Mental health as a societal issue

[JNChell]

Hi all. My thoughts have been simmering for a while now on this topic. One of my interests is true crime stories. The really good ones are able to describe the childhoods of the perpetrators. NPD and BPD are very common inside of these stories. Schizophrenia and sociopathy are a close second.

I watched a docuseries a couple days ago, and the man that the show was about had killed his step grandparents. This man was subjected to abuse as a child by multiple people that I can’t even fathom surviving. He ended up murdering his step grandparents as an obvious result.

He was turned away by every possible means of support, up to and including his local police department...as a child reaching out for help.

I’m thinking heavy on the mental health system. I don’t condone crime and believe that as individuals that we’re responsible for our actions. But what happens when someone does something bad, is prosecuted, convicted and condemned...and the childhood is revealed AFTER the trial and proceedings?

No child left behind? What is that really about? Did it work? Children are being left behind. They are suffering and it’s infuriating. I think the mental health system is basically a non-factor in the big picture of things. Folks are just put away. They’re not studied, talked to and for once in their lives, allowed to feel like a human being.

Maybe there’s a conversation here.

[Turkish]

 Big topic here, and a bigger one is the nature of the penal system, at least in the USA.

My ex used to blame her actions like, "but my parents' marriage! " that was her model for marriage, even though it was very dysfunctional. IMO, she's a grown woman, and though I recognize some truth to what she was saying, she alone was responsible for her actions. She told me early on that she refused to try mood stabilizing drugs that her T recommended. A choice, and the rest of us suffered. 

Similarly, my mother was in therapy since the 70s, and really embraced it and mood stabilizers just before I moved out in 89. I can't really fault her at the very end even if her nurse practitioner tested her for dementia and my mom didn't have dementia.  Yet my mother was responsible for how things ended up, responsible for her choices in the preceding 17 (to 30) years. She had access to therapists (she burned though seven until she felt comfortable), and healthcare. It helped her get by, but as an independent entity,  she made her choices. And as the social worker told me, "people have the right to live as they choose." This also ties into the homeless crisis here in California.  No one can force anyone to get help.

More to your point, there are failures all around in getting people help, juxtaposed by those who are helped.  It's a complicated calculus.  Is there a medium where we don't have to return to forced consevatorship, sterilizations and ECT?

[zachira]

JNChell,
Great topic! I worked with men who were drug addicts, and who had been in and out of prison for most of their adult lives! A supervisor once told me, that once you get to know these men, what they have done will make sense. I later learned that many of these men had committed heinous crimes. All of them came from families in which there was horrendous child abuse.
Another factor is fetal alcohol syndrome which can make a person unable to have a conscience or control their behavior.

[Spindle0516]

Wow, JNChell, this is something that I think about constantly.

My MIL is a grown woman, but I constantly wonder how different her life could have looked if there had been people who actually protected her.  Her father was abusive, her mother did nothing. In hindsight, she was just as complicit and is also guilty of emotional abuse. By the time my MIL was 17, she was pregnant with her first child. She told me that she got pregnant on purpose as a means to leave her childhood home and that anything was better than being around her dad. She was then in 2 severely abusive marriages and everyone from the police to the hospital to other family members failed to even attempt to protect her. According to my MIL, her family told her to stay in these relationships because no one else would want a single mother.

One time, my MIL's second husband cracked her skull open with a telephone. When the police came, they blamed my MIL, and her husband continued life without any consequences. (Small town, husband's family was friendly with the higher up's in the police dept)

All this to say, she constantly makes poor choices, and can be brutal to be around. We know she is an adult and is responsible for her own choices at this point in her life. But, really, what chance did she ever stand? And now I look at my SIL, our niece, and our nephew, and I wonder, what chance do they stand? My SIL has an abusive partner and our niece and nephew are growing up in a toxic environment. How do we protect them? How do we stop these issues from being generational and cyclical with no end in sight?

[zachira]

"How do we stop these issues from being generational and cyclical with no end in sight?"

Such an important question Spindle 0516 has asked.
I worked for two different mental health programs that provided therapy to any child in the elementary school or high school. There only needed to be a request for therapy. No child or teenager was turned away and there were no limits on the number of sessions. It was so rewarding to help children and teenagers who were not severely mentally ill most of the time yet there could be heartbreaking consequences later on if help was not provided.
Most mental health services are for the severely mentally ill, extremely inadequate in the amount of time allowed: usually around 30-40 minute appointments (The standard in the profession is an one hour long appointment.), and often limit the number of sessions to five.
We really need to support mental health services for everybody, especially before so much lifelong damage is inflicted. I worked with children in kindergarten, and saw how fast they progressed, like at about 20 times or more that of an adult.

