Are we all ticking timebombs?
Just waiting for the right combination of circumstances to allow us to detonate?
We may be. BUT, what combination of circumstances is going to set us off? And who has the right, and more importantly, the capability to accurately judge both the what, and the when?
There is no system devised by man that cannot be abused. There is nothing devised by man that is without errors or flaws. Which is the worse for us, to accept the fact that from time to time people run amok, and prepare ourselves to deal with it, or to surrender our lives to the control of other people (who are fallible) in the (false) hope that they will prevent or protect us from those who run amok?
No amount of mental health care as it currently exists can help an individual who does not wish to be helped. At best all it can do is control them, for as long as they remain in a situation where they can be physically controlled. Outpatient only works for those who actively wish to change, and does nothing for those who don't. Addicts, alcoholics, and other people with "issues" will do what they truly wish to do, no matter what, as long as they have the physical freedom to do it. Many find ways to overcome those addictions they are powerless to resist, and many do not. Even when drinking/drugging will kill them, some still drink/drug. Others find a method that allows them to escape the addiction. And only the willingness and desire to change allow any chance for sucessfull change.
The individual with mental problems who lives in society and truly wishes to get well tries. Those who don't go off their meds, and trouble results. Sometimes trouble results even while they are on meds. Sometimes it happens even when they have strong desire to be well. There are not any absolutes when it comes to the human mind, except one. And that one is that if nothing is attempted, nothing results.
As was mentioned, the drawback to allowing "mental health professionals" greater legal authority in our lives is allowing anyone greater control in our lives puts all of us at greater risk. The science of "mental health" is not a science in the same sense that geology is a science. There are no constants in the sense that there are mathmatical constants. What works for many does not work for all, what works for some is useless for others, and there is no way to predict or determine what may have a chance of being useful, save by trial and error on an individual basis. For example, anti-depressant drugs help a great many people, but there is a small percentage of people they send into paranoid delusions and homicidal rage. Drug makers and even doctors know this can happen, but they don't make a big public issue about it. It isn't a good selling point, and using the "greatest good for the greatest number" philosophy, keeping the drugs in use does more good than harm.
And when harm happens, the drug's role is often overlooked, or misinterpreted.
And giving mental health prfessionals more authority over our lives is a bad idea for other reasons as well. The chief one among them being that mental health professionals are people too. People with their own beliefs and agendas. Even were they saints or angels I would have my reservations about their abilities and judgement, and they are not. Remember it was only 50 some years ago that the recognised standards for mental health included classifying homosexuality as a mental disease, aberrant behavior that needed to be cured. Mental health professionals of that era knew that to be true. Imagine what they will know a few years from now!
Soviet communists legally classified dissidents as mentally ill. All nice and legal, their doctors and their courts all agreed. And as mentally ill, there was no legal objection one could make against "treatment". Is this the kind of authority you wish to give to our medical professionals, beyond what they already have?
Isn't the United States supposed to be a place where one can decide to march to the tune of a different drummer if one so wishes? As long as there is no harm to others, why should it matter? And notice I said harm, not threat of harm. Here is the ultimate slippery slope, the threat of harm being equated to mental illness. We already go too far (IMHO) using the threat of harm as justification for loss of rights and freedoms, but when it becomes accepted that any behavior with the potential to be a threat of harm (and there is very little that cannot be made into this) is considered mental illness, then our freedom is truly lost.
No matter what they may say, no matter what promises and assurances they give us, if we give them that power, it WILL BE ABUSED!!!! And there is absolutely NOTHING IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF MANKIND THAT HINTS OTHERWISE!!!
Remember what the road to hell is paved with! Remember the rule of unintended consequences!
Don't let us go there!
