tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post5954463596742181715..comments2024-03-26T22:16:26.572-04:00Comments on Terrierman's Daily Dose: Support Mental Health or I'll Kill YouPBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-20261090999993703562007-11-29T22:31:00.000-05:002007-11-29T22:31:00.000-05:00I have bipolar disorder. I have no history of viol...I have bipolar disorder. I have no history of violence, which makes me no threat to anybody. I'm lucky. I respond well to meds. There are many bipolars who walk around hearing and seeing things not because they don't take their meds, but because even taking their meds, the meds make you stable (if you're lucky). They don't make you <I>normal</I>.<BR/><BR/>We (voters) can't make the world safe, but mental health laws could be better. The normal argument about how the country does health care is okay in the context that someone's health is one of their personal wants and needs.<BR/><BR/>For those of us with mental illnesses that could trigger violence (in a small minority of us), stability is not a personal health care issue. It's a public safety issue.<BR/><BR/>Taxpayers should pay for the meds and psychiatrist visits for people like me because it's in those taxpayers' own self interest that I and others be medicated. We ought to have a thumbprint or something in a national registry (if we want to join that program or are civilly committed onto it) that lets us walk up to any pharmacy and say, "Uh, I don't have my meds." The pharmacist should be able to call up our meds and doses and hand us our daily dose to swallow right then and there, logging it in the system and getting reimbursed.<BR/><BR/>You sane people should do this not for our safety--for yours.<BR/><BR/>Not that you don't get a lot of side benefits when we're working and paying taxes instead of sleeping in pee in a gutter somewhere.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-76116294541535741712007-04-21T00:28:00.000-04:002007-04-21T00:28:00.000-04:00It's not the guns, it's the mental healt system. N...It's not the guns, it's the mental healt system. No, I'm not a gun nut, I just see putting this off on gun availablity as one more rabbit trail to keep us from facing the real issue. We ignore mental illness or treat it as a character flaw. It's no more a character flaw than juvenile diabetes or a broken leg.Pam B-Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05321661497455700747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-15254768799535301012007-04-20T19:51:00.000-04:002007-04-20T19:51:00.000-04:00P - I just re-read my comment after reading your p...P - I just re-read my comment after reading your post for about the 5th time today (it's a very good piece of writing). To clarify - my remarks are aimed at the folks I hear on the teevee asking "why couldn't we just commit him? what's with this medical privacy stuff, anyway?" <BR/>I couldn't agree more strongly with the points you make about the need for better public health (including mental health) care and the need to deal with root causes of violence. Good accessible health care would not only lessen the chances of a tragedy like this, it will also pay dividends when other bigger disasters - natural and man-made - occur. We <I>can</I> and <I>should</I> try to improve the lot of the poor, the crazy folks, the addicts - it may not lead us to a perfect world, but maybe we'll get to a slightly better one.<BR/>A friend just did some temping at a mental health facility in Brooklyn - she said what was especially sad was the number of problems many of these folks carried around - mentally ill, physically in bad shape, poor, homeless - a deep hole to be in...<BR/>Also - on the primitivitude (grin) of Virginians - wasn't there a Virginian way back, name of Thomas Jefferson? Yeah, poor, benighted Virginia (sarcasm)!dr. hypercubehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18248184324020645672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-63018254322528316542007-04-20T08:41:00.000-04:002007-04-20T08:41:00.000-04:00Agree - the mental health/civil liberties trade of...Agree - the mental health/civil liberties trade off is hard and we'll get it wrong with tragic results for both type 1 and type 2 errors. From Doghouse Riley's curmudgeonly blog:<BR/><BR/>"This looks like a good place to note that the various and sundry calls for some sort of Mental Health Industry solution, frequently but not exclusively envisioned as including a 21st Century synthesis of the Soviet system and the biography of Frances Farmer, fall a bit short when one considers that Cho was actually in these people's hands, and a fat lot of good it did anyone.<BR/><BR/>No, rather, if the Media refuses to share a neck, let's ask now, 72 hours later, "What have we learned?" And let's save time by answering, "Nothing." "<BR/><BR/>The world is not a safe place - pretending it can be made so is a mistake we seem to want to make on a daily basis. Bad things happen - good people die - grief is a part of the human condition. We can do things to improve folk's lot, but to imagine that we're going to end up in a perfect world is, I'm sorry to be so blunt, foolish.dr. hypercubehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18248184324020645672noreply@blogger.com