[JNChell]

Hi, Turkish. I agree that the penal system is currently a big problem. Without violating the site guidelines, I’ll briefly say that politics have a way of seeping into every aspect of society whether civilized, or not so much.

She told me early on that she refused to try mood stabilizing drugs that her T recommended. A choice, and the rest of us suffered.

When I think deeply on this stuff, I wonder if there was a point in time, a point in the development, where a person makes a final decision about the direction that they’re going to commit to. We both understand the struggle of being close to people, and at very important times in our lives, basically trapped by them. I fully agree with you that every person, especially adults, have the final say in who they become. With regards to the struggle, is it a matter of mental and emotional exhaustion that allows a person to basically give up? I guess, what should be the focal point of making a real impact on addressing and correcting this problem? Should resilience be the focus? Patting victims and survivors on the back and supporting them through their struggle in hopes of “saving “ them? Separating the wheat from the chaff in a sense? I’m in no way trying to minimize the seriousness here, I’m just trying to keep this reasonably short and understandable.

No one can force anyone to get help

This is very true and is also protected by our laws and our Lord. Bottom line, it’s also common sense and should be accepted. Going a little deeper, when a person (child) is conditioned to put the needs of a caregiver (parent) before themselves, how far can that really go? Eventually the child is rejected by the disordered parent. But the conditioning has already taken place so the child digs their heals in deeper because of what they know. They can continue to go deeper down the rabbit hole in order to please another to be able to feel better with themselves. I can see this working when genuine and healthy love is at the core of the dynamic, but we’re not talking about that. It becomes a terrible cycle.

More to your point, there are failures all around in getting people help, juxtaposed by those who are helped.  It's a complicated calculus.  Is there a medium where we don't have to return to forced consevatorship, sterilizations and ECT?

You’ve thought about this long before my curiosities and interests came about. What is the fine line where this stuff can be effectively dealt with and changed? I don’t see a way that wouldn’t involve some kind of force. With that being said, a whole new set of issues are created. More of the same. What worries me the most is that our society is becoming very narcissistic at an alarming rate by things that are becoming necessary to have as far as the popular vote goes. You’re right. These things can’t be forced. It would re-open doors that are better left closed. However, I believe that in this day and age that the prison system is a very good place to begin real research. I know that it happens, but not enough. A paradigm shift is required, and a very big one.

[JNChell]

Hi, Spindle0516. Thanks for contributing to the thread. I’m very sorry for what you are currently witnessing and experiencing. You have a lot of experience with this stuff and I’m really glad that you’re speaking up about it. This stuff is proven to be multigenerational, and your testimony backs that up.

I can really relate to the question of there being no end in sight. I think that question/observation comes with its own set of very hard decisions and choices. What do we let go of, and what do we keep?

[JNChell]

Hi, zachira. I’m hearing you say that it’s important that intervention happens when these people are children. It’s important for them to see healthy examples while they’re actually going through what they are at home. How do we get there?

Once the damage is completed, it’s very hard to see things through a different scope. One of the sayings that I learned here is “we know what we know, we don’t know what we don’t know.” That saying says everything. Knowing and choosing are two different things though. Eliminating abuse behind closed doors is impossible. How do we help vulnerable young people that are experiencing abuse? What avenue can be opened up for them in a very public way that is non-shaming, and also serves to put abusers on notice?

[zachira]

JNChell,
Small steps are big steps. Small changes are big changes.
I have many times talked about how so many people showed me they cared when I was an abused child, and it meant so much. Sometimes, it was just another adult looking distressed when my emotional distress was being ignored by my mother.
I hope we can some day get programs in our schools that provide mental health therapy to all children. I also hope that we can have more prenatal health interventions. I was once told by a mental health expert that all prenatal care providers should ask the pregnant woman to draw a picture of herself. If the woman drew the fetus outside the body than it meant that immediate therapy for the mother was required if she was ever to bond with her child. He suggested that one of the first interventions, should be having the mother listen to her child's heartbeat on a stethoscope. I learned about this at a conference called " We Can't Wait" which focused on preventing child abuse and providing mental health interventions during pregnancy and prior to the child starting school.