADHD has a lot to do with poor impulse control. Most prisoners have low impulse control and are stupid.

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

#123

Post by acroyear »

DanBC wrote: post #114
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…

My state provides extensive education and training to some people, so they can become doctors. My state provides hospitals and funding for treatment. Imagine a person with full thickness burns to 75% of their body - "Why are ppl so apt to think that state employees are miracle workers?" - because they've been educated, trained, and provisioned to provide the help that other people need.

are you making an argument for state-employees, or just anyone that gets this type of training? you're off point - I'm saying that you can't look to the state +first+ for your family's needs - it is important to take a primary stake in your own well-being.

btw, ask the folks affected by Katrina how they would rate the training of all the emergency response state employees .. probably not so good. My point is : don't rely on these ppl.

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

#124

Post by tete »

cwisecarver wrote: post #98

It was a very interesting article and I really enjoyed reading it but why is it on Hacker News?

> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.

I know, it's hard to tell, but given that you are a Hacker News reader and find it interesting (and it got upvoted) I think it hit that.

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

#125

Post by barry-cotter »

_delirium wrote: post #31

This is often discussed among homeless advocates, because such a large percentage of homeless have mental illnesses of various kinds. I do think reform had quite a bit arguing for it: old-style "insane asylums" were really not nice places, and involuntary commitment was used fairly widely, at times even producing involuntary surgeries (like the notorious period in which involuntary lobotomies were performed), which I…

Mental hospitals suck. Some suck more, some less but if you visit people in them you will be under no illusions but that they all suck.

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

#126

Post by jlgreco »

Nursie wrote: post #119
gojomo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, interesting... though the opening line does seem to suggest marijuana use remains especially linked with schizophrenia -- in prevalence at least: Alcohol use disorder, which is three times more common in patients with schizophrenia than in the general population, and cannabis use disorder, which is up to 10 times more common, both contribute to the morbidity of schizophrenia, through increased relapse, noncom…

As far as I've read, and I read whatever I can, there's still no evidence one way or another about which causes which. Does cannabis have a causitive or trigger effect on schizophrenia? Or are schizophrenics more likely to live on the fringes of society and encounter (and like) cannabis?

This is a valid point, and more work needs to be done in this field.

However I think a fairly safe default is to tell kids not to smoke pot until we can make a more educated decision (provided of course we don't extend that ban to adults for no reason, and provided we don't purposely ruin the lives of kids who don't listen. (You wouldn't arrest or kick a kid out of school for smoking tobacco.)).

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

#127

Post by [deleted] »

dgavey wrote: post #27

What a timely article. Just today received a call from the school that my grade 3 son had thrown a girl to the ground threatening her. This was the second incident in a week. A team of councilors and mental health workers were called in as an emergency response team. The similarities between the child in the article and my son are startling and scary. Although we are still at the beginning of our story, I do believe…

[deleted]

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

#128

Post by wonderzombie »

wooter wrote: post #82
wonderzombie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And you believe that, based on no data what-so-ever? ;)

Right now, we spend a lot of money and get very little. If we chose to spend more rather than passively leak money, we'd at least be able to exercise some control over how it's spent, benefit from economies of scale, and so on.

To be explicit, I'm drawing a distinction between efficiency of dollars and raw quantity of dollars. Given the choice between spending $250 and getting nothing versus spending $500 and receiving something of substantial value, I'd opt for the latter. And that's what the qualifier about "benefits to society overall" is about; there's more value to be had from this than some dollar amount.

But if all we're thinking about is a) how many dollars it costs (and not how we're wasting money now), and b) that some small subset of people might game the system (which will always happen, regardless of counter-measures), I think that's self-defeating.

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

#129

Post by fusiongyro »

mcguire wrote: post #100
fusiongyro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

" The author is arguing that his son would not be homeless if institutional care had not be shut down " Actually, he isn't . The only institutional care he mentions in the What I realize now section is "supportive short-term and long-term community housing and treatment", which doesn't sound like institutional care, in the sense of "When he was in jail, with its regular routines and meals, Tim usually stabilized". Th…

That's a good point. The article begins with him discussing the shutdown of institutional care in favor of integrative approaches. But you're right, the solution he's promulgating at the end isn't really the same thing.

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

#130

Post by philh »

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.

Note: You're talking about why alcohol and tobacco are legal while marijuana is illegal; but hristov was talking about whether or not someone who self-medicates with marijuana is playing with fire.
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