If you thought you were going mad--I mean, you had verifiable evidence to support that claim--what would you do? Would you tell people? Would you ignore it and hope it went away on its own? Would you seek help, and if so, what help?
Or do you think a person even has the capacity to know when he or she is losing mental capacity?
And what is madness, insanity? Is it always bad? Is it sometimes good? Do you think it's purely spiritual in origin? Do you think it's purely physical in origin? Do you think it's a combination of the two?
I've been thinking about this lately. And I don't know. But I know that several of you either studied mental illnesses or deal with them in your line of work, so I'm confident that you have opinions on the subject. So, fire away! I'm very curious.
4 comments:
I will not pretend to understand all the causes or nature of mental illness. However, I most certainly do not think mental illness is purely spiritual in nature.
This is why: Of my mentally ill clients, most are scizophrenic, probably the most frightening and least understood of all mental illnesses. (Scizophrenia involves a view of one's surroundings completely outside reality. This is the illness that can involve auditory or visual hallucinations.) However, when my scizophrenic clients are on their medications, many of them are completely normal, with the exception of hand-tremmors or other side-effects of the meds, no one would know they were sick.
Now, I'm no theologian, but I know of no spiritual problem that can be solved, or even helped at all, by medications. I'm not saying that God can't or hasn't used mental illness for his own Purposes, same as with physical illness. But it frightens me how many people believe that the mentally ill are the way they are as some punishment from God, or because they are possessed. Historically, people believed physical illnesses and congenital deformities were also caused by these things, so instead of studying medicine, they were afraid of it. Where would our medical technology be today if we spent that 500 years (or however long) training doctors, instead of executing them as heretics?
(sorry for the length of the rant!)
I think you make a lot of excellent points here. But ok, here's another question. In your dealings with mentally unstable people (whether schizophrenic or otherwise), do they know that they are mentally unstable? And when did they find out? After they had done something that got them into trouble, or before?
Do you think a person can see mental illness coming and somehow ward it off? Or is it just something so chemical in nature that it just happens when it's going to happen and a person deals with it after it's too late?
Very good questions! Some of them know they are mentally ill and resolve to continue with their medications. These sometimes really do, but other times believe that they are cured after a period of time with no symptoms and then stop. Others either refuse to accept or do not believe that they are mentally ill. This, of course, makes them next to impossible to treat.
As for when they found out, most of the time I have no idea. Usually by the time they're involved with me, they've already been diagnosed and have usually been through the court system before. I do felony (more serious) cases only, and I've noticed that as time goes by, the severity of the crimes often increases. For a classic example, a person may in their early 20s start getting in trouble for things like tresspassing (because they think they live in the mansion north of town) or panhandling. If the illness progresses, the person may end up with more violent charges as a result of fighting with cops or other people because the person believes an innocent citizen is a danger to them in some way. (Mental illnesses sometimes worsen and other times remain the same.) So usually by the time I get them, they've been diagnosed, prescribed medication, and sometimes even have already done at least one stint in the mental hospital. I have had a couple that were diagnosed while I represented them, though. They were mainly just happy to make the voices stop...
I have no idea whether a person can see themselves becoming unhinged. I would definitely imagine that it would be frightening and confusing to begin hearing and seeing things that no one else can, or to see a threat wherever you turn. The few clients that I've had who've discovered they were mentally ill while I represented them, were completely incapable of finding help on their own, and had no idea to whom they could go for help. The incidious thing about mental illness is that usually by the time the person is beginning to figure out that what's going on in their brains is not normal and should not be happening, they are too far gone to be able to figure out how to fix the problem. (I had one client whose solution was to beat his head against the brick walls at the jail until he passed out. This was the only way he could think of to get the voices to stop.) I do think that if someone could come up with a way to diagnose a person's likelihood of becoming mentally ill, and prepare treatment strategies it would cut down on both the mentally ill homeless population and the amount of crime.
I think part of the problem is that your sense of "normal" changes. It's like anyone living in abnormal situations; after a while, you forget that there is any other life available. Perhaps madness (as with any other dysfunction) is really only visible in contrast to the lack of madness.
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