It seems there are now two types of murderer. The first is a terrorist, usually an islamic fascist. The second is someone who has “mental health issues”. Nobody else commits crime. Just extreme muslims and mental folk.
As ever, the media lazily refers simply to “mental health issues” as if that’s enough. It does not elaborate on what these issues might be but for some it explains everything. An old lady mugged? Oh, the mugger had mental health issues. An old soldier gets his medals stolen? That thief must be mentally ill. And a disabled child gets abused by kids who should know better? Mentally ill, of course. What sort of mental illness, then?
Now I am not an expert in mental health but I do know a bit about it. I’ve had my moments and I know others who have more serious moments. My experience, overwhelmingly, is that us mental folk are of far more danger to ourselves than we are to others. I do not compare the majority of us who are afflicted by mental ill health to, say, mass murderers like Peter Sutcliffe who who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after his killing spree. The vast majority of mental folk I have come across do not want to hurt anyone, except themselves. When your insides are bulging with anti-depressants, my experience is that you’d rather disappear into a darkened room, preferably forever, than reach for the nearest meat cleaver and assault the first innocent person you come across. I don’t think all this coverage is helping us very much.
The terrible murder in Russell Square last night. The alleged killer wasn’t a terrorist (“thank goodness for that”) but he had those self-same “mental health issues”. Well, which ones? A little minor stress, perhaps, or maybe a psychopathic disorder? A few tablets or a darkened room? Which one is it to be?
Old soaks like me can live with the shoddy reporting, the lazy misrepresentation of what ruins our lives. I’ve seen it all, put up with the crass distortions of what us mental people actually are. My race is near to being run and I am not interested in people who have stupid ideas of what mental illness is. I know my place. It’s others I feel sorry for.
Others like youngsters with those mental health issues. We still live in an era where people with clinical depression should just “snap out of it”. You’d never say to a cancer victim that they should pull themselves together and just get on with life. In fact, you’d be utterly outraged if someone said as much. But a mentally ill person? Just look how lucky you are. Get over yourself.
And the non islamic fascist murderers become random nutters, basket cases, crazed loners and, finally mentally ill people. Just lump them all in together. That’s all right.
I thought, just for a while, that we might be getting somewhere in the lonely fight to end the mental health stigma, to understand a bit more and to condemn a bit less. And then, in the new world of terrorist attacks, society in general and the media in particular undoes almost all the good work.
Think about it. Ever been depressed? Sometimes when depression has hit me, I could not get out of bed, let alone leave the house. I hated myself and whilst I never got quite so far as wanting to die, it got pretty close. Drugs and therapy saved my life. They helped me get nearer to being the person I’d actually like to be rather than the one I didn’t.
Yes, there are people out there with chronic mental health conditions that can affect others, no doubt about it. But to try and explain away tragic murders and random killings as being solely down to an undefined condition helps no one.
Of course, you could ignore all of the above. The author has “mental health issues”, after all.
