Friend in CT who worked in mental health

[ErikJ]

This guy is an old Republican long-hair hippie type who I do business with. (Never understood conservative long-hairs.)

I asked him about the shooting which is 50 miles from him and he blamed the current mental health system. He said he worked on a mental health institution 35 years ago in CT for 5 years where the patients actually worked doing things to keep their minds occupied, gardening, cleaning etc.

CT had 20,000 people in the mental health institiuions like this. Now they only have 300 people. The problem was that activists claimed they werent making minimum wage and so the whole thing fell apart and home care became the standard, probably thanks to the Reagan cutbacks. I told him they have drugs now so they dont need the institutions that much and he said, "yeah, if they take them."

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. What exactly are you wishing to express here?

[kestrel91316]

2. The RW talking point about how it's the mentally ill who are the problem and not the irresponsible

gun nutters.

[ErikJ]

3. Perspective of an ex-mental health worker in CT

I thought it might be a part of the answer, how the US has disbanded the old menatl health system which has led to more mass killings.

[yardwork]

4. That doesn't appear to be relevant to this case, however.

Yes, our mental health system is a disaster, and yes, it leads to all kinds of problems. There's no evidence that lack of mental health care had any impact on Adam Lanza's life, though, much less any direct impact on his decision to shoot all those people.

There's no evidence that Adam Lanza was diagnosed with any mental illness or that he was turned away or lacked access to care.

We can speculate that he may have had a mental illness but it is purely speculation. And, by the way, you're contributing to the stereotype that people with mental illnesses are violent.

[ErikJ]

7. Actually he was quite ill

I heard how his mother told a friend at a bar that she thought she was losing him a couple months before the shooting. WHy she persisted to keep an arsenal in the home is what Id like to know. THis friend of mine apparently thinks he should have been institituionalized.

[yardwork]

8. "I heard how his mother told a friend at a bar that she thought...."

As reported by media that have gotten every other detail of this case wrong from the beginning.

It's possible that Adam Lanza was very ill but we don't have anything but fourth-hand hearsay as evidence. Nor do we even have hearsay evidence that Adam tried and failed to access mental health care.

And again, your posts are ignoring the fact that the vast majority of people with mental illnesses are not violent. Where is the evidence that Adam Lanza had done anything violent before this? Maybe he did, but we haven't seen any evidence.

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. institutions suck.

"Better mental health programs" <> "more institutions"

[libdem4life]

6. Geez...mental health miniscule budgets promote gun violence? Newsflash.

I'm sorry, mental health service or personnel or their restricted budgets are not responsible for the political apologetics, creation, sale, transfer, licensing and illegal operations of military/domestic Weapons of Mass Destruction. Good lord have mercy.

[rustydog]

9. Most of the violent people we get with mental health issues

are the ones who quit taking their medications or the psychiatrist changed medications on them.

I am so thankful I do not have a psychiatric disorder. I don't see how people cancope,how their family copes...it is sad.