Arizona Tragedy - WWYD?

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

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Yes, you are correct. HOWEVER, as claud pointed out here in PA, what this means is that you have no control over your teen but you are still responsible for what they do!

I have seen this destroy families financially.

 

[welsummerchicks]

"treatment is experimental", "psychiatrists are nuts"

These are just excuses (and insults) and cause people to avoid help even more, compounding the problem. I'm not going to say every psychiatrist is at the top of his field, but they have the knowledge needed. While psychologists vary a great deal in background and methods and effectiveness, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor whose specialty is illnesses that affect behavior and thinking.

A clinical neuropsychologist is another option and has some overlapping areas of work with a psychiatrist, but it's hard these days to find one and get a very complete neuropsych workup covered by insurance. Too, their area tends to be more in brain injuries, seizures and the like. A psychiatrist has a broader training.

One of the chief advantages a psychiatrist has is complete medical training equal to a medical doctor, WITH specialized training in diseases and treatments of behavioral/mental diseases.

Not infrequently, working with a psychiatrist reveals that a behavioral problem actually is from a completely different disease, not a 'mental' disease at all. Electrolyte imbalance due to kidney disease, seizures, brain tumors, Lupus, and many, many other conditions and diseases can have effects on behavior. The psychiatrist has the training and knowledge to sort such things out.

If you see behavioral/thinking problems in a person, it is painting with a broad, broad brush to assume it is a 'mental disease'. One of the most violent, severely ill, hopeless kids I ever heard of, actually had psychomotor seizures, and went through years of incorrect treatment. Finally a psychiatrist sorted this out and in a few weeks, the kid was back in school and functioning totally normally - on a very small dose of anti seizure medicine.

There is a reason all that training is of value. It's crucial to find out what's REALLY causing the problem, and treat it appropriately.

There are ways that experts use to get non compliant sick people into treatment. The trouble is that is a long and painstaking process and a lot can happen during the time they are dealing with the person.

One psychiatrist told me that she felt that deep down, even the sickest person knows they need help, but their actions and their way of getting it, as well as the kind of help they think they need, all is so inconsistent and so poorly thought out that nothing effective or useful happens.

I've found that parents, in general, as much as they love their person, when the person is taken over by a disease that so profoundly affects their behavior, they need the help of experts to get this person into treatment. But with our broken, ineffective, bankrupt mental health care system, how do we accomplish that?

I've also found there are people that are beyond all help. The disease has just affected their brain too much. They lose so much of their ability to understand that they need help, that they just are unable to grasp it.

And I have ALSO found, that no one really can identify who is beyond help, and who is not. The most severe cases, very often, after some years of struggling against it, will agree to accept help.

Much of our problem is due to people with sentiments like those first quoted (anti treatment people), but it isn't just that. A great deal of it is about money.

Other countries DO handle this very, very differently. In Germany, it is a priority to get mentally ill people into treatment from the start of their illness. They are not problem free, but I meet many more Germans who have major mental illness who are working and productive.

We currently have committment laws. They are written to avoid allowing vengeful relatives to commit an uncooperative family member. The problem is in interpreting them and carrying them out. We've swung way over on one extreme direction in doing that - and THAT my friends, is about MONEY. Nothing else. Just money.

 

[Welsummer Rancher]

In my opinion, a large dose of Christian upbring, good parenting, and hard work would prevent about 95% of what is perceived today as mental illness.

 

[mom'sfolly]

WR, you are completely out of line. You obviously have never had to deal with a family member with mental illness. My mother is a "good Christian woman" and has been a danger to herself and others because she is MENTALLY ILL. I'm pretty sure that her parents, born before 1900, were not the lax parents you seem to think cause these behaviors. And since she's still working full time at 78, I really don't think lack of a work ethic is the problem either.

I'll never understand why a chemical imbalance that causes diabetes or a thyroid disorder is an illness, but one that causes behavior issues isn't.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Exactly. And the critical thing to understand, the most important message you can get, is that we as a country have too many people with attitudes like the above - that are a good part of the reason why we have a broken mental health care system.

In a few years, researchers say, they will have confirmed that schizophrenia is a 100% genetic disease. Other similar diseases are not far behind. But also, that much of the risk for it will come from genetic mutations that arise in that single individual.

No, Christian upbringing does not prevent or stop diseases of the brain.

'Good Christians' get just as much schizophrenia, alzheimers and diabetes and many other diseases as non Christians or as 'not so good Christians'. They all get diseases that affect the brain at the same rate as other people.

And they manage them (for many of these are not cured, but managed), when they manage them successfully, in the same way as all the 'non Christians' and the 'not so good Christians' do.

HOWEVER....faith, any faith, can be a great support in finding the strength to cope and get appropriate help.

It can also help in understanding the reasons why peope are born with a disease that affects the brain.

There are those who believe, that God never, ever makes a mistake. That if a person has a disease of the brain, God made that person that way and there is a reason why. I think it is to challenge every human being to compassion, but even more, to action - effective action.

It may not be that the family member can do this alone. It may be that all of society needs to act together to solve these larger problems.

