Connecticut office of child advocate report on Adam Lanza

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Ever been in a mental institution? I assume not. You get more freedom and dignity being sent to prison. But then again, I suppose this is the lazy man's approach to dealing with the mentally ill: dump em and sweep em under the rug.

Mental institutions are not the catch all solution, especially not in the state that they are with the severe amount of abuse cases and abysmal living conditions. These factors won't encourage the patients to stick around for treatment.

Please. Prisons are not inherently nicer places to live than mental institutions. It comes down to how adequately each are resourced and staffed.

At a certain point "institutions are bad" became somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here's the thing: Balancing the right of the individual to live as he or she chooses with the right of society to intervene when that individual's chosen lifestyle may become self-destructive.

Here in America (believe it or not) an individual's right to choose is held paramount to society's right to intervene. This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to commit someone to a mental institution and keep that individual there against his or her will, unless that individual commits a crime against others.

Once a crime is committed, it becomes a matter for police intervention and the criminal courts.

Only by violating the rights of the individual can a not-quite-sane person be placed under institutionalized or merely supervised care. Even then, if the individual decides to stop taking meds and leave the institution, forgo supervision, or just live in isolation, that is still an inalienable right.

This is why most of the people on Skid Row seem to have mental and/or emotional issues -- they would rather live on the streets than live under any kind of supervision.

And they have every right to do so.

I've never been in a mental institution, nor have I been in prison. Nor am I lazy, nor am I a man. Nor am I suggesting mentally ill people be dumped and swept under the rug. It seems to me that Adam Lanza was the one who was swept under the rug.



I'm not talking about voluntary treatment. Look, if you break your leg you can tell that something is wrong and seek treatment. If you're mentally ill, you're not necessarily going to be able to self-identify. Other people, be they relatives or the authorities, need to be able to step in when it seems likely there's a problem. Of course there will be shades of gray, but IMO that's better than letting these people ferment until they kill someone.

People seem to expect people with mental illnesses think like us and are capable of advocating for themselves and getting help when they need it. That just tells me they do not really understand mental illnesses. There was no way my aunt would seek treatment when she was getting into trouble with the law because police kept getting involved and my grandparents finally took notice and intervened and got her help finally and they would keep intervening whenever there were problems like the time she decided to wash her car naked because she didn't want to get her clothes all dirty and do more laundry. I said to my mother when she told this story why couldn't she wear a swim suit and my mom said she was sick and people who are sick do not think rationally and their logic is off. Even my therapist said the same. They are not capable of being logical like everyone else. Most people would not wash their cars naked because they know it's illegal and would know to wear dirty clothes or old clothes or a swim suit or go to a car wash but a mentally ill person may not be capable of knowing these solutions. They have a whole different perspective.

I am sure there are families that do abandon their sick family because they think it is their own responsibility to help themselves just because they are adults but I call that ignorance because they do not understand how a mental illness works so their family member wouldn't be capable of helping themselves. My aunt was lucky to have loving parents and siblings who care about her to they put her into a hospital and now she lives in a group home.

I do believe there comes a time when an adult needs to be told what to do with their lives as if they are children such as being forced to get medical help because they are not capable of doing it.

My ER had people dragged in for evaluation for a lot more than Lanza did. Where they depressed? Yes. Parnoid? Probably.

The big problem is you can't force people into treatment. You can section them for 72 hours, but the sharper ones raise hell about getting a lawyer, and most psychiatrist will not fight to keep a person, who is being a total pill-not suicidal or homicidal for longer than 72 hours. Insurance will only pay for about 10 days for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. That's just to start meds. If they have insurance, like Lanza probably did, they the are offered outpatient day treatment program. That is ALWAYS voluntary, and very very rarely court order.

So even if Lanza got 10 days inpatient psych, I doubt he'd be fired up for a month of an outpatient day program. I'm guessing, with how his mother acted previously, she'd push the doctors to let him loose before a 72 hour hold was up.

You can't force to get the most delusional schizophrenic a court order treatment (nurse coming to your place and watching you take your meds), without the first having some felony convictions.

I don't see use going back to force treatment anytime soon. Community Mental Health model is a farce, but there was so much baggage with previous abuses in the large institutions, I doubt we will ever see that in the US again.

I think we threw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.

Both models had extreme deficits. The right model - it must at least theoretically exist- will never be implemented until the stigma lessens, because there is an underlying public attitude that "these people" are dangerous losers who don't deserve respect, resources, compassionate care and support. They aren't even considered as fully human people in many cases. Genuine efforts require first an attitudinal change and there is little sign of it so far.

I've been in both a mental institution (including once for more than 6 months) and spent an hour in a jail cell. I'd take the former any time.