Mental illness, violent crime and the media.

Today I learned something new! Only 4% of violent crimes are linked to mental illness, but news reports discuss mental illness in relationship to violence 55% of the time. FUN FACT.

— Ashley Nicole Black Panther (@ashleyn1cole) 2 March 2018

Stop blaming mental illness for violent crimes.

Just read Stop blaming mental illness for violent crimes by Dean Burnett over at The Guardian. It reminds me of  some tweets I’ve been seeing regarding the media coverage of this - and all recent - shootings. First, that "mental illness" is used as a descriptor in regards to white shooters only, whereas terrorism or other racially charged language is used with people of colour, and also, white folks are often represented with "nice" photographs - never their mugshots. Especially young white people.

Why do we only discuss mental health when the shooter is white? Muslim dude that did this must be mental unstable to justify this. #Orlando

— Hari Kondabolu (@harikondabolu) June 12, 2016

I've never seen a mugshot like this before. Oh, wait. https://t.co/7COOQTmP7V

— deray mckesson (@deray) June 20, 2016

if a black man killed a woman, they'd show his mugshot not a prom photo. https://t.co/ocRjI3U5Hh

— antonio (@antoniodelotero) June 17, 2016

1. Show us his mugshot not this innocent boy-next-door photo
2. Swimmer attacker??? try RAPIST https://t.co/eqVop9GvYR

— Chloè-Anna (@tashamac228) June 7, 2016

Convicted of murdering a child and your mugshot is not used #WhitePrivilege https://t.co/3jfRL3LWyC

— Civil Savage (@Hustle_Scholar) June 21, 2016

So has Jo Cox's murderer been called a terrorist yet? No? Thought so. Even though he fits the definition perfectly. #whiteprivilege

— Umarah (@_umara) June 17, 2016

#WhitePrivilege is rampant in the coverage of the tragic shooting of #JoCox 😢😡😪 pic.twitter.com/VzOs7xfx3X

— Cerian Jenkins (@CerianJenkins) June 17, 2016

Muslims = Terrorism
Whites = Mental Illness #WhitePrivilege

— admtnmkrz (@ATMology) June 16, 2016

#WhitePrivilege pic.twitter.com/G0ykg6XCYv

— (((Sony Kapoor))) (@SonyKapoor) June 12, 2016

These last few weeks have been heavy. 2016 is a fucking brutal son of a bitch. The Ramsay Bolton of recent years (the Game of Thrones episode "Battle of the bastards" just played this past Sunday). It's shooting after shooting. Celebrity deaths (Bowie, Prince, Anton Yelchin just died). Personally my family had its medical issues, Global Transient Amnesia, Vertigo, and Bell's Palsy (all in early 2016). It's just been exhausting. I'm tired. But the onslaught continues.

Politically lately the rhetoric and news coverage has been tense. The UK has Brexit, the Americans have the presidential race and their gun debates, and locally it seems like the economy and jobs has been the big issue. I've been having trouble at work, my hours have been cut, it's super quiet, I just feel zero job security and its playing on my anxiety and depression.

It just feels like a tense time. And right now I feel like terms like "mental illness" are being thrown around a lot in the media, especially in regards to white shooters. Burnett's piece pulled out certain points I'd like to talk about here.

But the idea that certain mental illnesses inevitably cause violence is far more prevalent than the evidence warrants. Numerous studies have shown that those with mental health problems are more often the victims of violence, not perpetrators.

It seems out of every few stories coming out of the united states where a black man was killed by police, information surfaces afterwards about that man having been in crisis. Overall the media coverage of the last few months has been torn apart on social media because of how lacking it is. Intersectionality is rarely applied.

Mental illness doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s tangled up with everything else in a person’s life. Upbringing, background, poverty, general health, experiences, genetics, and so on. Essentially, if you exclude the contribution of all other possible factors, the link between mental illness and violence becomes increasingly small. It’s far more common for people to be violent if they also have a substance abuse problem. You could argue this implies the mental illness is a consequence, alongside the violent behaviour, of other issues affecting the person. So blaming mental health for crimes is often like blaming the getaway car for a bank robbery; it’s just one part of the whole situation, and not even the most important.

How is it that some of us feel it all, and some of us don't? We see it. Don't they?

You’d think if the people/media who blamed mental illness for violent crime genuinely believed that, they’d be more alarmed about the state of mental health treatment and facilities. But no, there’s rarely a mention as mental health services are put under massive debilitating strain by cuts and ignorance. We live in a world where a pensioner can’t take a bottle of water onto a plane because they might somehow turn it into a bomb and countless rights are sacrificed in the name of security, but those who think people with mental illness are all killers-in-waiting are fine with them not getting adequate help or care.

Is it all about money and power? Is it about easy blame and distraction? It's all too much these days. I need a break. A vacation. A holiday. I'm broke. My job situation is a mess. What are my options? Lately, it's been a shower and going to bed real early. It's all I've got right now.

*Head Nod* to Pia Glenn.

Stigmatizing Depression Is Not Going To Help Us Understand What Germanwings Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz Did

So this piece by Pia Glenn is the first I've read that makes sense to me. There's been a lot of misinformed bullshit about depression and it's role in the Germanwings/Andreas Lubitz story and there's also been a lot of garbage editorializing following those assumptions.

Hats off to Pia, her piece is well-informed, and well, touched. She speaks from a specific position and she's able to talk about things that are difficult to talk about, and link issues that need linking.

A few highlights for me:

Whether we personally live with it or not, it serves us all to work toward having a better grasp of mental illness. What I want is for conversations about depression, public and private, to focus more on compassion, care, and treatment than finger-pointing and accusations.

Lack of access to care cannot be removed from its outcome.

...we also have unprofessional mental health “professionals,” rampant misdiagnoses, and poor treatment or a lack of treatment altogether. The same impulse to just know what this thing is, to give it a name and a label and a shape and a solid form, applies to both this heinous tragedy and also to depression itself.

So much work needs to be done, I hope the next few weeks bring about more work like Pia's, and really engage people in conversation.