NationStates

SD_Film Artists wrote:Considering how the old-style mental hospitals were basically concentration camps, it's a good thing that they don't exist anymore.

Novus America wrote:

SD_Film Artists wrote:Considering how the old-style mental hospitals were basically concentration camps, it's a good thing that they don't exist anymore.

It is not good that there is no alternative. I do not think anyone thinks we should return to the worst excesses of mental institutions of the 40s, but we do need something for people who cannot operate well independently.

Simply drugging them and then tossing them on the street to starve is what we do now, and that is clearly not working.

A large percentage of the homeless and those in prisons are mentally ill.

Is prison or dying on the street better?

Deinstitutionalization, despite legitimate concerns about the conditions of the old mental health hospitals has not been a success.

Baphomet Union wrote:Where are we supposed go? There used to be public mental hospitals, but the great God showed up and demanded they can’t go. Because of that, we have seriously mentally ill people walking the streets, deluded and hallucinating. They are constantly sick, and inevitably, some old commit suicide.
Is that acceptable ? Do you sleep well at night thinking about how lost and alone they are ? Can you imagine that happening to YOU ? I feel we had better have public mental hospitals. I feel that it is absurd to expect

them to survive hallucinating and delusional. I feel that’s a good way to frankly kill them. Is that want you want ? To KILL them ?
I honestly think you better state what you want to do. Kill or health ? Poop or get off the pot . Make it clear what you want to do.

Novus America wrote:

SD_Film Artists wrote:Considering how the old-style mental hospitals were basically concentration camps, it's a good thing that they don't exist anymore.

It is not good that there is no alternative. I do not think anyone thinks we should return to the worst excesses of mental institutions of the 40s, but we do need something for people who cannot operate well independently.

Simply drugging them and then tossing them on the street to starve is what we do now, and that is clearly not working.

A large percentage of the homeless and those in prisons are mentally ill.

Is prison or dying on the street better?

Deinstitutionalization, despite legitimate concerns about the conditions of the old mental health hospitals has not been a success.

Ethel mermania wrote:

Novus America wrote:
It is not good that there is no alternative. I do not think anyone thinks we should return to the worst excesses of mental institutions of the 40s, but we do need something for people who cannot operate well independently.

Simply drugging them and then tossing them on the street to starve is what we do now, and that is clearly not working.

A large percentage of the homeless and those in prisons are mentally ill.

Is prison or dying on the street better?

Deinstitutionalization, despite legitimate concerns about the conditions of the old mental health hospitals has not been a success.

There are a lot of ways we currently approach mental illness that are much better that went on in the past.

Group homes, halfway houses, where people can live and survive in the least restricted enviorment possible, while insuring they are getting adequate services for their well being. Unfortunately There will always be a need for institutional style care, but it should be minimized as much as practable.

SD_Film Artists wrote:

Novus America wrote:
It is not good that there is no alternative. I do not think anyone thinks we should return to the worst excesses of mental institutions of the 40s, but we do need something for people who cannot operate well independently.

Simply drugging them and then tossing them on the street to starve is what we do now, and that is clearly not working.

A large percentage of the homeless and those in prisons are mentally ill.

Is prison or dying on the street better?

Deinstitutionalization, despite legitimate concerns about the conditions of the old mental health hospitals has not been a success.

I'm not sure what it's like in the US but in the UK there's care homes for people with substantial special needs. There are secure institutions for the criminaly insane; one of the mistakes with the old system is that it conflated those two places together, simply seeing people as 'mad' with no context. Likewise I'm curious to know what the OP's definition of "mentaly ill" is; as if we take it to mean 'anyone who isn't 100% neurotypical' then the OP would send me off to some hospital despite the fact that I live independantly.

Novus America wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:There are a lot of ways we currently approach mental illness that are much better that went on in the past.

Group homes, halfway houses, where people can live and survive in the least restricted enviorment possible, while insuring they are getting adequate services for their well being. Unfortunately There will always be a need for institutional style care, but it should be minimized as much as practable.

Then why are hundreds of thousands of mentally ill in prisons or homeless?

We really do not make such things widely available.
We do not actually do those things much. We never actually built the alternatives.

We instead leave vast numbers to rot in jail or die on the streets. Your idea is good, but the status quo is NOT acceptable.
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publicati ... ion-murder
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequ ... y-ill.html
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/20 ... tally-ill/

The simple fact is the current approach is a disaster.

I actually support less restrictive community based group homes (although those are in fact institutions) for those unlikely to be a danger, which is a majority, but we built few of such homes in comparison to those we deinstitutionalized.

