People need to stop using mental illness as a get-out from abhorrent behaviour

[Never2many]

it seems that more and more these days any behaviour goes as long as it’s in the name of mental illness.

Mother murders her children? Must have been mentally ill.
Someone shouts at their family? Must be mentally ill.
There’s a thread where a man disappeared without a trace since new year then casually showed up with a sun tan and all new clothes. “Must have had a breakdown.”

Why can’t we just accept that there are some really arsehole people out there?

Why are we writing off arsehole behaviour in the name of mental illness?

All you’re doing there is painting the mentally ill as arseholes, and as most of us know, those people who are genuinely mentally ill aren’t. But the more you write off these kinds of behaviours in the name of mental illness the more of a reputation you are giving the mentally ill.

And frankly, mental illness isn’t an excuse to behave like an arsehole, to murder your children or to piss off for six months without a trace or word to your children.

You genuinely believe that being actually medically insane is an “excuse”? A person in the throes of psychosis who believes her baby is the devil and the only way to save humanity is to kill that baby should be treated exactly the same as someone who isn’t mentally ill?

Well it depends, women are called mentally ill men just evil bustards

Pupil attempts to murder teacher but he’s not very bright and has ADHD so walks free. Teacher will never work again

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgq0jw0eqzo

I think the crux of the issue is people trying to use mental illness as a get out for outrageously awful behaviour when they are not mentally ill at all.

I do think people suffering from mental illness or personality disorders can commit awful crimes/ behave really badly and truly don't have the capacity to behave in a morally or criminally responsible way.

The problem is distinguishing between those genuinely ill and those who aren't.

If a man beats up his wife because he is stressed. Is that OK. No it is not.

I’m reminded of the current story in America where a ‘ mentally ill ‘ man was given visitation rights to his 3 beautiful daughters and has just slaughtered them . I’d happily rip him limb from limb and the judge who allowed a homeless mentally unfit man access should be disbarred and jailed .

I agree, similarly with neurodivergence- it's not an excuse for abusing your partner but some seem to use it as a get out of jail free card and empathy take all sorts of abuse form neurodivergent partners

I agree that mental illness isn't a get out if jail free card, and some people may be using it as an excuse when really they are fully in control and aware of their actions, but it also needs to be understood that mental illness can result on some very unpleasant - even evil - things. It's real, it happens.

Psychosis, serious mental breaks, they all happen. Mild depression and mild anxiety are not the only mental illnesses that exist and it's entirely frustrating that we seem to be at a point in society where these are the only mental illnesses we consider and try to cater too.

Even severe depression and severe anxiety disorders are much, much, much uglier than is ever discussed. Much.

Society still rejects that evil things can even happen as a result of mental illness, which is why it's so difficult to prevent them. There's woefully little preventative treatment or care for people with serious mental illness. Someone with depression may be able to accept therapy, turn up to their sessions, take their meds - someone with a more serous mental illness may not be able to take active part in the treatment offered, and if they don't they're just written off. No effort out in to engage or actually help.

Many of these people will only end up harming themselves , but there will be a few that end up harming others.

So I think the acceptance that mental illness isn't an excuse needs to come after we, as a society, ensure that help is in place to prevent horrible things happening because of genuine and severe mental illness. Until we have that, we don't have a bloody leg to stand on.

Even stress can get so severe that people have a mental break. It's not a desicion they make, or a desire. It's a mental break, all faculties gone haywire. All we suggest for stress is fucking yoga and nature walks. That's not going to help an incoming mental break, if it's too late.

Do you understand that mental illness consists of more than just Anxiety and depression?
I used to be a mental health nurse and worked on acute mental health wards ,some people who are acutely psychotic are quite literally outside of reality and some are aggressive and violent becsuse they are ill
The problem these days is thst people think they know all about mental illness
But most have no idea about severe and enduring mental illness.

You have misunderstood what OP is saying. Read it again.

Sometimes it IS a relevant excuse, sometimes it’s a reason and sometimes they’re just arseholes… there’s no coverall, people are complex

I think anyone who commits murder is mentally unwell it's not exactly normal behaviour

Well if people choose to not speak and think more critically then mental illness can have a bad rep - which I'm afraid it has. Mental illness is part of an explanation - all those examples can definitely be an explanation for their behaviours, but it doesn't excuse them from accountability, and it doesn't paint the whole picture.

I honestly hear what you're saying but all I can tell you from personal experience is that my DH had a mental breakdown years ago, he got health and recovered. He is a wonderful husband now and so good to me. In the months, possibly even a year or two before the breakdown I thought of nothing but how to get him out of our lives because he was behaving like an absolute wanker.

