We wouldn’t be taking about mental health if this person wasn’t white. Just saying.
Nameless----
I had 2 mental health jobs & I worked w/ any race/ ethnic group/ gender group/ creed/ political preference client assigned to me. Many with a mental health diagnosis, also had co-morbid substance abuse. Add a gun to that & the public has trouble & possibly an active shooter.
Some with mental instability refused to have a mental health eval & family & friends supported this. I have read several bks RE the FBI. The FBI has their Behavioral Unit in Quantico VA. They keep stats on mass shootings/ mass shooting attempts. The FBI responds to these all over the US. The typical mass shooter in US, statistic-wise, is a single white male, IIRC under the age of 40, w/o a job/ money or friends. And sometimes w/o a home. I will gladly go on GR and look at my book reviews and find the titles for you.
I will cease talking mental health if other posters are uncomfortable w/ the topic.
Books I've read: Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator by Gary Noesner Whoever Fights Monsters: My 20 yrs Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI by Robert Ressler The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror by Andrew McCabe. A Higher Loyalty by James Comey
mlover I agree with you about these mass shootings. They have been happening from way before Columbine, which made such an impact because of how young the perpetrators were, the types of weapons they used (they bought some themselves, even though one had access to weapons at home from his father who was a military man if I am remembering correctly) and the place the attack took place in. Now school mass shootings are on the news that kids speak about lockdowns and what to do in case of an attack like it's nothing. When I was in high school it was Virginia Tech, which one shooter in a college campus and the many lives taken and forever changed. He was able to access/purchase those semi automatics without much issues.
And I have been working my job now 4 years now, and one branch is to offer help to those who have mental and physical disabilities, there's a lot of people who are in denial and unfortunately if they don't want the help you cannot force that on anyone. All you can do is give them the information and hope one day they reach out.
These next parts will be a bit of a rant/tangent. So if my thoughts are everywhere and make little sense I apologize right here.
In the past few cases even if they want to say that the perps/terrorist (I will call it as I see it, anyone who terrorizes a community and hurts people is a terrorist, these young men are that) had some sort of mental illness and that either family of they themselves did not want help, I still cannot think of them as anything other than a terrorist. Is it sad they did not accept and seek help for their mental stability, yes it is, but it's not a valid excuse specially to the families who lost a dear one and to the community who lost a sense of safety and stability. No one will be the same again. No one deserves that.
I doubt these shootings will stop any time soon since most of them are using the internet and going into websites and forums that only add to their anger and hate, and it feeds these delusions they create. Not to mention there are a few networks out there feeding into these unwarranted fears of being replaced, of becoming minorities and what it means for the once powerful and who was once considered a majority. I ask the same question all the time, if you say being a minority isn't a bad thing and that we are all equals why are they so afraid of becoming a minority?
When laws and bills are introduced to protect the public against guns and gun violence all of a sudden they want to take your right to bear arms, which is not the case, they want to be sure that who is purchasing these weapons legally is in the right mindset, can use the weapon responsibly and is able to make decisions rationally. Because let's be honest, even police officers out there in the field aren't able to use their weapons responsibly. So us regular untrained and possibly add in mental illness would need proper training and psychological evaluation would go a long way to help, it won't make it go away but it's a start.
Banana Boat Mental issues have no age limitations, sometimes people are so good at hiding what's wrong, or you meet a person and you just assume some things are quirks or they are a little strange but good people. I have a cousin that due to trauma he witnessed, experienced and survived later on in life developed delusions of persecution. It started off simple enough with saying a neighbor was watching him, but 3 years later he escalated and attacked said neighbor, my grandma tried everything to get him help, and it mostly fell on deaf ears, he was arrested for public indecency and until he attacked a guard he wasn't evaluated, he spent about a year in prison and there he mellowed out, meds were given, he was let out and within a month of being free he was no longer taking his meds and back to the old behaviors and feeling persecuted. He's 55 now, left this country because we were trying to hurt him he told a friend of the family, he was 37 when he started showing outer signs that something deeper was wrong.
Lord, with how long this seems, anyone here would assume I talk a lot, when in reality I get to the point right away, and keep my stories short.
