Why do people believe in the insanity defense?

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There is a person in the family who is hypoglycemic and whenever he doesn't get enough sugar he explodes on people and just screams at them with all these insults and obscenities. He then breaks down sweating and calms down, and is really sad afterwards and says he has no idea what came over him and he didn't mean it. At first me, and other loved ones of this person, empathize with him, but after enough times, I am completely sick of it, but others feel like it's not his fault and he gets the temporary insanity or temporarily not himself defense, and they keep giving him passes.

There is also another person in my group of friends who is bipolar and does the same thing with really insulting and ridiculing outbursts towards people, but then all of a sudden acts like it never happened, like he doesn't know what people are talking about.

Friends forgive him and give him the insanity defense as well. He has even shown proof that he has bipolar disorder, as a means to excuse his actions.

But it gets to the point where I n olonger believe or accept the insanity defense and I believe people are responsible for what they do, and should be treated as such. People shouldn't be allowed to jerks with impunity just because they can hide behind a disease or condition.

For example, the member of the family who has hypoglycemia... I am at the point where I feel like telling his wife at family events that if he outbursts again, that she better keep him away from me, and her being his wife, means it's her responsibility to keep her husband on a leesh since she chose to marry a near rabid dog who needs to be kept on one, and bring him into the family.

I feel like telling her that if she does not keep him on a leesh and just acts aloof and denies this problem, that I am going to place a large amount of the blame on her for not keeping him on a leesh the next time he outbursts. Your husband, your problem to deal with.

But is it unfair of me to say this to her, even if this has happened enough times where I feel it has gotten to this point?

Thank you for any perspectives on this. I really appreciate it.

Because everyone is a victim today. Instead of E Pluribus Unum, the new US national motto should be "Its not my fault"

Well I can see the person being a jerk to other people thinking of themselves as the victim, but why are others pro-victim, to the same person who is being a jerk to everyone, including them?

I'm not sure being grumpy because you're hypoglycemic quite amounts to the insanity defence.

Civilizations have long recognized that there are people who can't be held to the same degree of responsibility for their actions.

Children, the intellectually impaired and those suffering from significant mental illness have a reduced capacity to understand their actions or are operating in response to things that aren't objectively real but are absolutely real to them.

Your hypoglycemic relative doesn't have diminished responsibility. He's familiar with how he behaves in that state and should feel obliged to take measures before it occurs. People might give him leeway because he expresses remorse, but he can't be that sorry since he keeps letting it happen.

Your bipolar friend might have more grounds to make that claim. They may literally have zero awareness of what they believed when they were acting out, and once they're out of that state they go back to being normal. That said, there's nothing wrong with choosing to no longer tolerate his s**t.

Pleaing reduced responsibility really only matters in court. No one has to give an abusive a**hole another chance, regardless of the excuse.

To be fair, bipolar disorder can cause psychosis - ie, hallucinations, visions of grandeur, that kind of thing. It's what happens when their mania gets out of control. I think this is also why bipolar is somewhat connected to schizophrenia: someone who has bipolar and gets significant psychosis iirc receives a diagnosis of "schizoaffective disorder".
I think mania can also cause irritability.

I'm diabetic, have a friend who is type 1 diabetic and gets hypoglycemic lows. I'm type 2, so lows are less common for me. But they can still happen.
Being low/hypoglycemic can cause bouts of irritability, among other things. I'm not sure it's something that can be used to dismiss bad behavior though.

I actually remember a long ass time ago, when I was a kid, the pastor at my church at the time completely snapped at my little sister for "insulting his wife" or something. Like full on screaming. At a f***ing 8 year old or therebouts. Made her cry and never apologized.
It was incredibly out of character for him, but I remember being very surprised that my parents weren't more upset about it and even more surprised that they blamed it on his diabetes.



There are definitely cases that are iffy or unclear. But if someone is clearly hallucinating for example, usually this is reason enough to not hold them as accountable for their actions.

I will say that excepting more extreme cases, mental illness generally is an explanation, not an excuse. You still have a responsibility to improve your mental health and try to control your symptoms, and if you can't quite control your symptoms you still have a responsibility to own up to having hurt others.

Blood sugars And bpd can truly affect behaviour in those ways beyond the control of the person.

HOWEVER, if someone knows damned well that they have blood sugar issues then it's their responsibility to monitor their blood sugar levels via diabetic testing strips and then consume the diet required to keep themselves balanced so that they don't have highs/lows that cause behavioural outbursts. If they're absolutely terrible at managing their blood sugars and refuse to learn/improve, then yeah, you have a right to call them out for being an a**hole because they have a way to prevent it but they just refuse to do it properly for their own health and the benefit of their interactions with others around them.

Similar thing for bipolar people - if they know they're bipolar and have been medicated for it, chances are they only have outbursts when they go off their meds. Such is the cycle.. they take their meds, feel better, think they don't need the meds because they feel better, and then go off them and do crazy s**t. I've seen it happen with a friend from the beach. (Although I haven't witnessed any of his craziest moments, just heard about them - from him and others.) He doesn't like how some of the meds numb him so doesn't like taking them, and knowing he needs to be medicated to keep level, he's opted for some sort of injection that he has to go get once every x days/weeks or whatever and ever since then I think he's kept super level. Even when he got struck in the face with a big stick he controlled himself very well and didn't beat the guy into the sand like he deserved. (Ongoing police case.)


Soooo yeah, when these things happen they are Truly beyond the control of the person - BUT - there's often something the person could & should do to prevent things from getting to that uncontrollable point. Behavioural outbursts from these causes Should Be quite rare, and then forgivable. But when people refuse to help themselves be better, yeah, tell them to GFT.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

This makes sense but with enough outbursts, for a bipolar person for example, can it get to the point where they will be forced to take medication like say by a court order or something like that.

I had this f*****g crazy neighbour who used to shout through the walls at me. He thought I was messing with his TV reception, he thought I owned all the cars in the street, he thought I was friends with all the police. The neighbour the other side of him shared my name which confused him and he pulled a knife on him thinking he was me. One day when I got out of my car with my GF he called her a c**t and I told him he was out of line, he then tried to strangle me, I did a jujitsu throw on him and landed on top of him pinning him to the ground. Then a junkie looking woman screamed at me to get off him, I told her to f**k off, she then pulled her warrant card ( she was undercover drug squad). I explained the situation and she took him inside then left agreeing that a welfare check was needed. Armed police kicked his door in the next day but he wasn't in but they picked him up later that day. He never returned to his house so must have been locked up or sectioned. I was told by his family it was due to his diabetes , there was definitely something more than diabetes going on with this bloke.

I took a photo from my bedroom window.



I haven't had much luck with neighbours

"Insanity" doesnt mean the same thing in law as it does in medicine, or in psychology, or in common parlance.

In law it means "not knowing right from wrong". Can be temporary ( you found your spouse in bed with someone else and went nuts and shot both of them in a fit of rage). Or it can be permanent (you're John Hinkley Jr. and are sanity impaired in the common parlence sense, and you had delusional thoughts that Jodie Foster would date you if you only shot the POTUS).

And "the insanity defense" is not some newfangled thing in our modern society. Its an ancient feature of Anglosaxon law.