And frankly, mental illness isn’t an excuse to behave like an arsehole, to murder your children or to piss off for six months without a trace or word to your children.

Which bit did I misunderstand? Of course there are arseholes who will blame MH, but there are other cases where mental illness genuinely is the reason that someone has murdered a child or disappeared.

YANBU, but they won't listen. Same problem with ASD. Every dc has it. Anyone with abhorrent behaviour definitely has it. Are they rude? abusive at school, screaming or crying a lot you name it, they have it. Over on another thread the OP's asserts confidently that a particular dc definitely has ASD because their own dc has it, so they can spot all the signs. If autism could be diagnosed that easily what are all the professionals involved in diagnosing autism for? they should be able to just take one look and signpost.

There are people who are nasty, narcissistic, selfish, aggressive etc who do it simply because no one has either stood up to them or told them, no! and these behavior patterns can be changed. It has completely taken away from all the effort to raise awareness of neurodiversities for the people who genuinely are, it has trivialised it.

But…a mother who murders her children probably IS mentally ill. I mean you would have to be insane to do that.

By not looking at these people and trying to understand why they did horrendous things nothing is going to get better. There have always been people who murder, lie, steal, behave terribly. Even before the revolution we seem to be having in mental health. If we can understand why, then we can help these people earlier by medicating / therapy / recognising they are uncontrollable and keeping others away from them. This would result in them being more functioning / less dangerous

I knew someone like this. Nothing was ever his fault. It was everyone elses. I once got blamed for him being sectioned. I was at the stage where I couldn't care less. He'd been making my life a misery and told everyone it was my fault. I was having my own problems.

We met through a hobby group. I said I was leaving because of him. I should have apparently known what he was like! He then left and said it was because of other people's behaviour towards him.

Because the group was tiny, (there was about 6 of us) it was difficult to get away from him without making things difficult.

There's a big difference between acknowledging mental illness and using it as an excuse.

Being allowed to get away with abhorrent behaviour while claiming mental health problems is the issue. Punishing bad behaviour while treating underlying health problems is a better option.

Unfortunately, genuine MH problems get overlooked due to the current system of diagnosis.

I do think that for some acts the only way you can explain it is something going wrong with their mental health. Trying to understand something doesn't mean excusing it. The recent Reith lectures were an interesting listen on this- the episode 'aren't they all evil?'

Unfortunately, there are a desperate number of people with mental health issues which are undiagnosed

I work in a GP call centre and often speak to people who have no mental illness diagnosed, yet are phobic, paranoid or completely out of touch with reality

Their behaviour on the phone to a pleb like me is appalling, their behaviour in the presence of a GP or authority figure is ok/fine

Much 'Karen' or 'bellend' behaviour we see on a daily basis is often a result of paranoia, anxiety, OCD, ASD-like behaviour or 'unmasked' illness.

It's not a coincidence that many people are only diagnosed after they're taken into custody after they've done something horrible

'an "extremely low" IQ range between 47 and 59'

This is not just 'not very bright', it is a Moderate Learning Disability (equivalent to severe learning difficulties). It means he almost certainly has significantly reduced capacity in most situations.

It's an absolutely awful thing he did, but nothing like a person without an LD committing the same crime.

A member of my family attacked and tried to kill me during a psychotic episode. He couldn’t control that anymore than you can control being sick when you get food poisoning. It isn’t a get out. He has spent many years of his life sectioned (more years than he would have been in prison if he was just an ‘arsehole’). He also has to take drugs with side effects that he doesn’t like and that are bad for his physical health. The whole situation is heartbreaking. He couldn’t help getting ill anymore than anyone can help getting ill.

These things have to be determined on a case by case basis. I have been living with my mental health issues for most of my life since before i was a teenager. I am not a danger to anyone but myself when I am ill. I take my meds, they mostly work, it’s all fine. Nowhere near the same ballpark as someone with say, psychosis who kills or harms others or themselves because they’re outside of reality at the time.

The people who “play the mental health card” are usually arseholes in my experience. People like Lucy Connolly for example who told friends that was her plan to avoid jail. And my ex who said he’d do likewise to avoid a murder conviction when he’d threaten to kill me. I mean those specific types are arseholes btw. Not people who are ill and their illness has directly caused whatever they’ve done.

Also, in the vast, vast majority of these cases they don't just walk out of court - instead of going to prison they go to a high secure psychiatric facility. They are usually subject to more restrictions there and end up staying longer than a sentence in prison would be.

As a strategy to avoid jail, it's a pretty stupid one.