I was a mental health counselor for 20 years. We can't work miracles!

[nolabear]

“Mental health” is a catch-all term to indicate anything from anxiety to frank psychosis, with developmental disorders and personality disorders and a thousand manifestations of each one.

We can’t stop people who show potentially dangerous tendencies from accessing weapons. We can report but we can’t enact. We can call for wellness checks but we can’t do them. We can testify if subpoenaed but we can’t pass judgment. We can recommend but not enforce commitment.

I know many who have lost patients to suicide. Why? Because you can’t monitor someone every minute and the means are there.

I don’t know what the hell those politicians think we could do when there’s that level of rage and desperation and we can’t ourselves confine someone, and they won’t, for a somewhat reasonable fear of trampling on rights. Somewhat.

WE NEED GUN CONTROL SO THE MEANS AREN'T THERE!

[mopinko]

1. 1st you have to convince people they need help.

then you have to find help they can access.
those are 2 very high hurdles.

[nolabear]

5. Absolutely. And they're often never referred nor made by family

to seek treatment. People have a hard time fathoming what the truly violent mentally I’ll can do.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Other countries have the same rates of mental illness and low rates of gun deaths.

This is not about mental health.

Besides the GOP politicians and corporations destroyed the mental health treatment system decades ago. Now they are using it as a scapegoat.

[nolabear]

6. No truer words.

[MustLoveBeagles]

17. This

[FM123]

3. Yes, exactly.

[XanaDUer2]

4. As usual, there were no hard floowup questions

Abbott called him mentally ill. Then said he was evil. Are mentally ill people evil?

Full disclosure- I'm officially mentally ill

[nolabear]

7. As I said, it's a catch-all term.

And in my mind useless. Ninety percent of the “mentally ill” people I treated were terrific people fighting a very hard fight.

[XanaDUer2]

10. Exactly

[tulipsandroses]

8. This. When I was still in school, an instructor said, it's not IF

you will have a patient that commits suicide. It’s when. I’m a psych NP. No we can’t fix everything.
Interestingly, when you know a patient is having suicidal ideations, you make sure weapons are secured if there are weapons at home. We notify family members, law enforcement if needed.
The problem is indeed access to weapons. These politicians DO Nothing to limit the access to weapons.

[nolabear]

13. Yes. We do assessments and one of the most important ones

is access to weapons. I got many a person to sign a contract giving family permission to secure weapons.

It’s not always successful but I don’t doubt it stopped some horrific impulses, until something else could maybe, if we were lucky, help long term.

[Kaleva]

18. Firearms are comminglingly used by men who commit suicide but not by women

[LAS14]

9. Thanks for this post!! Every time I hear people propose "better mental health care" as...

... a cure for gun violence I get depressed at the American tendency to think we can control everything! But we can control access to guns. Did anyone see The Newshour last night? Or Chris Hayes (can't remember which). A talking head who has studied mass shootings gave a passionate plea for TWO THINGS that have been shown to reduce gun deaths. One was improving and expanding background checks (and enforcing), but I can't remember exactly what the other one was. It was persuasive because it has been shown to work and is do-able. It's not dumping the problem on mental health professionals and asking them to wipe away original sin.

[nolabear]

15. I appreciate the need to hand it to a miracle worker.

There ain’t no miracle workers. There are just workers. And dammit, we need work on all fronts. Unity of purpose and the willingness to step in and put out the fire where it is, not where we think it should be. Get rid of the damned assault rifles!

[The Revolution]

11. People with mental illness

are in fact more likely to be victims of violence compared to the general population. Very few acts of violence can be attributed to mental illness.

My wife worked in the mental health field previously and she would say many of her clients have trouble just taking care of themselves. They aren't out shooting up schools.

[nolabear]

16. Indeed. We are so bad at helping people help each other.

His grandmother was trying. What help did she get from government? (I’ll admit I don’t have info there; maybe he’d been stopped before—but he bought two assault weapons!)

[jcgoldie]

12. How come the united states stands alone in the world with poor mental health?

Surely it has nothing to do with being able to buy a fucking gun as easy as a pepsi.

[nolabear]

20. Personally I think it's our need to keep that self image.

It’s a lousy one, the American Independent, don’t need nobody, it’s shameful to need anybody delusion. It’s madness.

[Kaleva]

14. Mentality ill people deciding what their treatment will be can be a problem

Your comment:

"Because you can’t monitor someone every minute and the means are there."

Very true. I monitor my wife all the time when we are together but I can't always be home with her or take her with me. When gone for a while during the day, we'll text or talk on the phone and I can usually tell how she's doing by what he texts or the around of her voice. There's been some close close calls.

Been doing this for 16 years now.

[nolabear]

19. My heroes are the caregivers of those with serious illness.

Physical or mental. There’s so little rest. Sometimes those are the people we can support, advise and help. But so much more could be done. Affordable home health care, even occasionally. Better meds monitoring so red flags are caught. No access to things that can do impulsive, immediate harm. Nothing is a panacea, but there’s a lot that can help.

I see you. I know it’s exhausting.

[Kaleva]

21. My heroes too are the caregivers.

Big Brothers Big Sisters, foster parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, the folks who work at women's shelter's, same with those who work at animal shelters, those who care for the elderly, the infirm, the mentality ill and so on.

While some care givers make a living doing so, it's the love for others and the empathy that is the main reason.

[nolabear]

22. Love makes the world go 'round.

It’s not just a song.