"Likely to do physical harm to another"

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That's a buzz-phrase used to incite feelings of alarm against psychiatric patients or people that the system hopes to make into psychiatric patients.

Has anyone ever heard of even one school bully ever being remanded to care using this phrase? Does anyone anywhere ever use this phrase to get the school bully locked up and make him wear pajamas to supper? I would love to hear of even one case, just one. It would also be comforting if a school bully were put away because he is "off his nut."

It seems to me as if the people who make a practice of violence against others are never treated this way, but those who "might" do it, who never have or have practiced it with extreme reluctance and very few times wind up in the nuthouse.

That sounds like a fairly accurate assesment of the mental health system. Though in California, ther is a list you usually get registered on first before you get locked away, and you are supposed to get to have your own clothes. There is no real enforcement of any of this anyway.

I did my research on the mental health laws before seeking a psychiatrist. I found that to avoid nagative labels, I lie and manipulate the whole mental health establishment to get what I need minus the labels. About a quarter of my recent psychiatric records are BS. I manage this by basically playing a character that is almost identical to me, but without having certain characteristics I don't want on my medical record. I also keep these undesirable characteristics a secret from everybody I know in person so that nobody can contradict me on it. If you ever have to attest to the accuracy of the information under the penalty of perjury, you cannot go back and admit you lied, but you can eventually start gradually acting out more of the stuff you were hiding to get it classified as a change in condition.

Here in the UK though about ten to fifteen years ago, there was anger and annoyance at the Care in the Community scheme where psychiatric patients who needed help didn't get it and ended up homeless, when the government had previously assisted them with accommodation and treatment on the (free) NHS. It caused a lot of pain and it was suspected that it was actually introduced to cut services rather than give these patients the care they needed in hospital, which in some cases was better than being in prison where some inevitably ended up.

At times I'd rather like to be in a hospital and to that end have tried the self-harm route (all I've usually ended up with is a series of minor scars/scabs on my right hand, and you can still see the one I got eighteen months ago). Perhaps it is escapism but ...

they are wanting to establish the same types of laws nationwide in ref, to mental health as they have in CALF. that would mean that my depression and Anxiety (and maybe aspergers) would appear on my background checks. It would show up on my criminal record not as a crime committed or an arrest made but as a mental condition diagnosed/treated. WOW, the implications of THAT go far beyond being able to buy a weapon.... I thought HIPPA would have prevented any more medical records from being availble with out a warrent..... Makes you wonder whats next....

The thing I want to have seriously examined is why the bullies never seem to get the treatment, only their victims. By the time they grow up, the bullies have seriously damaged a lot of people each. I am one person who would not harm someone without a very good reason. I have been given far more than adequate reason for a sane person to go and harm several people. What exactly am I missing here? A bully is defined as a person who hurts others with no reason, and the bully generally gets to do whatever he wants for as long as he wants. He gets to go out and hurt people for no reason and he even seems to be protected. People who worked hard to keep me from getting anything, even the slightest bit back from the bullies contributed heavily to the devastation of my life. They called it taking care of me.

The U.S. is doing more of the "mainstreaming" and I think it's the same thing. Get rid of a problem by ignoring it. There are very few people, just by the way, who aren't painfully aware that the military could cut its budget by cutting the stealing and save enough tax money to more than pay for adequate care of our mentally ill and those who are too poor to pay for medical care, and for rehabilitation. Criminalization in some fashion or other of those who have problems is a way to excuse either not spending enough on them, not rehabilitating them, or even spending far too much on them because they are allegedly a danger to the community and that means that they need to be confined and made to work in the prison factories for extremely low wages. One of the reasons for marijuana to be illegal is because it gives us a criminal class whose members are relatively undamaged, usable in a factory, and harmless.

The whole point is manipulation to serve whoever the ruling regime feels like serving at a given time.

I don't know of any "Bill of Rights" that "authority" cannot ignore.

What's next? For a lot of these people it's their personal wet dream to be able to imprison people who don't agree with them. Mental hospitals have been used forever to punish certain forms of dissidence, but it's all been politically correct and on the QT. The people who push it have been creeping it up, though.

that last statement is something that I think we accually agree on.....

I'd love to talk about more about my personal experiences with this, but that would mean incriminating myself.

I doubt it is a political coup. It probably has more to do with the long standing media portrayal that people with some sort of mental disorder, no matter how minor, are dangerous and need to be watched closely or they will all go on a violent ramage. The truth of the matter is that only 15% people ever comitted to a mental hospital have ever comitted a violent crime while 47% have been a victim of violent crime.