One client I had in my group told his Grandma he was attending college in our mental health bldg- untrue. His clothes and hair were always neat as a pin: when he mentally decompensated, we saw the opposite. Each client was different, in the signs we watched for. One client came to our center w/ a hang-over & threw up nearly every visit. I was finally allowed to tell her to stay home on these days. She let strangers hang in her apt & soon it became a crack house. She told me she had a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other: delusional ideation.
I don't care what color or ethnic group a person belongs to (although a poster here implied I did), if they are mentally unstable they need help. But there's still a stigma connected to mental health treatment. Our partial hospitalization group had a high success rate of keeping clients mentally healthy and on meds. & preventing psych stays & preventing involuntary 3-day holds in the state hospital. I had some ex-felons in my group who tried to intimidate me. The pedophiles were the hardest for me-most of them lied.
My Mom was buried the day of the Virginia Tech shooter, who IIRC was an Asian-American. Finally, NAMI and other groups state statistically that those with a mental illness are more likely victims of crime that the perps of crime.
mlover My cousin was a college graduate, a good job with the department of sanitation (some type of analyst, I'll have to ask someone who remembers exactly what it was) he was there for quite a few years, but he suffered a horrible loss and witnessed something terrible and was sole survivor. It changed him, he said he was getting help, there was no reason to not believe him. He found himself a partner, lived with them, and a few years after they settled he started talking about the neighbor always watching him, to the point that he looked for hidden cameras in his home and yard. There was so much that happened within that year that it started unraveling, that it's scary to think about and also very sad. As you said that stigma that follows anyone with a diagnosed mental disorder/s makes it so difficult in many cultures to ask for the help needed. And a stigma that follows the family, as if somehow they are at fault or they are simply contagious like the flu...
I can only imagine how scary it is to deal with the kind of people who would do anything to deceive, and not break. And as I am a survivor of a pedophile, I know the extremes a man or woman will go to in order to get what they want, and come out looking innocent.
I'm sorry. I think I will always remember that Monday, it was raining and I had first and second period English class, second period was when the theater teacher ran inside our classroom to tell the teacher (she son in the school, he was alright, he didn't have morning classes). And yes, the Virginia Tech shooter was Asian American (had he been white the title terrorist will still apply), which takes me back to the point of easy access to these weapons, little to no evaluations from a psychologist, and even though there's not much anyone can do other than take away technology and access to the internet, if I am not mistaken he was making videos and had access to some disturbing sites that only fueled his anger and hate for his old classmates and pulled him deeper into a depression and erratic state of mind. If his household was anything like a friend of mines, the mention of mental health problems was taboo and depression a state of mind you could beat simply by going out for a walk. I do not believe his family has ever spoken, so there's no real insight to his person other than what was on the news, I do hope that they got help after that, specially all of the families who suffered received some form of therapy.
I don't know you personally, I can't say the type of person you are but I would like to think you're not in that closeminded circle where you judge based on skin color and ethnic background and that you are open to hearing and learning. Sometimes when we read something typed it's not the same as hearing it and watching it in person. So we may interpret the tone differently than what it is meant to be. Or read more into a statement based on previous experiences. Maybe that was the case here.
I have worked w/ pedophile victims (who dealt with it many years later) & pedophiles: most of whom lied about their crime. I'm sorry you were subjected to that. They ruin a kid's childhood & shake their trust.
My memory is not 100%. I thought the parents of the Virginia Tech killer were denied access to his counseling eval b/c he was 21 at the time? I would rather the community come up with real mental health solutions, but where do we start? Some community members think mental health treatment is common sense for the patient IE 'just snap out of it' or too expensive. My city has mental health clinics, which offer a sliding fee scale. The onset on mental illness symptoms usually starts in a person's late teens or early 20s. I had 2 sibs w/ bipolar disorder.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have difficulty at times predicting when someone will engage in violent behavior. I read a book by an NRA insider. He said their CEO left the office for 2 weeks after Sandy Hook b/c he could not cope w/ murdered kids. But the CEO did nothing constructive in reply. People have a right to own guns, but IMO a person who had a voluntary or involuntary psych hospitalization, should not be permitted to own a gun. Espec. someone w/ fixed paranoid or delusional ideation. I have taken up too much space on this thread. Please message me on this forum if you want to discuss further. Thanks.
