Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024 at 14:21
A very sad set of circumstances.
Without any intent to condone violence I do think it worth pointing out that we should be very careful not to inadvertantlyadvocate criminalising mental illness & those who suffer from it in none form or another.
As someone with a past professional history in psychiatry it saddens me to see a service capable of so much more treated as a political football when it comes to funding. I have little faith in todays mainstream Psychiatric
services, & it angers me that those who need far more support in the community than they receive are left to their own devices & when because of their condition things go awry it is frequently the individual who is blamed.
Threads like this run the risk of re-stigmatising mental illness when what is really needed is increased community support.
Calling people ‘psychos & nutcases’, complaining about prison sentences & lack of police action I understand, but doing those things achieves absolutely nothing other than to further segregate those among us who more than anything need acceptance & a sense of belonging.
No one suggests that this is an easy task , or that it will be possible 100% of the time, but I do suggest that the sort of awful outcomes in this story might be reduced were society able to be more undersdtanding.
Also unhelpful is the almost automatic association anyone makes between ‘druggies’ & ‘psychos’. Not all druggies are violent, not all with mental illness are violent, not all with mental illness take illicit drugs, & often those who do, do so to self-medicate because some psychiatric drugs are damned unpleasant. It is human support that folk in that situation require, not segregation, not negative labelling. That human support needs to come jointly from caring & skilled professionals, & from a caring community. Both are lacking, & will continue to be so for as long as the ‘forgotten people’ are allowed to be so until something awful happens for which they alone are blamed. It’s a vicious circle which needs to be broken, & we are all part of the solution because we are all part of the community. It is not someone elses problem.
Ok - off my soapbox now …. no intent to single out anyone in particular here, it is a widespread & intractable issue.
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