Accountability in Mental Illness

[V-Ormix]

Re: Accountability in Mental Illness

This makes no sense. Clearly situations have happened in my life that have made me perceive that I am not actually in control of my actions and decisions for large-enough periods of time that I'm actually questioning it.

I personally think this is a childish perception of life and mental illness, one that is wrong and which causes a lot of harm.

I personally think this is a childish perception of life and mental illness, one that is wrong and which causes a lot of harm. Really, EVEN IF mental illness were ENTIRELY environmentally based, there would still exist the question about what constitutes mental illness, and there would still mandatorily be heavy intervention from the outside world in attempts to 'fix' the person. That we know that this isn't even the case is actually -good- news.

Clearly situations have happened in you're life that have "made" you perceive "that" you are not "actually" in control of you're actions and decisions for large-enough periods of time that you actually question it.

The mentally handicapped should be held accountable for their actions to an extent. Instead of using a mentally handicapped person, let's say we're talking about a very drunk person. It is probably excusable for the drunk person to give someone an unsolicited slap on the ass, where it is not excusable for them to go and rob a bank...

Mental illness comes with an added layer of empathy and forgiveness, and it can be scientifically backed. But is not, by any means, the get out of jail free card some people think it should be.

Furthermore they chose to get drunk in the first place or were otherwise themselves drugged or colluded into doing something they didn't want to do.

[Cavernio]

Re: Accountability in Mental Illness

you shouldn't compare the ideas of a single person to a societal shift in thinking

Why not? There has been a shift in a societal way of thinking and my thinking right now is wondering about what the past's perceptions of mental illness was.

Or compare the mutation of cells to someone with thought/emotional disorders

And you keep comparing this to physical infirmity (cancer, paralysis), as though they're even remotely related and I don't understand why. Last I checked emotion was influenced by neurotransmitters and hormones, chemical changes.

Last I saw both of these are under the category of 'human physiology'

"Lastly, why do you think that in the past people weren't held accountable for their actions if they were mentally ill?"

Because it was stigmatized and those who suffered from mental disorders weren't considered as human as the rest of them. That's where the societal shift is. I don't know if you're aware, but human rights are a thing now. Everyone's for the most part "equal".

So you think that accountability is a purely human trait then?


And why AREN'T you touching on the coma example of someone who's aware but not in control? Do you know what causes comas? What if a coma is merely the extreme end of a physiological state that starts off as something akin to depression? Do you know that I've had an MRI to rule out visible neurodegeneration to explain what has happened to me? Do you -honestly- think that size is lesion is important in determining a person's accountability? Like, neurodegenerative diseases show symptoms long before they're detectable using current day instruments, most of them. Mental illness, what we have, is a disease whose current methods of measurement are unable to detect with accuracy what the impairments we will have will be. That is all. We have behavioral proof that we have illness.

Do you know that there are mental illnesses that, as part of their definition, include -poor impulse control- as key defining symptoms?