I’ve noticed something of my time being on this forum, forgive me if this offends any of you but I feel like this topic needs to be talked about. Everyone here is quite sympathetic when it comes to one of us going insane and doing something we would never do under the right mind, but that sympathy train seems to end when it’s reported that someone who was psychotic ended up becoming violent and hurting someone in the process or worse, to be clear, not everyone’s like that but a decent amount of members seem to blame the person who’s mentally ill who became violent has no excuse for their crimes they committed even though truth be told, everyone here who doesn’t become violent when they’re psychotic are on the lucky side. This post was meant for the people who have no sympathy for those of us who become violent who are also suffering from a psychotic illness.
I agree, that’s all fine, but you do realize that rotten people are not immune to shizophrenia, right? They get it too. The same percentage of violent people are gonna have schizophrenia (1% of them) as the percentage of non violent people (1% of them). What I see too often is a blanketing of all schizophrenics as perpetual victims that cannot be bad people, because they are suffering. That’s just not true. Some rotten people are ill, and many nice people are ill. No more or less than with healthy people.
I agree. Most people who are mentally ill who are psychotic are not violent but I wasn’t referring to those people
I dont know how to respond to this besides, as a child I witnessed my alcoholic mother get violent on at least a weekly basis. She also has a personality disorder and depression. I absolutely do blame her for being violent. Mental illness is no excuse to hurt someone, it may be an explanation, but we shouldn’t let go of blame simply because there are underlying factors at play.
Ohh I agree with you. I did tons of stupid things during my psychosis. I wouldn’t say I was really violent - but I was uncontrollable and caused toooons of problems.
I also remember that my OCD played a role, and even though I never acted on my thoughts, I truly had some ugly thoughts in my head. I was scared, scared of my new self and the way illnesses made me feel.
I know many ppl will disagree here with u, but I am the one which agrees.
Don’t get me wrong. If someone’s not owning up to responsibility of managing their mental illness I would agree with you that they hold responsibility.
I agree, taking medications is our responsibility to society.
To be clear, I never claim mental illness is excuse to hurt someone, but someone who went flat out insane is an excuse if they weren’t in control of their actions, and I’m well aware of the people who are mentally ill but have an illness that has nothing to do with them losing control of their actions but still use it as a shield.
I’m aware of that, but have you realized some schizophrenic people assume other schizophrenic who become violent when they’re psychotic assume they happen to be to rotten apples of the group. And it’s very hard to find out who are the bad people who suffer form schizophrenia due to nature of condition.
Good topic. I don’t know if I have sympathy for the violent ones though.
There is no excuse for lashing out on people physically unless there is absolutely zero control you have for some reason, and that wouldn’t be schizophrenia, that’d be a whole nother brain disorder(maybe just not being a good person)
There are so many ways to go about the situation than violence if you are functioning well.
I think there is a belief, not unique to this website, that a person who is psychotic is aware of what they’re doing. This, by definition, is false. Psychotic is an adjective of psychosis, and psychosis is a disconnection from reality. Thus a person who is psychotic is not aware of what they’re doing, and they do not know right from wrong. Even the legal system recognizes this.
When a person who is psychotic commits a crime, especially a heinous crime, we often see an attribution bias from society, including from people with mental illness. An attribution bias is an attempt to find reasons for their own and other people’s behavior. People conclude that they can never do what someone else did. They’re not us.
The inconvenient truth is that they are us. And no amount of blame will change that.
It’s a tough subject. Even a nice person could commit a violent action during psychosis because they are in a distorted reality. For example they could mistakenly think someone is a threat to them and attack.
Luckily it rarely happens.
There is a lot of nuance to situations where unwell people become violent. This is the internet, and our only source of input is the people here self-reporting, so we will always be losing a lot of nuance in accounts of these events.
Sometimes, people want to be told they are still good people who can try to do better. Sometimes, they want to be told their actions were out of their control. Sometimes, they want to be told the people they hurt have no right to be angry with them. Sometimes, they want to be told they did nothing wrong, and it is everyone else’s fault for antagonizing them.
Sometimes, it is hard to tell what the person is actually asking, and our interpretations will be colored by our own experiences. Many of us have been victims of violence, from people who claimed it was not their fault but kept doing it over and over. That is how they will most likely interpret these stories when things are ambiguous.
Something I have come to learn is that you can be too understanding. If someone says “I punched my loved one because I was panicking” and the response is “oh gosh, that wasn’t your fault, you were in panic mode,” their brain will subconsciously link panicking with being blameless. It can lead them to become panicked more easily, especially when they make a mistake. After all, if they are panicking, they are not at fault. This cycles into panicking more and more, and displaying even more increasing violence.
This is not necessarily a malicious or conscious choice. The person can genuinely feel like they have no control and they are genuinely panicking. The solution is still the same. Reinforce the idea that the person controls their own actions. Reinforce the idea that they have autonomy. If someone accepts their autonomy, they can practice strategies for avoiding violence even when they are in panic mode. If someone rejects their own autonomy, they will continue to hurt others and continue to refuse blame for it.
People who murder while losing reality should go into secure hospital but there are a lot mentally ill in prisons from what i gathered
I’m not buying it.
Harm is harm.
Isn’t it pretty normal for people who are in mid psychosis to have a acting out behaviour though? At the mental hospital there is a whole ward dedicated to these people.
If you believe that’s true then every action you commit in psychosis is 100% your fault unless you believe only violence is exception.
Yes, I’ve been many times and have seen people going ballistic throwing chairs across the room who are perfectly normal once medicated.
Are you saying someone in psychosis should commit suicide before they resort to harm, is that what you’re trying to say?