The homeless person here in this town is not mentally ill. I can compare myself to him. Though I am better off generally, I AM mentally ill. It makes my thinking messed up. It’s obvious.
How do you know they’re not mentally ill?
Lots of homeless ppl here talk to themeselves loudly, maybe to their voices?
They also seem to have disorganized thoughts/speech.
The structure of speech is completely different with a MI person.
? Most MI do not include changes in speech. You have no way of knowing by observing them
One a homeless guy asked me which way is heaven.
That’s heartbreaking. Poor guy!
I told him its upthere in the sky.
We don’t get any credit for our observations.
You don’t have to be mentally ill to be homeless. You’re right @martinhersey .
The other day I saw a homeless guy talking to himself… ranting, shouting. He seemed upset. Not really sure why he was doing it. On meds its sort of not understandable.
Although the majority of the homeless population have some sort of mental illness, not every homeless person has a severe mental illness.
There is a homeless guy that I’ve seen sleeping in the bank vestibule after it closes, and hanging outside during the day sometimes, I guess he does good business there
I beg to differ. I was homeless for a while, and my observation was while there certainly was a certain percentage of observably MI people, the most pervasive issue was substance abuse. An argument could be made that anyone who chooses their drug over housing may be exhibiting MI, it’s not a typical symptom. In any case saying the majority is certainly casting too large a net IMHO.
I totally agree.
Lots of the homeless people I saw in Oakland (and there were lots of them) had obvious tics or talked loudly to themselves. I felt really bad for them, and grateful to have a home.
Homelessness has many causes. Does addiction put people on the street or do people living on the street turn to addiction. Alot of people are lucky and alot of people are not. Ways to avoid homelessness include avoiding drugs and alcohol being responsible with money taking advantage of oppurtunities and taking care of your mental and phyaical health. I feel like a hypocrit becuase i didnt do any of those things and i give good advice but seriously need to get it together. Im lucky my parents let me live with them.
Homeless persons should not be judged on how they became homeless, whether they have a mental illness or not, whether they use drugs or not. They need help, not judgment and criticism.
Drugs make people do wild things and im sure most homeless people are drug users.