Let’s Call Mental Health Stigma What It Really Is: Discrimination

I was at the supermarket last week, checking out at the register, and I thought I noticed that bagger had Down syndrome. Part of the reason that I concluded this was because his coworker apparently apologized for the bagger's behavior.

My anecdote might not be too concrete, and let's face it, mental health isn't really a concrete kind of science. This article discusses the stigma of mental health in various parts of life, such as in public, in politics or even as part of employment.

Nearly one in five American adults will experience a mental health disorder in a given year. Yet only 25 percent of people with a psychological condition feel that others are understanding or compassionate about their illness, according to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

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Other forum posters have expressed disbelief about relatively high numbers of college students suffering from a disorder. It should come as no surprise that this level is reflected in the general population.

With the 2017 Special Olympics Winter games approaching, it is important to remember that people with intellectual disabilities are capable of doing great things. But not everyone who has a mental health disorder has an intellectual disability, such as an individual with a "character deficiency." I guess that could be just about anything for those of us who aren't perfect. What about people who clearly suffer from mental illness?

People with a mental illness are more likely to encounter law enforcement than get medical help during a psychological crisis. There are currently more people with mental illness in jails and prisons than in hospitals. They’re blamed for violence when they’re more likely to be the victims. They have higher rates of homelessness. They’re seen as a danger to society, to other people, to themselves.

The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights defines discrimination as something that "occurs when an individual is treated less favorably than another person in a similar situation for a reason related to a prohibited ground." In other words, when a person is mistreated or regarded differently than someone else based on their circumstances.

When it comes to mental illness, doesn’t that sound familiar?

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mental-health-discrimination_us_57e55d07e4b0e28b2b53a896

Yeah there's a lot of literature on the transition from hospitalization to mass incarceration. All most Americans care about is to keep the MI away from them, and jail accomplishes that for both longer duration and often cheaper (although many of the suicidal are uninsured and wrack up insane hospital bills after getting basically kidnapped)

I think the big one is really employment. Someone able to avoid jail or the hospital might endure long unemployment stretches. They have to put on a performance at interviews that everything is ok, they're the best candidate. If they *are* the most qualified, if they give any indication of low mood or distraction, that could easily do in their chances. Even repetition like data entry jobs often have mandates like "be friendly" and "customer service" that are easy excuses to get rid of them if they do get the job and their problems are later discovered

That shouldn't be subject to debate. I have infinite compassion and sympathy for people suffering from mental illness, as there can be no greater grotesque affliction than your own mind not being your ally and often being your adversary. People viscerally realize that, and their aversion to the mentally ill is empathy gone awry, as if mental ill is contagious somehow.

Gaztopian said:

That shouldn't be subject to debate. I have infinite compassion and sympathy for people suffering from mental illness, as there can be no greater grotesque affliction than your own mind not being your ally and often being your adversary. People viscerally realize that, and their aversion to the mentally ill is empathy gone awry, as if mental ill is contagious somehow.

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A. Downs Syndrome has nothing to do with mental illness.
B. I have compassion for the mentally ill but it is not infinite. A friend of mine seems to be schizophrenic. He can't live in any sort of building. He sleeps outside, forced out of buildings by the fumes caused by the Mexican Mafia conducting business with the commercial cooking of pork. He wanted to try living with me. Sorry, but my compassion didn't go that far.
C. A man in our city murdered a young woman, was found innocent by reason of insanity, and three months after arriving at the mental hospital they said he was all better and could return to society. No, my compassion is great but I don't buy that.

An interesting thread about a genuine problem in this country.

An article in the current snail mail issue of Public Citizen news letter also treats this. "National Survey shows county jails unequipped, overwhelmed with seriously mentally ill inmates", written by Angela Bradbery and Delaney Goodwin.

The good news is that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has taken positive and pro-active steps to train jail staff in proper ways to deal with mentally challenged arrestees.

Celebrity said:

Other forum posters have expressed disbelief about relatively high numbers of college students suffering from a disorder. It should come as no surprise that this level is reflected in the general population.

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It really shouldn't be unbeliveable to those posters. The brain is the most complex organ found in known life, with the human brain sitting at the top thus far. And as a general matter, whether we speak of biology or machinery, the number of potential errors within a system increases along with its complexity. We should expect that if we categorized the types of disorders by organ or biological system they affect, we would find that the brain has the most; at the very least, it has the potential for most.

However, it doesn't help anyone that certain more unscrupulous participants in the pharma industry do things like trying to get X% of five year olds prescribed powerful drugs like Adderall, which is a blend of four different amphetamines. Speed. That kind of over-prescription can impact individual's perception of the overall validity of mental illness in general, though it really shouldn't.



As noted above, we have a ton of mentally ill people in jail. This is due to any number of factors, but one bearing on my professional experience is the general unwillingness to treat genuine severe mental illness as a defense. Jurors think if they acquit by reason of insanity, that means a crazy person will walk free and commit more crimes, so they convict to make sure the person is locked up; what they don't understand, and what is often not sufficiently explained, is that if you do receive that verdict, you are generally locked up in a mental hospital for about the same if not for more time than the sentence you would have received.

Mr Person said:

As noted above, we have a ton of mentally ill people in jail. This is due to any number of factors, but one bearing on my professional experience is the general unwillingness to treat genuine severe mental illness as a defense. Jurors think if they acquit by reason of insanity, that means a crazy person will walk free and commit more crimes, so they convict to make sure the person is locked up; what they don't understand, and what is often not sufficiently explained, is that if you do receive that verdict, you are generally locked up in a mental hospital for about the same if not for more time than the sentence you would have received.

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Clearly, no sane person would use this defense unless they thought that one institution was advantageous over the other. Maybe a mental institution is just the white man's prison. :shock:

They have black folks in mental institutions too....

Thoreau72 said:

They have black folks in mental institutions too....

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In that case, I stand corrected. Mental institutions are not the white man's prison... any more than they are a black man's prison, or a black woman's prison for that matter.