Eccentric Neighbour Puts Parents In Fear

[Matthew]

PARENTS fear for the safety of their children as a man with learning difficulties attempts to fend for himself in their community.

Read the story here. (http://www.nfh.org.uk/news/index.php?category=all&id=345)

[Annabel]

what strikes me here, is that this man cannot cope in normal society. he may not be a danger to anyone, but others might be a danger to him as they will not understand he is unwell. i feel a bit sorry for him really, left to 'us' the 'community' to care for him.

[Neighboured]

Many years ago, I saw a rather strange individual on a tube station patlform in central London. He was dressed as a cowboy, with toy guns on a belt, smoking a "Clint Eastwood" style cigar.

He was evil personified. People moved away from him. I moved away from him. Someone said: "Oh, don't mind him. The police say he is harmless."

Not that harmless, apparently. Several years later he pulled out a very large and very sharp knife and slashed someone to death on the platform of a tube station...

[Scooby]

Annabel has it about right although it is now called Care In The Community.

All the asylums were closed down and these people were allowed out onto the street to fend for themselves.

Whislt I fully understand their need to lead a some sort of reasonable existence without being incarcerated for the rest of their lives; it can become at the expence of the community at large to have to deal with them and their behaviour.

If they don't take their medication, they will get up to all sorts.

I remember well the case of Jane Zito's husband who was murdered by a total loon who had been let out into the community. Jane went on to set up The Zito Trust, which - among other things - actively campaigns for these people to be segregated from the community. The tradegy of this case was that Jane and her husband had only been married a few months when he was murdered. Jane then went on to marry again, but I read that due to the Zito Trust and her active involvement her marriage did not last. Probably due to the strain of living in another mans shadow.

[Mistyeyeddreamer]

Once again I am torn between two viewpoints here. The man maybe a 'nuisance' but is her really a threat? Who knows. I certainly wouldn't trust a psychiatrist's opinion, so why should I trust the police's? Sometimes a little tolerance and understanding is all that is needed. But sometimes it would be the wiser course to have the man somewhere where he could be monitored.

However, I recall a story about a man not far from here. He suffered not only mental illness but was constantly being baited and abused by local children. One day he snapped and a 14 year old boy was stabbed to death. The parents said the boy was not one of the abusers, but I don't think some parents know half of what their kids get up to. I doubt the poor man would have gone on the rampage if he hadn't been taunted and harassed. Being taunted by yobs is bad enough if you don't have a mental illness. I think the police should have found out who the yobs were and prosecuted them, but of course they didn't.

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes part of the cause of a person 'snapping' is the way he/she is treated by those around him/her.

Misty

[mazza]

If you ever have to work with persons who have mental health problems, you will realise how tricky this one is.

Yes, it's a good idea in principal to have them integrated into the community, BUT, time and time again, I see people not coping at all with even the most amount of support possible in the community. Some just want/need to be in an institution, they want to be told what to do every day and just don't want to be made to cope in the 'community' in whatever form (halfway houses, supported tenancies, care homes etc).

I see cases where they just turn up at a hospital and beg to be admitted to the mental health ward, get discharged after just a few days, then put into a supported accommodation somewhere with all the social and outreach workers you can imagine to assist, yet a few weeks later they are back at the hospital, begging to be admitted again. And so it goes on... :blink:

For those cases, the asylum (for want of a better word) still has a place in today's society from what I can see - although not of course in the Victorian scarey form :huh: .

It's hard when you are confronted by someone whose behaviour is 'weird' by your standards, but we should all try to remember that these people are the real victims of central policies - policies that affect us all one way or another whether we have mental health probs or not. So in this way, I do agree with Annabel on this one :) .

Mazza

[sapphirelily10]

Originally posted by Scooby@Aug 23 2003, 10:17 AM

All the asylums were closed down and these people were allowed out onto the street to fend for themselves.

Whislt I fully understand their need to lead a some sort of reasonable existence without being incarcerated for the rest of their lives; it can become at the expence of the community at large to have to deal with them and their behaviour.

If they don't take their medication, they will get up to all sorts.


I have some problems with a couple of things here.

When there was large-scale closure of the large psychiatric hospitals (most of which had been originally opened as "asylums" in Victorian times), many people who had been institutionalised were moved out into other environments that they maybe were not ready for. However, people were not just let out onto "the streets".

I think many people WERE let down by a system that had purported to take "care" of them. Because many people do not want or need to be in any form of institutional care, and if they are living in the community, with or without support, why should the community NOT have some sort of responsibility?

If a neighbour was lying at the bottom of the stairs with a broken leg, would we all not call for medical assistance? If a neighbour seems to be suffering mental distress, and it is obvious, should we not have some responsibility to do the same? I think where someone feels that a person is any risk to themself or others, and we suspect they are suffering from mental health problems, this is fair enough.

The Care Programme Approach towards coordinating care for those who have been referred to psychiatric services(and does so on different levels of approach) is not faultless, but part of it's job should be to help monitor that people who may become severely ill if they stop medication, continue to be monitored in this, as well as supported in other ways.

I must say, that, again, people with diagnosed mental health disorders, are individuals, and no more of a homogenous group of people than anyone else. "They" may not all need to be monitored/looked after, and how "they" live may not be at the expense of the community.

Sapph