I do not support a one sized fits all model, we need more conventional securely institutionalized care for those already in prison or showing signs of serious violence (nearly all mass shooters exhibit warning signs but we simply ignore them), smaller community based group homes for the majority who are not prone to violence but who are homeless or in jail for minor non violent crimes, and for those who can exist fine outside an institution, they should.

But we actually need to build a large enough system to actually accommodate all those who need it, something we did not do.

Literally hundred of thousands of community home rooms (and larger institution rooms for the extreme cases) are needed to be built.

Rojava Free State wrote:This country basically throws mentally ill people out to die. It's disgusting how we don't do shit unless someone is considered to be a legit danger to others, and even then we do shit reluctantly.

Novus America wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:There are a lot of ways we currently approach mental illness that are much better that went on in the past.

Group homes, halfway houses, where people can live and survive in the least restricted enviorment possible, while insuring they are getting adequate services for their well being. Unfortunately There will always be a need for institutional style care, but it should be minimized as much as practable.

Then why are hundreds of thousands of mentally ill in prisons or homeless?

We really do not make such things widely available.
We do not actually do those things much. We never actually built the alternatives.

We instead leave vast numbers to rot in jail or die on the streets. Your idea is good, but the status quo is NOT acceptable.
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publicati ... ion-murder
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequ ... y-ill.html
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/20 ... tally-ill/

The simple fact is the current approach is a disaster.

I actually support less restrictive community based group homes (although those are in fact institutions) for those unlikely to be a danger, which is a majority, but we built few of such homes in comparison to those we deinstitutionalized.

I do not support a one sized fits all model, we need more conventional securely institutionalized care for those already in prison or showing signs of serious violence (nearly all mass shooters exhibit warning signs but we simply ignore them), smaller community based group homes for the majority who are not prone to violence but who are homeless or in jail for minor non violent crimes, and for those who can exist fine outside an institution, they should.

But we actually need to build a large enough system to actually accommodate all those who need it, something we did not do.

Literally hundred of thousands of community home rooms (and larger institution rooms for the extreme cases) are needed to be built.

Ethel mermania wrote:

Novus America wrote:
Then why are hundreds of thousands of mentally ill in prisons or homeless?

We really do not make such things widely available.
We do not actually do those things much. We never actually built the alternatives.

We instead leave vast numbers to rot in jail or die on the streets. Your idea is good, but the status quo is NOT acceptable.
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publicati ... ion-murder
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequ ... y-ill.html
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/20 ... tally-ill/

The simple fact is the current approach is a disaster.

I actually support less restrictive community based group homes (although those are in fact institutions) for those unlikely to be a danger, which is a majority, but we built few of such homes in comparison to those we deinstitutionalized.

I do not support a one sized fits all model, we need more conventional securely institutionalized care for those already in prison or showing signs of serious violence (nearly all mass shooters exhibit warning signs but we simply ignore them), smaller community based group homes for the majority who are not prone to violence but who are homeless or in jail for minor non violent crimes, and for those who can exist fine outside an institution, they should.

But we actually need to build a large enough system to actually accommodate all those who need it, something we did not do.

Literally hundred of thousands of community home rooms (and larger institution rooms for the extreme cases) are needed to be built.

I dont have much to argue with your basic point that the service provided are far from the ideal, and a massive investment in both buildings and people are required.

The problem with that investment is it gets circumvented into the politicians back pockets while doing absolutely squat for the vulnerable population it is suppose to server.

For example here in NYC the mayor appointed his wife to run this dismal failure of a program that has spend more than a billion dollars in 4 years, and the population is just 4 year deeper in shit.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/09/thrivenyc ... need-help/

Drew Durrnil wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:
I dont have much to argue with your basic point that the service provided are far from the ideal, and a massive investment in both buildings and people are required.

The problem with that investment is it gets circumvented into the politicians back pockets while doing absolutely squat for the vulnerable population it is suppose to server.

For example here in NYC the mayor appointed his wife to run this dismal failure of a program that has spend more than a billion dollars in 4 years, and the population is just 4 year deeper in shit.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/09/thrivenyc ... need-help/

America really is a bad place.

Novus America wrote:

Drew Durrnil wrote:America really is a bad place.

Unfortunately for the mentally ill, we are a very bad place. We used to have an extensive (admittedly very flawed) mental health system, but instead of actually modernizing it and fix it as we originally planned to to in the late 50s to early 60s, we simply shut it down without building any alternative.
Just dumping the people in the institutions on the street.

Although it was supposed to “save” money ironically it actually costs us more to leave them on the streets or in jails and prisons.

