A telling phenomenon: the absent outrage over Phillip Seymour Hoffman's criminality

[AndreaCG]

74. Then there's the mental illness factor

A lot of people with untreated mental illnesses self medicate with illegal drugs. There's still a stigma to mental illness. People with physical ailments, even smokers with lung cancer or fat people who have a heart attack, are seldom scrutinized in the same way as a bipolar or schizophrenic person. Treatment is much more difficult to get. Inpatients are discharged prematurely, often with subpar after care. Insurance companies are loath to cover mental illnesses, or the hoops they need to jump through discourage some doctors from participating in insurance. (My psychiatrist doesn't and my insurance hasn't reimbursed me in years. I'll see if obamacare makes a difference.) Prisons are filled with the mentally ill, with virtually no treatment unless the court found them not responsible because of it.

I am very open about being bipolar. I consider myself lucky because I am not the type who gets full blown mania, where most of the "crazy" behavior comes from. But depression is no picnic. I've been out of work twice for a year each because of it. I work for the courts so going back to work is no problem, but almost 30 years of intellectually stultifying work has me extremely burned out. I know I'm lucky to have a good job but Oct 2015 can't come too soon (55 and a pension). On the plus side I have a wonderful psychiatrist and the meds work pretty well, though we're frequently adjusting them. I am again one of the lucky ones.

I don't know if Philip Seymour Hoffman had an untreated mental illness, as Charlie Sheen for example clearly does. But many creative types are prone to it, especially bipolar disease, where manic and hypomanic states are by definition productive of creativity. I'd argue that without the thinking outside the box that mentally ill people do, the world would not have the advanced civilization that we do. Nevertheless, the downsides to it must be treated, and America does a piss poor job of it.