I decided to do something a little scientific the other week. for the last two weeks I have been asking people to play a word association game with me. These are people in my community.
The first word I say is “Mental illness”
the number one response “sadness”
Second word “Schizophrenia”
The number one response (I only had seven people of the sixty I asked say something different) “Serial Killers”
This pains me that most people seem to think that we with SZ are all going to be serial killers…What are your thoughts on this?
How brave of you to do that. I read the reaction to schizophrenia and was shocked and emotional. I got really choked-up. I have sz, but I’m 49 so I’m disappointed if people think wrong things about me, but it doesn’t affect me. But my son is 21 with sz and is such an intelligent, sensitive and gentle person. It breaks my heart to think anyone would misjudge him so severely given the chance.
I was very upset myself. After I asked those questions I then asked these people what they thought of me, all of them know me, they are my neighbors after all, and they said I was a kind and considerate young man, and the older ones said they thought of me as a child or grandchild. I then revealed I had SZ and many at first did not believe me, then they asked me if I was offended and I told them I was, but that I wanted to know what most people thought. Many of them have promised to research mental illness and learn whatever they can. Sadly that doesn’t do much good for the rest of the country. If 53 people out of 60 thinks SZ is the same as being a serial killer, that means on a nation of 300M plus, around 80-95% think that SZ is what makes people into killers.
I am not surprised, though I am disgusted. This is reason one why I never tell normals (“neurotypical people”) that I have a mental health diagnosis. They can’t handle the truth, man. They really can’t. I say, if they were willing to discriminate against me based on a neurological disability—I don’t give them the chance. I used to be open about being schizophrenic at one point, long ago, but no more. We’re viewed as criminals without committing crimes and I feel no shame in avoiding that unconstitutional inequality shoved in my face by people who would discriminate me in terms of work, school, and other rights.
I think we need to express how fed-up we are of their scapegoating of the mentally ill. I am thinking a website or maybe like a sardaa-like organization.
This is HQuinn.
HQuinn is tired of sheep
HQuinn can’t stand the sounds baa baa baaaad
HQuinn is fed up.
Be like HQuinn.
Just kidding, lol (sorry but i had to use that meme before it imploded)
I am very open about my schizophrenia. Well I am now. After years of being labeled as crazy and dangerous by people who have no freaking clue what they’re talking about, my give a fug imploded. My girlfriend doesn’t care about my diagnosis, neither do any of the people in my family. Hell even the very religious woman who runs the dog rescue I foster for doesn’t have a problem with it, and in my experience the extremely religious tends to see people with mental illness as either being ‘pitiable’ or ‘cursed’ sometimes both.
But I looked some stuff up, less than 20% (the stat varies depending on what site you are looking at) of serial killers who have been caught were diagnosed with SZ, the vast majority suffer from various ‘personality’ disorders. usually ‘dissociative personality disorder’ which inhibits a persons ability to empathize with other living creatures. Now this term of DPD is very broad according to what I read, and includes narcissism among other common conditions that most people don’t even think of as being a mental illness. My oldest sibling who is two years younger than me, suffers from ‘pervasive dissociative personality dysfunction’ a very similar condition, and he has been locked in a mental health facility twice for assaulting people who angered him, the first time it was because someone gave him the wrong change at a mcdonalds, and the second was an in-home support worker who told him to turn off his Ipod and help with dishes. I was there, the guy was polite but firm. My brother grabbed him by the throat and I had to punch him in the head three times to get him to let go. but because my brother’s condition is considered a non violent disorder they let him out. When I decided to stop taking my meds the first time (because I gained over 100 pounds in 5 months), they locked in a mental health facility and forced me to take medication that I had refused because despite having never had a violent outburst, I was labeled with a ‘violent’ disorder. By the time my mother managed to get a court order releasing me from the damn place, I weighed over 300 pounds, and was on fifteen different medications that literally left me in a stupor so deep I couldn’t even get to bathroom to relieve myself. I was essentially in a coma, but I could walk if assisted.
Point is, SZ is considered a high risk for violence, but the rate of homicides involving SZ sufferers, is even lower than the homicides involving children under 14 as offenders. Most sufferers are more dangerous to themselves. Yet the disorders that make people more likely to commit violent acts are considered ‘non violent’ because the disorder has a better name. by being DPD you don’t have the same ability to feel for others, which makes you more likely to do something violent because you cannot comprehend that its bad.
Please note all my information was painstaking translated from Swiss…because the American stats are very vague on this subject. thus these stats are based on the homicide rates of Switzerland.
Well there I was talking about how its mostly people with personality disorders who become serial killers, and I just got the results from my last assessment back. I have a tentative additional diagnosis of ‘Schizoid form Personality Disorder’ which in the email description is a disorder some schizophrenics get (though it is not exclusive to SZ sufferers) that causes difficulty in empathizing with other humans. People with this disorder tend to attach more closely to animals and have a hard time in social situations. The only treatment is immersion therapy. That is forcing them to associate with people on a regular basis so that they do not become introverted.