Blame everything on mental illness. Blame me personally if you want. [View all]

[Denninmi]

Ever since Newtown, it seems to me half the threads on here touch on mental illness as a cause of the woes of society.

It would be unrealistic to deny that mental illness does play a role in some events, like the murders at Va Tech, Tucson, Aurora, Wisconsin, and Newtown. And apparently in the subway platform hate crime murder in NY.

But it's equally unrealistic to blame every woe on MH problems.

Gun crimes might be caused by MI, but be definition can't occur without available firearms.

Alex Jones may be a self-aggrandizing fraud. But I have heard no evidence that he has had a psychiatric evaluation which diagnosed a recocognized MI.

There was a MI element to the NY platform murder, but there was an equal element of a hate crime, bigotry of Arab Americans.

Prozac and other drugs which help millions are dismissed as dangerous, even poisonous, because they have the potential to cause serious side effects, including exacerbation of depression or psychosis, in a very small percentage of patients.

I personally find all of this very offensive. As a guy struggling to move past the shame, embarrassment, and stigma of my recent psychiatric breakdown and hospitalization, I would ask that DU members be more sensitive. This is, after all, a liberal left leaning forum, I would like to hope that as a group, we could be more sensitive, empathetic, and enlightened than our Freeper or conservative cave counterparts. I appeal to the better angels found within all if you.

But if not, tear into me. There is little anyone could do to me at this pooint that could hurt me more than I have already been hurt and traumatized by my personal experiences.