Insanity as an "excuse" is getting tiresome

Ok, I am not necessarily saying there is no such thing as mental illness, but I guess I don't understand why there seems to be so much of it in the world nowadays...and if those so-called "insane" really are insane, or just making excuses...

This board (and many others of its ilk) appears to be chock full of all manner of so called "disorders." Some of them are more appropriate character flaws IMO, though, and some are just outright criminal behavior (parahiles--if they're going after little kids, it's not just an "illness" it's against the LAW and they need to be jail, not just on an analyst's couch!).

At any rate, seems like nowadays far too often people use bad behavior to excuse their lack of taking personal rsponsibility...and then try to make it into a "mental illness" or a disorder...and many of the pharmaceutical companys are making out like fat rats with selling all these drugs that are supposed to make people "better" but in many cases seem to be making people even worse!

Quite frankly, I am sick of seeing countless news reports of criminals with slick lawyers who get them off on insanity pleas...it's as though society has to be held hostage to those people.

ALL OF US have an innate knowledge of right and wrong...some choose to ignore it. That's not mental illness...that's just plain IRRESPONSIBILITY!

Quite frankly, I am sick of seeing countless news reports of criminals with slick lawyers who get them off on insanity pleas...it's as though society has to be held hostage to those people.

I don't think they actually "get them off", I don't really claim to be an expert on the justice system though;
But it seems safer to assume, in most cases these people are institutionalized, and go through years of treatment and therapy.

ALL OF US have an innate knowledge of right and wrong...some choose to ignore it. That's not mental illness...that's just plain IRRESPONSIBILITY!

I agree people with mental illness should be held as accountable for their actions just like anyone else. However, if you deny the existence and definition mental illness, perhaps you have a mild case yourself? Plenty of facts support that mentally ill people often do not have a choice between right or wrong. How can you blindly deny these facts?

Also: Would the average mentally ill person regret his actions in prison, and rehabilitate on his own, like normal prisoners often do?

This is a very tricky subject. And very debatable.

I do agree with you in the sense that there are very few people who have character or integrity anymore. This is the leading cause of most narcisstic characteristics, I believe, and the leading cause of people wanting to pop a pill to cure all their problems. They don't want to actually have to work to become strong, good, happy people.

On the other hand, Zoloft has helped me immensely. I only take a tiny dose, and yet I am relieved of the somewhat disagreeable temperament that I was born with, and of the suicidal thoughts that I used to have during PMS. It's great, and I'm glad I live now instead of 1709 or something and that Zoloft exists.

I guess I see both sides of the story. Still, I totally agree with you that many people use mental illness as a cop-out ... like, "Oh, I HAD to steal those shoes, I have Bipolar Disorder!" Yeah, right. Now you can so go to jail for a long time. Have fun with that.

It would be so easy for me to claim disabilty or get other benifits because of my mental illnesses. 5 years ago they tried to put me on disability pretty much gave me the impression that I would never be able to function as an adult or live a productive life. After this I was determined to prove them wrong. I am know a wife and mother of two children and after alot of hard work I will be graduating as an RN in December. I have had to fight every day to keep it together. Evey day has been a battle. not every one with a mental illness bows down to special treatment.
Enola

I somewhat agree, I think insanity is used as a crutch in many cases. I've always believed that if you are truly insane, you don't know it, you think you're normal and everyone else is wrong. Insanity means that you aren't capable of making a sound judgement, and I'm sure a lot of criminals know what they did was wrong. Another thing, I've heard of many cases where people get less severe punishments just because they suffer from depression. What do you guys think of those who have a "milder" form of mental disorder being able to plead insane. Personally, if I was a judge, I would have a hard time granting an insanity plea to disorders other than schizophrenia or those similar to it's effects...

someone hasn't been studying their law and medicine. I have been. tr y it.

I like the many opinions that are on this thread. There will always be a small number of people who do not function in society. Today we seem to have large amounts of people who say they can't function.

I was locked away as a young person and put on heavy medication for years. It was very hard to put that behind me and try to go to work. If I knew I could have just lived on disability the rest of my life, I probably would have never tried to be a productive citizen. I just bumbled along, until I found understanding people in self-help groups who showed me how to take small steps.

