Have you tried to get someone committed without insurance?
I have known doctors who’ve said ‘I’m the primary care physician, if I say in-patient therapy is needed then he’ll be admitted.’ Only to be told otherwise by the social worker hired by the HMO.
Try getting a facility to take your child for treatment, without a large amount of cash up front, if you don’t have insurance.
I went through that ordeal with a nephew, I thank God that he essentially self-corrected because Mom, Dad, and the Mental Health Profession weren’t much help.
I tend to agree. One of my daughter’s was born with FAS, minor cerebral palsy, and was ADHD, she got kicked out of pre-school. We coped, and at age 7 she followed her sister into competitive swimming. As the workouts increased her symptoms became less apparent and she developed coping mechanisms to help her overcome her challenges. Now she swims 2 hours a day, plays piano by ear, plays drums, and sings as well as shoots with me. She has developed an active lifestyle which took care of her problems quite nicely - except a couple days each month - LOL.
we homeschool now but our kid went to school in 1st grade
I went in one time to the school nurse as our kid had a nosebleed (quite badly)
anyway the amount of medicine in the cabinet for kids was amazing I mean truly mind blowing looking like a small pharmacy
I asked the nurse a nice older lady if that was all for the kids and she said YES its like a constant stream of kids coming in with others helping around lunch time to get it all out to them and the lineup goes around the corner
WOW we both kinda gave each that look and shook our heads
like anything yes a few very few need help but these days its like all of a sudden everyone is allergic to gluten ?
Based on my very limited experience with a family member. It isn’t the drugs that are causing mental changes, it is the dependence that the brain develops on those drugs and then, for whatever reason, the person stops taking those drugs.
The brain cannot cope, and it can radically alter a persons personality. Some people, unfortunately, maybe due to their particular underlying brain chemistry, turn into narcissistic murderous monsters.
Even taking an extremely small dose of SSRIs can alter a persons brain chemistry. My Mother was taking 1/2 of the smallest dose you could take every other day for close to 10 years after my father passed away because the doctor told her that she needed it to cope with my Father’s sickness and passing. There is no history whatsoever of mental illness in my Mother’s family and prior to that moron doctor prescribing this to my Mom, she had never taken any mood altering drugs, never drank alcohol and even refused to take pain pills after surgery because she didn’t want to develop a dependency.
When she became ill and could not swallow and thus could not take this medication her personality was significantly different. It was scary what happened.
I can’t imagine what this would do to someone who did have an underlying mental disorder and was taking serious dosages of SSRIs and then stopped taking them.
Honestly I am surprised that we don’t have more of these incidences.
I think the issue is more potentially violent individuals who should be committed for inpatient treatment instead being given drugs and sent on their way…
There are a lot of good people who are taking prescription drugs to manage stress issues. The fact that they are taking prescription drugs is not the issue.
The fact that a lot of people who were involved in school and workplace violence were taking prescription drugs is one indicator and not the primary indicator. It’s the fact that they were being treated by mental health professionals and may require more intensive monitoring and supervision.
If someone is being medicated to prevent them from harming themselves or others they should be committed. The problem is the money. It’s not there so they throw pills at the problem. The person with the problem doesn’t take his meds or adjust his regime so he can get drunk on Saturday. Maybe they doctor shop to get more of the stuff that makes them feel better. I have seen all happen. A guy we know is diagnosed bi-polar which is a polite way of saying manic-depression. He saves pills so he have extras if he thinks he needs it. He threatened his landscape maintenance guy for missing a leaf. He yells at neighborhood kids for looking at him. He beat his car with a hammer because it wouldn’t start. Guess what??? He owns guns. If it were up to me he wouldn’t. Funny how your attitude changes when the problem is in your backyard.
No matter how we try to stop evil from being evil and killing people, be it shooting one person at a time or shooting multiple people at a time- we will NEVER be able to stop it.
It is a very small part of the human condition- sometimes people go bonkers and kill people. Period.
The best we can do is be armed and ready to put these mad dogs down when they start shooting.
We could take away every gun, knife, hammer, bat, etc in existence and it wouldn’t stop mass murder, it would just change the tool used to conduct the murder.
You cannot outlaw evil and you cannot preemptively take care of this issue without trampling peoples rights. There may in the near future be a way to adjust our DNA to stop these things, but that opens up a whole different conversation and scary things to think about…
The human condition is quite varied and all over the place- bad, good, funny, sad, pathetic, awkward, malevolent, benevolent, downright ****ing weird, etc, etc, etc but it cannot be legislated away.
