AIBU to feel upset by my parents' views on mental illness

[SeaGlassSoul]

I feel quite upset today after overhearing my parents having a conversation about mental health. They were saying that people with mental illness should be “locked up,” and I found it really difficult to listen to. They said that they shouldn’t be in the community. Especially if they have psychosis or schizophrenia or similar.

It made me realise how much stigma still exists. Mental illness covers such a huge range of conditions, and the overwhelming majority of people living with them are not dangerous. They’re just ordinary people trying to navigate life while dealing with challenges that often aren’t visible to others.

Hearing those comments from my own parents was particularly hurtful. It left me feeling quite triggered and sad, and it made me wonder how many people hear views like this from those closest to them.

Has anyone else experienced family members making comments like this? How did you deal with it? Did you challenge them, or did you decide it was better to stay quiet? I’d really appreciate hearing how others have handled similar situations.

Whereas I live in London so I see violent and/or severely mentally ill women all the time.

Patients will bad mental health whilst on medication with help and support can live quiet normally within communities !
Patients like most are not supported because mental health care in down the pan !! And this is not the patients fault they can't help being ill they just don't have a safety net there which should be !!!

Agree. If all it takes is a spiral or something to snap and endanger so many lives at a whim then yes they should be kept under strict supervision.

i was 3 streets away with my kids when this happened. We heard and saw the police and ambulance, helicopter and all the commotion. Knowing how close this was to your kids, is terrifying. And I completely understand your parents pov

We know most of the time things go awfully wrong, the person was assessed to be that kind of risk by at least some professionals involved in their care.

They wouldn't lock up a man for swinging a shopping bag at a person who won't press charges. If you had your way we would have asylums full of people who are no real danger to anyone.

You sound like you have a huge chip on your shoulder about the fact that most physical violence is committed by men.

Your use of “triggered” as a response to hearing an opinion you don’t happen to agree with is an example of where things have gone wrong. People are self identifying with mental health conditions to sound special while other people with serious diagnosed mental illness are allowed to walk the streets murdering innocent passers-by.

Agree with other posts. They are probably referring to some very specific incidents involving individuals.
Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your POV), we dont just lock people up because they are mentally unwell or "weird" on the off chance they might commit a crime. In the recent high profile cases there were failings by those who were in a position to do something but even then what grounds were there for locking them up? Where would they go in anycase? Do we want to go back to a time when it was easy to get your, usually wife, sectioned because she was suffering with depression etc...or where electric shock therapy was dished out like sweets?

Stop saying she swung it at the man. The man was sat a bus stop at the bus station. She came over to him while he was sat down and hit him with her bag. Her "swing" connected and it hit him mainly on the arm and shoulder but a bit on his head.

And he wasn't hurt and he didn't press charges and yet still you would lock her in an asylum.

You know because you have seen it in the media? Or read the full enquiry that gives context and dates.
In the Calocane case the Dr said he could kill someone which he then said was a possibility rather than an indication of intent in 2020 the attacks happened in 2023
By that reasoning we could all be locked away in case we might possibly kill someone

Yes, because it shows her impulse control is non-existant to the point she attacks strangers. Shall we wait until she seriously hurts one?

I think there is a massive jump from what used to happen around mental illness and this shift to community led care. I grew up in a part of the country that was heavily involved in inpatient mental health care, one part was an asylum turned hospital and others rehabilitation and eventual outpatient care. Listening to my grandparents and looking at history all people were locked up for the slightest thing including learning disabilities. Women would have children, develop what we now know to be PPD and PPP and never let out. I don't think a return to that is right but I think there is no middle ground really for those who need additional support or are flagged as a potential danger

My background means that I read several cases like this. Ones that don't make the media. Most of the time you see that staff working with them and/or the family made it clear there was a risk but they were overruled by those with more power. It never comes totally out of the blue. There will be an escalation of behaviour before a major incident. It might be rapid in rare cases, but it is always there.

Well you've already said you see mentally ill people all the time.

Have you thought through the civil liberties aspect of locking up 500 people so that one of them doesn't hit someone with a handbag?

Or the cost?

My understanding is that the enquiry established that he was not sectioned because he was black and the number of black people on secure units was disproportionately high and that if he had been white he would have been sectioned.

Locking people away for the safety of others shouldn’t be off the table

the unfortunate thing is that “locking away” is probably far cheaper than offering the kind of supported living to help manage and overcome mental health problems which is why is probably easy to abuse

maybes if we improved mental health services a lot there would be far less desire to lock people away ? That’s certainly where the focus should be

Care in the community is not working and your parents are right. Locking up could mean a few months, long term or permanent but there definitely should be something that would protect the public from those that either refuse the medication or need more intensive care.

It left me feeling quite triggered and sad
If this subject triggers you then that is quite worrying, what are you triggered about exactly? Do you suffer with episodes where you could potentially harm others?

Yes it was

I don’t think ‘challenge them’ is the right approach. Seeking to appreciate where they are coming from might be.

Some people with mental health issues can become unsafe. They become unsafe because they stop taking their medication. They then see other people as a threat or about to attack them. Or hear voices telling them they must kill them.

Too many who have been in hospitals are let loose after an assessment which frankly when you read about it is irresponsible.

There never was care in the community. The community never really cared.
There is a difference in wanting to care for people who have dreadful mental illness ( which is humane and right ) and telling yourself because they have one they are all safe. Sometimes they will be. It entirely depends on their diagnosis.

So I would not challenge their view. Just have a conversation around it. It is very sad for people with mental illness. And they are not all dangerous. Because some of them are it frightens people. Understandably. And yes, there will be a lot of ignorance. And worse, people who are happy to remain ignorant. If people hold a different view to yours then try to understand why they hold that view.

You are right, they wouldnt lock up a man who did this, but it’s a poor comparison as they also didn’t lock up the woman, which is rather the point. Jumping on the sex differences when there are none is just delusional. People who are mentally unwell enough to pose risk to both themselves and others should absolutely not be walking within society.

Mentally ill people don’t need to be locked up by default they need treatment before treatable conditions become the hard/ impossible to treat. The whole system is broken. It’s completely reactionary and a false economy. Proper treatment as soon as it’s needed is cheaper than years of inpatient. We have a family friend who is a psych consultant, she says they’re seeing so many people on inpatient wards now that shouldn’t be there and if they’d been treated properly and earlier admission could have been avoided. It’s a national disgrace, ruining lives and causing ever increasing financial burden.

Yabu. Peeple can have opinions, and part of being an adult is being able to live in a sheriff where you understand and accept that. I assume you are a millennial, a generation who get ‘triggered’ because someone else has opinions different to them.

Grow up

They aren’t wrong. There are levels to it of course, but the psychosis/schizophrenia cases you read about that are killing people in the streets as they aren’t compliant with their medication, yeah care in the community is not working.

I didn't say everyone with a mental health diagnosis.

I think a few things. I think as pp said, we've normalised serious mental illnesses in an attempt to reduce stigma. That's been bad because it makes people think things like schizophrenia are more or less like autism or adhd so we have unrealistic expectations of people in some cases, based on their very real diagnosis.

Then of course governments can use this to justify cuts. They can claim it is unethical to properly assess people and provide humane care for them when it is established that independent, unsupervised living isn't safe for anyone involved.

I think one of the main issues is people being released who should not be from psychiatric hospitals.

And those who have seriously mentally ill conditions often stop taking their medication. Deciding they no longer need it. Nobody is there to check each and every person each and every time they should take their medication whether they have or not. And such a system would not be practical.