P.S. NRA book was: Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption, Greed... by Joshua L. Powell.
mlover I agree with you about these mass shootings. They have been happening from way before Columbine, which made such an impact because of how young the perpetrators were, the types of weapons they used (they bought some themselves, even though one had access to weapons at home from his father who was a military man if I am remembering correctly) and the place the attack took place in. Now school mass shootings are on the news that kids speak about lockdowns and what to do in case of an attack like it's nothing. When I was in high school it was Virginia Tech, which one shooter in a college campus and the many lives taken and forever changed. He was able to access/purchase those semi automatics without much issues.
And I have been working my job now 4 years now, and one branch is to offer help to those who have mental and physical disabilities, there's a lot of people who are in denial and unfortunately if they don't want the help you cannot force that on anyone. All you can do is give them the information and hope one day they reach out.
These next parts will be a bit of a rant/tangent. So if my thoughts are everywhere and make little sense I apologize right here.
In the past few cases even if they want to say that the perps/terrorist (I will call it as I see it, anyone who terrorizes a community and hurts people is a terrorist, these young men are that) had some sort of mental illness and that either family of they themselves did not want help, I still cannot think of them as anything other than a terrorist. Is it sad they did not accept and seek help for their mental stability, yes it is, but it's not a valid excuse specially to the families who lost a dear one and to the community who lost a sense of safety and stability. No one will be the same again. No one deserves that.
I doubt these shootings will stop any time soon since most of them are using the internet and going into websites and forums that only add to their anger and hate, and it feeds these delusions they create. Not to mention there are a few networks out there feeding into these unwarranted fears of being replaced, of becoming minorities and what it means for the once powerful and who was once considered a majority. I ask the same question all the time, if you say being a minority isn't a bad thing and that we are all equals why are they so afraid of becoming a minority?
When laws and bills are introduced to protect the public against guns and gun violence all of a sudden they want to take your right to bear arms, which is not the case, they want to be sure that who is purchasing these weapons legally is in the right mindset, can use the weapon responsibly and is able to make decisions rationally. Because let's be honest, even police officers out there in the field aren't able to use their weapons responsibly. So us regular untrained and possibly add in mental illness would need proper training and psychological evaluation would go a long way to help, it won't make it go away but it's a start.
Banana Boat Mental issues have no age limitations, sometimes people are so good at hiding what's wrong, or you meet a person and you just assume some things are quirks or they are a little strange but good people. I have a cousin that due to trauma he witnessed, experienced and survived later on in life developed delusions of persecution. It started off simple enough with saying a neighbor was watching him, but 3 years later he escalated and attacked said neighbor, my grandma tried everything to get him help, and it mostly fell on deaf ears, he was arrested for public indecency and until he attacked a guard he wasn't evaluated, he spent about a year in prison and there he mellowed out, meds were given, he was let out and within a month of being free he was no longer taking his meds and back to the old behaviors and feeling persecuted. He's 55 now, left this country because we were trying to hurt him he told a friend of the family, he was 37 when he started showing outer signs that something deeper was wrong.
Lord, with how long this seems, anyone here would assume I talk a lot, when in reality I get to the point right away, and keep my stories short.
just have to say I agree 1000%.
Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true.
My hubs claims his 'sources' tell him all mass shootings in US are carried out by CIA agents. Rationale- so people will lose their gun rights. Huh? I can't believe the CIA does this.
I think it was in 2nd FBI book I listed at top of page 150, a kid had feelings he'd kill people starting in grade school. (He killed some family pets for fun). He fought off this urge until he finally shot people. Police, including ATF and FBI see such gory stuff, how do they sleep at night?
Post by Banana Boat on May 22, 2022 13:31:49 GMT -7
I'm not sure who or what is the cause or rationale for the violence, be it CIA or anyone else in the alphabet soup but I wouldn't be surprised if either the CIA or FBI had something to do with the killings of JFK, RFK , MLK and perhaps Marilyn Monroe.