We are human beings and terrible atrocities are just part of that.
Taking away peoples “Rights” is a slippery slope. A scary dangerous slippery slope.
Plenty of people deal with bipolar disorder and many much more severe mental conditions and never act like your neighbor. You see things in black and white which frightens you but there are many shades of gray. People have that one stereotypical example of a person with a condition and they see everybody with that condition the same way.
I’ve seen more drunks and drug addicts act like your neighbor and worse. Even go so far as to hurt people. Yet until they’re convicted of a felony they get to keep their guns. It’s the law.
So I am supposed to embrace my neighbor and support his gun rights until he kills me??? Bullshit! I am not the one taking dope to keep me from doing something stupid!!
You know that’s something I don’t have a good answer for but something has to change. Family members are so close to the problem their judgement is clouded. So who is left to make that call? It wouldn’t matter if a doctor told the family a guy was about to go off the rails. They’re in denial and hope the warning signs will go away.
PTSD is an even more complicated issue. Who wants to patronize a combat veteran and insult them?
There’s a known link between low frontal lobe activity and psychotic and suicidal behavior. The effects of traumatic brain injury supports this. There is just no way to treat either PTSD or TBE without medication and/or psychotherapy. Commitment should be the last option absent psychotic behavior.
Eddie Ray Routh, murderer of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, was a ticking time bomb. Although he isn’t considered a mass murderer. I’m not aware of him taking any prescription medications.
Routh had been in and out of mental hospitals for at least two years and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His family also said he suffered from PTSD from his time in the military.
If anybody ever made the case for involuntary commitment it’s Jared Lee Loughner. Good grief what a ticking time bomb. He was known to abuse alcohol, hallucinogens, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD but apparently no prescription meds.
He had been suspended from Pima Community College in September 2010 because of his bizarre behavior and disruptions in classes and the library. After his arrest, two medical evaluations diagnosed him as paranoid schizophrenic and incompetent to stand trial.
In the months leading up to the shooting, Loughner’s parents became increasingly alarmed at their son’s behavior, at one point resorting to disabling his car every night in order to keep him at home. On one occasion, his father confiscated his son’s shotgun and both parents urged him to get help.
From February to September 2010, while a student at Pima Community College, Loughner had five contacts with college police for classroom and library disruptions. Some of his teachers complained to the administration about his disruptions and bizarre behavior, as they thought it a sign of mental illness and feared what he might do.
The college decided to suspend Loughner and sent a letter to his parents, to consult with them and him together. The college told Loughner that if he wanted to return, he needed to resolve his code of conduct violations and obtain a mental health clearance (indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, that his presence did not constitute a danger to himself or others). On October 4, Loughner and his parents met with campus administrators and Loughner indicated he would withdraw from the college. During Loughner’s time at Pima, a classmate said she worried that he might commit a school shooting. One of his teachers has claimed a similar suspicion after the Tucson shooting. He never submitted to a mental health evaluation and did not return to the college.
There was a guy in Idaho who killed in Moscow, ID and another town in Nevada. His name is John Delling. He was a friend of mine growing up and is one of the major reasons I got into LE and why I want to get back into it. He was kicked out of the University of Idaho our freshmen year (I hadn’t had much contact in a few years as we went to different high schools) for some strange behavior to include stalking and escalation of violence. Long story short he was a prime candidate for involuntary commitment but his parents never did it. He was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and killed 2 high school classmates and attempted to kill a 3rd for “stealing his aura”. The day he was in Moscow, ID I got a strange call at 5ish AM that I didn’t answer, detectives later said it may have saved me.
He family said he was so unstable they took away his guns but never had him committed. His mom is even quoted as saying “John was very sick, and that’s all I can tell you,”. He wasn’t on any meds that I know of or remember hearing about. His brother is quoted as being told by John, “Do you think David (Boss) is the one stealing my powers?” His warning signs began when he was 15 and were virtually ignored until his arrest at 21.
I see this thread as some limited recognition that the US has a major mental health treatment issue. I’ve met people who are so messed up mentally they should not be allowed to walk the streets but instead are ordered to treatment they won’t go to and drugs they won’t take. Thus they end up on the street and self medicate. This will piss a lot of people here off but even with meds that smooth things out there are some out there who should not have access to firearms. If they decide to stop taking their meds there will be problems. Even then, as mentioned above in the thread, sometimes the meds and the person react poorly causing more issues. I don’t have the education or background to decide who should and should not have access to firearms. It is not something to be taken lightly as you are taking away someone’s constitutional rights and while I don’t have the answer, it should be discussed.
