> >
>> Frankly, I'd like to keep these people's minds numbed - I don't want to
> have some Jeffrey Dahmer type running around free because people like you
> think that it's OK for him to think differently (that people are a food
> source). A lot of the people you think are being oppressed are locked up
> to protect the rest of us from them. Don't forget that. You think they
> are the victims, and yet when a schizophrenic, paranoid individual hurts
> or kills someone, you seem to forget that the people who were killed
> never did anything to deserve it. Prevention is better than retribution
> in this case. No, you can't lock everyone up to prevent people from
> killing each other, but when someone is obviously disturbed enough in
> their thought processes where they pose a danger to other people, they
> can be locked up and should. Depressives think differently than you and
> me, but they aren't locked up because they aren't going to hurt other
> people. And I don't think the antidepressants they get are imprisoning
> their minds. Generally, if someone is getting Thorazine, they usually
> need it.
>> Andrew Ray
>aray at emory.edu> Emory University Neuroscience Program
>>>>> First, people who are locked away in mental institutions cannot be char-
acterized over the board as "Jeffery Dahmer types". That is a rather naive miscon-
ception on your part. I spent two and a half years in mental institutions, and I never
met anyone who fit that description. Most of he people I knew were ordinary, average
people that were only slightly deviant from the norm. Contrary to popular opinion, there
are many people institutionalized in America who are either not mentally ill, or who are
given treatment that is inappropriate to their illness. It happened to me.
Second, I agree that people who commit crimes should be locked up in order
to protect the rest of society. I don't think that was ever at issue. But it is unfair to lock
someone up because they might, in the future, commit a crime because they fit a
psychotic or schizophrenic profile. The fact remains that that person has committed no
crime, and should be considered innocent until proven guilty as according to our country's
laws. I feel that this should apply for all involuntary hospitalizations, because as it stands,
mental hospitals are prisons. In some ways they are worse than prisons. Until that changes,
I cannot advocate the forced hospitalization of anyone who is not deserving of being inside
a prison.
I am surprised that an educated man such as yourself is so ignorant about
the very field that you are supposed to be an expert in. Depressives do not have the dis-
torted thought processes of a psychotic. They do think very much like the ordinary person,
but they have a great deal of difficulty coping with everyday tasks that healthy people take
for granted. Thorazine is not an antidepressant. It is an antipsychotic with tranquillizing side
effects. It is used to sublimate psychotic behavior. Therefore giving it to someone who is
neither schizophrenic nor psychotic is malpractice. I certainly hope that you are not par-
ticipating in this abominable practice.
I suffer from depression, but I am capable of very clear, lucid thought and I am
free of delusions. I also sometimes have a very hard time getting up in the morning. That
is the nature of the disease. I cope with it, and I struggle on. I do not deserve to be locked
up, and locking me up will not help to protect anybody. There are also many schizophrenics
who can function in society on an outpatient basis and never hurt anyone. These people
are human beings, and they have done nothing wrong. As far as I am concerned, it is you
who are the criminal, and it is you who the public needs to be protected from, because your
delusions are far more pernicious than some poor innocent beggar who thinks he is a lamp
post.
Thank you for your time,
J. C.