We seemed to like to have excuses for things. We do not want to accept that life requires effort that at times is hard, boring, and/or frustrating. I sometimes look like a fool because I work when I could be on disability. But, I have a certain self-respect because I can carry my own weight in society, support my family, and pay taxes. People do not understand why I will not just take some of the money that's available, but I'd rather be me. I guess if I want others to acccept my ideas, I have to accept their right to live easy, work-free lives.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling,
james

I think life in general put more and more pressure on people as years go by. Pressure to succeed, pressure to conform (even when that is by not conforming!). We have more choices, more options, than ever before. And yet man, when it comes down to it, is still genetically designed for what he did early on in evolution; to hunt, gather, eat, and reproduce. The choices we have now, the ability to utilise thinking, mean that more and more of us fail in one form or another. And with failure, comes malcontent, discontent, identity problem... a feeling that you don't 'fit'.

So then we try and justify 'not fitting'. We diagnose individuals, rather than society. Yes, it's an excuse. An excuse used not just by some individuals, but also by society as a whole.

It won't get better; just worse. The only answer lies in societies that look out for community, that focus on productivity and not so much profit, that consider manual skills as valuable as a high IQ. It lies in acceptance. It lies in understanding ourselves, and what really drives us. We are not as cerebral, as a species, as we like to think.

James - I too could sit back and claim disability. I actually work in a school kitchen, for around £50 (that's roughly $25) a week, because I can contribute by doing that. We feed kids whose only meal a day is cooked in school, by us. How many people applied for my job? Just me. It's menial, poorly paid, and below most people's ambition. I have an IQ that regularly tests 130+ - people are always telling me I have the 'potential to do more'. Do more? More than feed our kids? And if I'm honest... that 'more' usually has me cycling into another psychotic episode anyway....

I would be financially better off not working. What kind of incentive is society giving those of us who don't 'fit' to work in the first place??

Isme,

I like your ideas. God bless you for helping cook for those kids.

Our society does not promote jobs that are necessary, yet not too nice. I worked in the schools for many years and observed that few kids sign up for free programs that will teach them a good, useful skill like auto repair, electrical work, or plumbing. They want clean, desk jobs that pay a lot and have many perks. What happens is that they barely pass many courses, fail others, take extra years to graduate high school then end up just staying at home with their mothers for many years.

Today, I sometimes do blue-colar jobs--dry wall, roofing, flooring, plumbing. It is very useful. We will always need people to do this work. When you do blue colar work you get a sense of accomplishment. If you are in education or counseling, you may never be able to prove that you did anything--for years.

When I do physical labor, I'm not depressed, for I see that I'm a useful, productive member of society. I have a place in society. I'm not just trying to use the system. Some people definitly need help from the system--but not the huge numbers that are making a living by staying sick that we see today. Besides, if a lot of undeserving people get a free hand out, some people who really need the help will not get any.
James

People Do Not have an innate knowledge of right and wrong! People only learn what they are taught. Take a newborn child and by age six you can mold that child into any kind of person you want it to be. Assuming that you know some basic psychology... and with the caveat
that you probably can't quite make any child into anything... there is such a thing as inborn temperament and the effects of genetics.

If there seems to be a lot of insanity in the world today, that is because there is!

People brought up in a rapidly changing and chaotic culture ought to be schooled in the "eternal verities" of life... if only respect, responsibility and good manners. Learning how to treat others as you would like to be treated yourself is a prerequisite to civilized social discourse, but is something that is hardly even taught by religions these days.

Religions may be a major force in making people insane and irresponsible these days, filling the minds of innocent children with superstitious nonsense...(some of whom will never learn to think logically or rationally). Religions also foster fanaticism and espouse a "Pie in the sky when you die" sort of mentality that transfers ultimate responsibility to a deity or authority.

Authoritarianism is also a big problem; to maintain their power and economic bases, governments and corporations increasingly rely on a "dumbed down" and compliant "consumer/citizen" who can neither think nor make decisions on their own. Thus the moral vacuum of the government-military-industrial complex becomes everyone's moral vacuum.

Bad behavior by humans is a big problem, it is true; but not a new problem, humans have been behaving badly for a long time. It is rather human nature to do so and there is no real evidence that people on the whole act any worse than they ever did. Some may claim mental illness as an excuse who a hundred years ago might have claimed "possession by a demon" as an excuse. All in all, humans have never needed excuses to behave badly, the excuses come afterwards as a sort of lame justification.

If we want people to behave better, then the best way seems to be through education, exposure to a wide variety of knowledge including genuine psychological knowledge and teaching every child to think rationally and critically.

Gary