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.

The level and range of MH conditions is vast.

Many people will sit and cry by themselves hide their condition and live a sort of half life whilst trying to cope. They are having an awful time but are no real bother to any other living soul but themselves.

Some people are dangerously unwell. Not the majority fortunately but they won’t co operate, take their meds, are in denial and they can be dangerous.

Care in the community is not working for many. My friend actually knew one of the students killed in Nottingham a couple of years ago, not as a friend but as an employee of the University. The killer should absolutely have been in a residential setting, he would not cooperate with his regime. Courts can order people to have their medications injected but they have to be under a community treatment order. That should have have happened at the very least.

Your parents were not talking about everyone with a MH condition. Anyone that uses the term triggered is looking for reasons to be upset.

This! Some people should not be allowed out in society if they are so unwell. Im not saying they should be locked in a cell but they shouldnt be free to attack innocent people in the street.

As others have said, the range of mental health issues is vast, and i think that those who present a danger to society should be removed from it.

I’m in a similar boat. I have never been able to tell DM about my severe anxiety. She considers herself to be above mental health problems and looks down on people who have them. Ironically, when my dad died, she was in a terrible state and I ended up being her ‘counsellor’ for about a year. The stress of dealing with her grief made me very unwell. I begged her to book herself in for bereavement counselling but she wouldn’t. If I was in that situation again, I would insist.

Yes they do.
Where's our protection. Care in the community dosent work.
Imagine this yesterday your just minding your own business and someone wants to stab you.
What in earth is life all about!

I worked as a carer for 3 adults with severe mental health issues, 2 of them absolutely were not safe to be around the public but we had to take them out daily as part of their care plan. One of them punched a pregnant care worker in the stomach.
I absolutely think we need the institutions back, not cold, damp Victorian hell holes but modern living spaces for those who will never "be part of a community" as much as we might try.

My husband is rather like this. He wants people to snap out of it. Asks questions like, “ What has he/she got to be depressed about? They have a good job, a nice flat, decent partner, what’s their problem? They just want attention.” “Marilyn has been in therapy for three years. Shouldn’t she be okay by now? I mean, the sexual abuse happened when she was ten. Isn’t it past time for her to move on?”

I find his attitude chilling and horrifying.

For care in the community to work there actually has to be care in the community.
In Scotland we have a compulsory treatment order which is normally hospital based but it can become community based but for some reason I see more and more people discharged without it becoming community based.

Yabu for using the word triggered incorrectly as I assume you don’t have a mental health condition based on what you wrote.

you mean you were upset by their comments.

ffs