Novus America wrote:

Drew Durrnil wrote:America really is a bad place.

Unfortunately for many who are mentally ill, we are a very bad place. We used to have an extensive (admittedly very flawed) mental health system, but instead of actually modernizing it and fixing it as we originally planned to do in the late 50s to early 60s, we simply shut it down In the 70s without building any alternative.
Just dumping the people in the institutions on the street.

Although it was supposed to “save” money ironically it actually costs us more to leave them on the streets or in jails and prisons.
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequ ... y-ill.html

Deinstitutionalization, despite many advocating for it having good intentions was a complete disaster for hundreds of thousands of people.

Ethel mermania wrote:

Novus America wrote:
Unfortunately for many who are mentally ill, we are a very bad place. We used to have an extensive (admittedly very flawed) mental health system, but instead of actually modernizing it and fixing it as we originally planned to do in the late 50s to early 60s, we simply shut it down In the 70s without building any alternative.
Just dumping the people in the institutions on the street.

Although it was supposed to “save” money ironically it actually costs us more to leave them on the streets or in jails and prisons.
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequ ... y-ill.html

Deinstitutionalization, despite many advocating for it having good intentions was a complete disaster for hundreds of thousands of people.

Oh no, I remember Willowbrook, my wife not wife yet, but dating), worked extensively with the population that was discharged. What they went through was horrible, left in feces for weeks, chained to bed in soiled underwear, medicical experiments undertaken on them. These people faced lifetime scars placed on them by people who were suppose to provide care. Folks who ran Willowbrook and their masters should have received the Death Penalty for their crimes against humanity. For those people, living on the street is the rational choice.


/ rant off.

Baphomet Union wrote:

Novus America wrote:
Again it is not a Hobson’s choice between the current disaster or returning to the worst excesses of the 40s systems.

There is a middle way that I already outlined and has been done elsewhere.

The fact that some of the institutions of the past were truly horrible, does not mean dumping the patients to be robbed, raped, killed, starved and frozen in the streets was good.

And honestly you think most prisons are much better?

Shutting down places like Willowbrook would have been good BUT alternative, more humane options should have been made available.

Leaving them on the street to die was neither morally justifiable nor even financially justified (it actually costs us more money).

This is something akin to say “some schools are bad and abuse students, shut down and defund all schools”.
Sure you get rid of the abusive schools, but it is still not the way to fix the education system.

I lived in a group home. The only thing I liked about it that there were “normal” people there. I do not consider you to be “normal” at all.

Baphomet Union wrote:

Novus America wrote:
Again it is not a Hobson’s choice between the current disaster or returning to the worst excesses of the 40s systems.

There is a middle way that I already outlined and has been done elsewhere.

The fact that some of the institutions of the past were truly horrible, does not mean dumping the patients to be robbed, raped, killed, starved and frozen in the streets was good.

And honestly you think most prisons are much better?

Shutting down places like Willowbrook would have been good BUT alternative, more humane options should have been made available.

Leaving them on the street to die was neither morally justifiable nor even financially justified (it actually costs us more money).

This is something akin to say “some schools are bad and abuse students, shut down and defund all schools”.
Sure you get rid of the abusive schools, but it is still not the way to fix the education system.

Yes. But it seems “normal” to leave us to starve. Why ? Because you are afraid of us. You really are. What you fear you want to destroy. In such a way, you can hide from makings decision. In such a way, you are all are responsible which while nevertheless being responsible.
Thus you can blame each other for our deaths while saying “ I didn’t know he was sick ! What was I supposed to do ?”. What could you do ? What ! You could protest, you could demonstrate- ANYTHING but watching us sit there and silently die ! So don’t releave yourself of the blame. You ARE to blame. Why ? Because you know of us silently dying and you STILL ignore us !

Trollzyn the Infinite wrote:

Baphomet Union wrote:Where are we supposed go? There used to be public mental hospitals, but the great God showed up and demanded they can’t go. Because of that, we have seriously mentally ill people walking the streets, deluded and hallucinating. They are constantly sick, and inevitably, some old commit suicide.
Is that acceptable ? Do you sleep well at night thinking about how lost and alone they are ? Can you imagine that happening to YOU ? I feel we had better have public mental hospitals. I feel that it is absurd to expect

them to survive hallucinating and delusional. I feel that’s a good way to frankly kill them. Is that want you want ? To KILL them ?
I honestly think you better state what you want to do. Kill or health ? Poop or get off the pot . Make it clear what you want to do.

God had nothing to do with it. You're out of it.