Last Edit: May 22, 2022 13:33:14 GMT -7 by Banana Boat: eta
mlover last post on this from me and then we can move on to happier topics. I was going to reply yesterday but my son decided he was going to go all in and cry when his cousins left our home, so this would have been yesterday's end of topic reply.
You're right on the fact that any mental health specialist will not predict what their patient will do, but maybe I'm being idealistic and thinking more along the lines of an idea of where their head space is. I also fully grasp that it's not even 70% accurate at times that small insight is if the patient as you already know lies and hides very well their true intention and thoughts.
That's horrible to hear about the denial of help to the family. I guess the Columbine parents had the bit of help because they were underage, this happened when I was very young but I have watched interviews and documentaries on this. (Mostly due to thesis research, which is a pain in the a** when the original thesis topic escalates so drastically, Bullying and School Violence, broad terms or not it was a lot of researching, I ended up picking something totally different in the end.)
I don't know about where to start, but the policy/law/bill makers need to get it together and put the safety of their constituents first, specially those that are young and have so much to look forward too.
Banana Boat and JaniceC yes it's so sad that they view it as normal and in the case of my oldest niece she mentions the drills as if they are the most normal thing for anyone to do. As a student I never did that, but all they have known is that these drills are normal, therefore us looking astonished about them has them looking at us like we are out of touch with how schools work. Which technically we are.
Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times by David S. Reynolds.
Reportedly 16K books have been written about Abe Lincoln. I'm reading the above book. Abe had less than 1 year of formal school training, but read as many books as he had or could borrow and for 3 years learned the law from his mentor Mr. Stuart. The author said Abe was the only POTUS to have a US patent for an invention (thus far not revealed).
I'm on the section about the 3 ladies Abe loved. Ann Rutlege was the most controversial. I've read about 6 previous bks on Abe, some authors said Ann was just a friend, 2 said she was the love of Abe's life. William Herndon, Abe's former law partner in Illinois, asked Abe for job when he was President & Abe declined. After Abe died, Herndon wrote an uncomplimentary bio on Abe. Abe did not allow alcohol served in his home, so he never hosted alcoholic Herndon. Herndon also admitted his anger of never seeing Abe's home. Also Mary Todd Lincoln disliked Herdon.
One client I had in my group told his Grandma he was attending college in our mental health bldg- untrue. His clothes and hair were always neat as a pin: when he mentally decompensated, we saw the opposite. Each client was different, in the signs we watched for. One client came to our center w/ a hang-over & threw up nearly every visit. I was finally allowed to tell her to stay home on these days. She let strangers hang in her apt & soon it became a crack house. She told me she had a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other: delusional ideation.
I don't care what color or ethnic group a person belongs to (although a poster here implied I did), if they are mentally unstable they need help. But there's still a stigma connected to mental health treatment. Our partial hospitalization group had a high success rate of keeping clients mentally healthy and on meds. & preventing psych stays & preventing involuntary 3-day holds in the state hospital. I had some ex-felons in my group who tried to intimidate me. The pedophiles were the hardest for me-most of them lied.
My Mom was buried the day of the Virginia Tech shooter, who IIRC was an Asian-American. Finally, NAMI and other groups state statistically that those with a mental illness are more likely victims of crime that the perps of crime.
Um…. That was a general comment. Not directed at you at all.
Post by Banana Boat on May 25, 2022 9:08:42 GMT -7
ML- We may not want to except it as the "new normal" but it seems to me that it is becoming that way. I'm older, born in the 50s. I don't remember ever hearing about the school shootings or the violence in the streets that we've seen in the past couple of years. It never crossed our minds, we never feared for our safety, especially in school or church. Things have changed, unfortunately.
ML- We may not want to except it as the "new normal" but it seems to me that it is becoming that way. I'm older, born in the 50s. I don't remember ever hearing about the school shootings or the violence in the streets that we've seen in the past couple of years. It never crossed our minds, we never feared for our safety, especially in school or church. Things have changed, unfortunately.
I too was born in that time. We played w/ friends. We watched our bros play Little League. If lucky, we each bought 1-2 pretzel rods at the deli. Russia was our enemy. JFK promised us the US would go to the moon! Several yrs later, it came true.