Why the police?
Jesse’s story was both enlightening and difficult to read. He is one of the lucky survivors of schizophrenia, and I like his style.
Nowadays, we can talk about schizophrenia, we can talk about bipolar, and hopefully it doesn’t send a shiver up people’s spine. I like to say “schizophrenia” 10 times a day, so eventually people can say it without even thinking twice.
His parents, interviewed in the Globe and Mail article with him, intervened on his behalf and one day the police came to escort Jesse to Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. While I applaud their courage, I balk at the system. If we as a society are attempting to get it through people’s heads that mental illness is illness no different from cancer, how come we send an ambulance in aid of one and handcuffs in aid of the other? It’s ridiculous.
Certainly, in some cases, the restraint may be necessary to protect the family, the health care staff, even the patient himself. But Jesse recalls his experience in the back of a police car as if he was out on a drive with a buddy. He offered no resistance and went over to the authorities with ease.
And don’t you think too, that to a mentally ill patient with aggressive tendencies, seeing the authorities might send the exact wrong message and only exacerbate the spiral of anger. I just don’t like it. We will get NO WHERE if we continue to treat the mentally ill as criminals.
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On the contrary, I think it would be ridiculous to send the health care professionals into physical danger if it can at all be avoided; police, on the other hand, are trained to deal with the possibility of violence. Physical safety is more important than hurting someone’s feelings; if you were a nurse who had been violently assaulted or threatened at gunpoint by a mentally ill patient, you might feel differently, too.
But that’s not to say I don’t agree that the system of support for the mentally ill is completely messed up. But I place more blame on regular uneducated people — clueless friends and family — than on the professional support services.