I always love it when my Beyond Blue readers direct me to a piece of news that pisses me off. There I was … smiling as I checked my e-mail, a strong cup of coffee in my hand, and then these headlines: The Chinese won’t allow anyone taking antidepressants to adopt their babies, a woman seeking treatment for alcohol abuse in Tucson abruptly died in the hands of police custody after she missed her flight in Phoenix and panicked, and Rhode Island and a number of other states are deciding whether or not the mentally ill should be allowed to vote.
A few days ago loyal Beyond Blue reader Larry Parker e-mailed me an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times by columnist Rosa Brooks entitled "Straitjacket Bush."
Here’s her opener:
Forget impeachment.Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.
And here’s her closer:
Impeachment's not the solution to psychosis, no matter how flagrant. But despite their impressive foresight in other areas, the framers unaccountably neglected to include an involuntary civil commitment procedure in the Constitution.Sensationalism put aside (just a tad of that), I don’t appreciate her use of the words crazy and psychotic.Still, don't lose hope. By enlisting the aid of mental health professionals and the court system, Congress can act to remedy that constitutional oversight. The goal: Get Bush and Cheney committed to an appropriate inpatient facility, where they can get the treatment they so desperately need. In Washington, the appropriate statutory law is already in place: If a "court or jury finds that [a] person is mentally ill and . . . is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization."
I'll even serve on the jury. When it comes to averting World War III, it's really the least I can do.
"But crazy people?"
Tha’s downright offensive.
You’re shaking your head right now saying, "But, Therese, you refer to yourself as a holy whackjob. You tell one joke after another about being mentally ill. Aren’t you a tad hypocritical on this one?"
No. I’ve earned the right to tell crazy jokes. Crazy jokes are funny coming from crazy people. That’s common sense: You don’t tell Jewish jokes if you’re not Jewish. No pope jokes if you're not Catholic. And never, EVER, joke about your mother-in-law's awful green-bean casserole to your husband. No. No. No. Rag on your own mom. That's socially acceptable, since you are her own flesh and blood.
Even I, "Miss Tacky," know these rules.
Remember that Seinfeld episode? When Jerry starts telling dentist jokes and totally offends his dentist, who has converted to Judaism so he can tell his good Jewish jokes? It was in the same episode about not being able to "yada yada yada" through the sex: "He came over last night … yada yada yada … I'm exhausted this morning."
Damn I miss that show. But back to the point.
Rosa, you shouldn’t be telling crazy jokes if you don’t have a prescription of some psych drug in your purse. That’s just manners. We, crazies, have earned the right to kid about our predicament with endless therapy sessions, years of support group meetings, expensive trips to the psych ward, and, of course, smashed sex drives. Joking about it is the one perk we can claim.
Now, I suggest you either come clean about your Zoloft, or you call Bush another name. Anything but crazy (or psychotic).
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Wisdum: While I take exception to your description of Larry, you are absolutelyCORRECT about using skin color to name a group of people! One of my close friends/former colleagues who is of African-American secent used to refer to those of us with less pigmentation as "pink people, and while I was still actively teaching I jad a WONDERFUL poster posted in my classroom (wonder what finally happened to it?...) of a box of crayons of all different shades all marked "Flesh" The difficulty for me in terms of my own terminolgy is that I live in an irbancommunity (and taught for thirty plus years in said community which is largely minority populated in terms of society's labels while in actuality those of us 'pink people" are the minority, and many of my friends and former colleagues objected to being refereed to as "hyphenated Americans" It's only been in the most recent of census forms where it was possible to check "other" for the race section; prior to that I had to mark my son as "black simply because he had INE African-American parent. i'll never forget when he was three and in preschool and another little boy with the same first name joined his class midway through the year. the kids started referring to the new bot as the "white Tommy (not his real name) and my son as the "black Tommy" in order to differentiate amongst themselves. My som was irate and shared this with me that night as I was supervising his bath. As I attempted to explain to him that he knew his Mommy was white and his Daddy black, so tht made him half of each, he became as indignant as only a three year old can, stood up in the t with his hands on his hips gazing down at his body and challanged "Show me my black half!" It's one of those memories all parents have of particularly funny...or not-so- funny...sad, actually.. moments of child-rearing. We laugh about it today, but at the time his heart was truly troubled by the necessity his peers found in using those two descriptive...although actually UNsiscriptive words to identify him. Of course, because of the choices i made in life, I too have had to deal with a lot of racism, and agree with you that it's one of the ugliest components of our uncivilized civilization!Of course, being raised by "Archie Bunker didn't help either! My best friend in high school was of Italian heritage, and he ALWAYS (both to her face and behind her back called her either "WOP or "Dego." Jewish people were "Kikes, Germans "Jerries, and seventh Day Adventists "Peanut Eaters" African-Americans had SEVERAL" monikers in his vernacular, some of them dating back to the late eighteen hundreds Because God is so good, he was (finally) able to accept my son as his grandchild and they became close enough that my son (sixteen at the time) actually eulogized him when he passed away. It DID take divine intervention, however. Lots of "housemaid's knees" from THAT one, for myself, my mother AND my one sister who's a believer!As bob Dylan would say, "...when will we ever learn?"