As for the implications on getting weapons, that would just mean that I'm going to go buy bigger and badder stuff on the black market. If they wanted to take my 10 round semiautomatic SKS away, I'd get an FN Arms F2000 instead. I'd get the flashlight and laser sight for it, but I'd probably pass on the grenade launcher. I'd also get a MP5 and a Glock 17 w/ selective fire switch and 33 round magazines. I'd also get scilencers. And why shouodn't I? I would have glady go through the legal purchase process for legal firearms, but they would have denied me one of my constitutional righs without due process. That's all the proposed medical release laws would do.

The proposed laws were probably a pharmacudical lobby trick to shove more pills down people's throats. Luckily, Congress isn't too happy with them right now.

Mental health laws are such BS, they almost make the restrictive gun laws look sane!

Are you referring to gun control?

"Mental disorder" is generally a code phrase for dissidence. If you don't like being pushed around and beaten and screwed around, you might be a dissident and you might have a mental disorder.

The reason why bullies don't get the "dangerous to others" label is because it's seldom meant to be used as an indicator of harmful behavior. It's more likely to be used as a justification to involuntarily commit someone into a mental facility because otherwise, a person with a mental disorder cannot be admitted against his will unless he's deemed "dangerous". Therefore, the system uses this label as a technicality rather than a literal indication of potential harm.

If the mental healthcare system took the "dangerous" label as a literal interpretation, not only would you have bullies in mental facilities, you'd have other violent criminals as well. Besides, bullying isn't looked on by society as pathological but rather as "normal" behavior which is derived from our supposed instinct to establish a pecking order. That's why bullies are seldom punished and the victims are blamed as it is considered "pathological" to not fight back a bully and indication of a psychological impairment that hinders the victim's capacity to fend for themselves.

The UK has a "bullying awareness" campaign that sells those plastic/silicone wristbands. (dunno whether they're on sale in the States, but they are sold for all kinds of good causes over here, breast cancer, Make Poverty History, heart research etc. etc. Even a political campaign had them; I wear one in my own party colours!).

Last I heard someone was beaten up for theirs, as they are a fashion item now (I wear four permanently). I think the problem is that someone thought that bullying can be stopped by selling wristbands. Luckily schools seem to be getting tough on bullying now, so things are being done. I remember at school I was bullied but it stopped overnight when the teachers decided enough was enough. Mind you the group of bullies that used to pick on me had their own bullying within their clique, so I was able to use salami tactics against them by sticking up not only for myself but for the bullied boy in the clique.

It stopped when I went on to high school because I just ignored them and was "myself". I did get teased but after a while it stopped hurting so much, and then in sixth form (over 16s) everyone is more tolerant of everyone else's little foibles mainly because all the stupid people have left school at 16.

As for mental health issues...there is a good campaign being run over here by the Samaritans to get people more aware of depression. And the "Dog in the Night-Time" book went some way to explaining AS as well.

Political "dissidence" ... I know how it feels but over here, they don't lock you up, they make you join the Conservative Party. If ever there was such a thing as social AS or autism, the Tories would make a good case study. Bullies on the other hand become journalists.

the implications of a law that put my mental health "status" on a background check would directly effect my ability to get a job. In SC there is a law that requires all FF hired after 2001 (i think thats the year) to have a background check. hows that gonna look to a prospective employer.... "Diagnosed with depression 19XX, Diagnosed with anxiety 19XX, diagnosed with Aspergers 19XX....etc"? In a competitive environment like this? HA!! ! They'd find some other reason not to hire you I can promise you that.
So be a teacher the others reply.... Ah, thats the FBI, SLED (sc's State Law Enforcement Division) and even Interpol checks..... "Who wants their kid taught by an autistic teacher?" the ignorant parents cry.... I can see the headlines now if you tried to take them to court......
The implcations are not pretty.....

Well, whatever I am, I am naturally a lot better teacher than the ones I suffered under. People and their damn labels.

AMEN!!

Ladysmokeater, you make it sound like the background checks inspired by 9/11 go a bit further than checking for terrorist connections like the Bush family has.

One of the very basic ideas of the U.S. is that we know when to stop trying to make things more safe by investigating people and threatening or confining them. This is an ideal that is usually honored in the breach, but it is there. We should live by it.