On Mental Illness and Newtown

It's been a while since I've written anything, I just haven't felt like I had anything to say. Today I do.

We've all seen the coverage of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. We've all seen the speculation about whether or not the shooter had a mental illness of some kind. Austism and aspergers were mentioned. I do not consider people with autism spectrum disorders (autistics) to be mentally ill because of our brain wiring differences.

Perhaps he has been diagnosed with a mental illness, or with an autism spectrum disorder. Perhaps he was just a violent man. Perhaps there was something that society could have done to prevent this tragedy, gun control or better counseling services or many of the other things that are being suggested in the media and all over the internet.

Today I came across a blog post from a mother of a teenager with increasingly violent tendencies. One powerful quote from this post really resonated with me:

"When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people."

The problem that I see here is that people cannot get the help they need without a diagnosis unless they go to extreme lengths.  And really, do children with undiagnosed personality disorders or mental health issues really belong in prison?

The other side to this problem is that people with diagnoses sometimes get help they don't need, or are pushed to do so. I'm happy the way I am and there isn't really anything wrong with my brain, it's just different. I am, I feel justifiably, concerned that this latest wave of, again justifiable, outrage will lead to all people with certain disorders being tarred with the same brush, despite the extreme variance in presentation and behaviour, and perhaps even people being forced into treatment they don't need or want. There has been a huge increase in people saying that we're violent and dangerous, that we should be treated and fixed, and this is on top of the prevalence of people who think we ought to be aborted or sterilized.

So the problem here is ultimately with the diagnosis based system of access to necessary services. What if we changed the system to one based on needs rather than diagnoses? Would that be so hard? Perhaps then we could prevent all kinds of tragedies.