Teachers notice problems in young kids, doctors are proactive, and most of all, the country as a whole, sets up laws and sets aside money to fund the needed programs.

No, throwing money at problems doesn't solve them. But mental health treatment is grossly under funded, and the CORRECT use of funds WOULD help to resolve this issue.

WHERE is the money? It is there, in many cases, but being spent on things that don't work. We could fund mental health care, housing, food and a great many other things, for a FRACTION of what we spend on emergency shelters(some mentally ill people have been living DECADES in these 'emergency shelters'), arrests, jail and the like.

Our current approach is fractured, ineffective and costly. It has been called 'The Expensive Stepchild of a Frugal Era'.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

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This is horrifyingly offensive to the people on this thread who opened their hearts and shared their experiences in the hopes of teaching people. There is something I would love to say about a good christian upbringing but I'll mind my manners and post guidelines.

Go back over this thread and actually read it.

 

[welsummerchicks]

You won't change that attitude, it's set in concrete.

But do you see how much that attitude is a big part of the problems we have today? And you do see, I hope, that it is about the most un Christian way a person can possibly think, right?

Don't worry - there are people who appreciate how you open your heart and talk about this issue openly. THAT is the other side of our situation, and that is where the solution lies.

I have seen people - good Christian people, from wonderful families, dealt blows by these diseases. These are equal opportunity diseases. Anyone can get these illnesses.

 

[smith2]

As a school teacher and nurse mental issues are appearing in children earlier and earlier than they ever have. Most of the time by 2nd or 3rd grade we can tell which children are struggling with mental issues. Also unfortunately, confidentiality laws prevent us from being able to say anything to anyone. We cannot even "suggest" to the parent there might be something wrong unless it is a "learning issue" of which most of these issues are NOT. We cannot mention the words "medicine," "treatment," "evaluation," etc. , but when we talk with these students you would not believe what is going on in their lives and the lives of their family members. Just listening to some of them makes teachers wonder how they even function at all, much less "normally." And yes, the problems are very complex: family issues, religious issues, money issues, drugs, alcohol, perverted sexual behaviors, and on and on. This issue is so complex and so widespread that our health care system simply doesn't have an understanding of what the problems are, much less how to treat them. And of course the money issue is a whole other factor. Sometimes we hear more information than we ever wanted to hear from the children and would help if we could, but we are not allowed to by LAW!

Here's my advice as both a teacher and nurse: 1) take some religious action and pray, pray, pray, 2) try and keep the lines of communication open with the person, 3) seek all the resources you can possibly find 4) stay healthy yourself: mentally, physically, and financially. Sacrificing your own health for the person with the problem is not going to help them. 5) Remember they must want to help themselves and take action themselves. 6) Be there to assist or maybe just to listen if that is what is needed. 6) Don't be afraid to report issues to law enforcement. For many people, they will not get help until they enter the justice system. 7) Be patient and compassionate. It sometimes takes years for people to get help, but they can and do become productive members of society.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I don't believe that the mental health issue are appearing earlier. I believe that we are getting better at identifying them earlier. JMHO. A kid who once was considered odd or a slow learner is now diagnosed with autism or dyxlexia. A lot of the symptoms of bipolar disorder and ADHD have overlap.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Quite often.

But again, we are hearing that problems in families cause mental illness. They may make the illness worse because a person is less likely to get help in a dysfunctional family.

But they do not cause these diseases. If a child is adopted out of the 'sick' family they get these diseases at exactly the same rate.

Disruptive families cause a heck of a lot of psychological problems, but not the disease the Arizona shooter has.

It is entirely possible, though, that in families with alcoholism and other chaotic issues in the parents, that the real reason the family member is an alcoholic, is actually an undiagnosed, untreated, mental illness.

I know people who haven't gotten diagnosed until 40, 50 or 60! One such fellow served in Viet Nam and carried a weapon - something that made the soldiers who served with him, absolutely terrified. They all had a rule of never walking in front of him when on patrol!

Another fellow spent his entire adult life despising himself because he was unable to do research and teach in a demanding academic field. He spent his whole life feeling like a loser. He had mild schizophrenia. If he had gotten diagnosed and treated, he could have set up a schedule he could have coped with and been far, far more successful.

People tend to struggle along on their own way too much - often due to the attitudes expressed by a prev poster that they should handle it through 'trying harder' or 'being a better Christian' - with disastrous results. They turn to alcohol, have uncontrollable behavior, and scar those in their family in profound ways. They lose jobs, they create a very wide swath of chaos.

And if they got diagnosed and got help from the start, their illness would be manageable and disrupt everyone else's lives far, far less.

I just heard that the shooter was smiling for his mug shot and was laughing and being silly in court.

I hope people realize that this indicates how ill he really is, rather than some actual 'attitude'. This is just another symptom of untreated schizophrenia - inappropriate emotions and misinterpreting what is going on.

In fact, I think some of these really sick, violent people are actually relieved when they are caught. And that can emerge in very inappropriate expressions, but often even the sickest people express relief when caught.