That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the media tying in stories of crimes with the criminal blaming it on mental illness, or where there is an implied blaming it on mental illness.
The issue is what degree of mental illness, and what type? Most people don't even know what a personality disorder is, but I think killers are not simply "bipolar" or this that or the other mental illness, but a combination of some personality disorder or disorders (such as antisocial personality disorder) and possibly a mental illness. Like the student who killed the other students at Virginia Tech.
Then there are the female teachers - there were one or two, I suppose this latest one who fled to Mexico will say she has bipolar also - who blame their poor decision making on bipolar disorder. What a sham. I have been hypersexual but I would never hook up with a 17 year old girl because the hypomania does not cause that sort of poor decision making. I might make a poor decision with a person of legal age. But not someone under age. That goes beyond mere hypomania and hypersexuality into the no nonsense category of poor judgement.
Even the young woman who Kobe Bryant raped had no recourse in court, and Kobe walked free, because it was determined the young woman had bipolar disorder - so obviously this implies she wanted it since she was a nymphomaniac.
But - since this is what most people hear about mental illness or bipolar disorder - we all get stigmatized and discriminated against. I have experienced it. So I usually know better to excercise the good judgement of not telling anyone I have bipolar disorder. There is just too much ignorance out there to tell people. And their knowing doesn't help me any.
On the other hand in an anonymous forum like this I can share all I want about people with bipolar, and also about highly functioning people with bipolar - the ones that shatter all the stereotypes.
District of Columbia, for both inpatient and outpatient:
D.C. CODE ANN. § 21-545(b). If the court or jury finds that the person is mentally ill and, because of that illness, is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization for an indeterminate period, or order any other alternative course of treatment which the court believes will be in the best interests of the person or of the public.
=====================================================================
*** Keep in mind that having a mental illness isn't enough to lock you up in a mental hospital. A court or jury would also need to determine that the person in question is also likely to injure himself or other persons. So I think that is a good policy. I don't think I would want to be free on the streets if we were in this state of mind. Would you? The mental hospitals should have a policy whereby if your dangerousness goes away you should be released though -- I think that is obvious. But how that works in actuality I don't know. I wouldn't want to be locked up like Cuckoo's Nest "inderterminantly" that's for sure. So I would say that part of the law should be amended. But it may be taken care of by the policies of the mental hospitals in the district of columbia, I don't know. ***
Laws for all states can be found at http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/LegalResources/ATCriteria.htm .
Wisdum:
Be careful who you jump on.
I'm multi-racial myself (my paternal grandmother was Cherokee).
If all the minds of the world were in-touch with all truths, then they would all be quite sane, and definitely would be in-touch with reality.
However, if you had a bunch of minds across the globe who are not in-touch with ALL truths, but still were dependent upon beliefs instead, then obviously these people would not be in-touch with reality. In fact, you could call them crazy, due to such a fact.
Now here is the funny part. Today, 1% of the population has made a huge step in being in-touch with truths, and thus being in-touch with reality, and the rest of mankind, due to relativity, has labeled then as crazy, and has put them on meds to reduce the brain activity to make them function just the same as the 99% of the population.
This is a truth. But since beliefs are not directly connected to truths, and therefore truths sit beyond the limited scope of beliefs, this truth is beyond belief.
With truth being beyond belief, that is why throughout history, when new truths have been exposed, these truths are always violently opposed.
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