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Bus stop lady

WildCat said:
No, I asked a question. I didn't even offer a dichotomy.
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In that case, the answer to the question "Is LibraryLady saying we should round up mentally ill people and institutionalize them?", after a quick check on what she actually wrote in her post, would be "No".

Is there anything else I may assist you with, WildCat?
 
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angrysoba said:
Did you ever talk to her to ask her about her story?
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No, I didn't. I see a large number of homeless and mentally ill people in my job. By the way, although they overlap some, not all the homeless are mentally ill and not all the mentally ill I see are homeless. Firstly, if I pursued the story of all who interest me I would have no time to get my work done. Also, I have to maintain a professional demeanor. I would not ask other customers about their personal lives, so I don't see why asking these people would be appropriate.

I know there are two schools of thought about forced medication, and I can see both sides of the issue. However, when I see a very intelligent person, not the bus stop lady, another person I deal with, who is unable to function, and who might be helped by medication, it does make me sad.
 
Is Library Lady saying we should round up all mentally ill people and blast them into space so they can find a planet of their own?
 
I knew a guy once. He went to work every day 5 days a week. He sat at the same desk and did the same job for 50 years. He never missed a single day of work.

He paid his bills, raised his children, mowed his yard and paid his taxes year after year and year after year.

One day he felt a sharp pain in his arm, dropped his pen and slumped over his desk and died.
Two days later there was a new young man sitting at the same desk doing the same job.

Who is mentally ill? Who is lost? Who is chained to the American dream and who is truly free?
 
LibraryLady said:
No, I didn't. I see a large number of homeless and mentally ill people in my job. By the way, although they overlap some, not all the homeless are mentally ill and not all the mentally ill I see are homeless. Firstly, if I pursued the story of all who interest me I would have no time to get my work done. Also, I have to maintain a professional demeanor. I would not ask other customers about their personal lives, so I don't see why asking these people would be appropriate.

I know there are two schools of thought about forced medication, and I can see both sides of the issue. However, when I see a very intelligent person, not the bus stop lady, another person I deal with, who is unable to function, and who might be helped by medication, it does make me sad.
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But my reason for asking is because we don't really know why she was on the streets, whether or not she would choose government housing or how long she had been mentally ill.
 
Brattus said:
I knew a guy once. He went to work every day 5 days a week. He sat at the same desk and did the same job for 50 years. He never missed a single day of work.

He paid his bills, raised his children, mowed his yard and paid his taxes year after year and year after year.

One day he felt a sharp pain in his arm, dropped his pen and slumped over his desk and died.
Two days later there was a new young man sitting at the same desk doing the same job.

Who is mentally ill? Who is lost? Who is chained to the American dream and who is truly free?
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I don't know. What did the guy do when he wasn't at work? Did he have a family? Did he go on holiday with them? Did he write novels in his spare time? There may have been more to him than what you noticed about him.

ETA: Oops! Sorry, you said "He paid his bills, raised his children, mowed his yard and paid his taxes year after year and year after year."
 
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ANTPogo said:
In that case, the answer to the question "Is LibraryLady saying we should round up mentally ill people and institutionalize them?", after a quick check on what she actually wrote in her post, would be "No".

Is there anything else I may assist you with, WildCat?
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Yes, I'd like to know how you determined LL's position by the words "I am sad that she died there alone, and I’m angry that a large, rich, and powerful country cannot take care of its mentally ill citizens."

If the goal is no mentally ill persons living on the streets I'm afraid there's no way to do that short of forced medication/institutionalization. A lot of mentally ill people don't take their medication, because they're mentally ill. And haven't the courts ruled against forced medication of mentally ill but otherwise law-abiding adult persons? And when the policy was to forcibly medicate/institutionalize wasn't there a lot of problems?
 
Brattus said:
I knew a guy once. He went to work every day 5 days a week. He sat at the same desk and did the same job for 50 years. He never missed a single day of work.

He paid his bills, raised his children, mowed his yard and paid his taxes year after year and year after year.

One day he felt a sharp pain in his arm, dropped his pen and slumped over his desk and died.
Two days later there was a new young man sitting at the same desk doing the same job.

Who is mentally ill? Who is lost? Who is chained to the American dream and who is truly free?
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The fact that he had kids makes the story way less sad that it would be otherwise. The guy had a steady job for 50 years and thus was able to support his family and buy a house too. Except for not being able to enjoy a retirement that's actually a pretty darn happy story.

OTOH if he had no friends or family and worked for 50 years and dropped dead at his desk then it'd be really sad.
 
I think it's sad she died alone as well. I don't know why that should matter given her life might have had many other miseries (or not, we don't know how happy or unhappy she was).

We have a homeless man that lives in the park behind my house. He's been there longer than 20 years. I hadn't seen him in a while but I saw him just yesterday wheeling his dolly with his belongings into an area that does not have trails and I know he camps there. I used to see him at Barnes and Noble when the weather was bad but recently they removed most of the chairs and I imagine he goes to the library or some other place now.

I've talked to him before. He believes it is wrong for anyone, including the public to own the park. He gets some kind of disability check and takes some kind of medication but I don't know more than that.

I just think it's amazing how long he has been living there.
 
WildCat said:
Yes, I'd like to know how you determined LL's position by the words "I am sad that she died there alone, and I’m angry that a large, rich, and powerful country cannot take care of its mentally ill citizens."
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Her words can mean she supports any number of different positions. But since she never actually wrote anything like "we should round up mentally ill people and institutionalize them" in her posts, the answer to your direct and specific question is, indeed, "no".

Or are you trying to present a false dichotomy after all?
 
angrysoba said:
I don't know. What did the guy do when he wasn't at work? Did he have a family? Did he go on holiday with them? Did he write novels in his spare time? There may have been more to him than what you noticed about him.
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My point being. Who are we to assume living on the streets is a bad thing?
What I described could sound like a nice life to some and overwhelming hell to others.

My point being. The OP is making a large amount of assumptions with no idea of the woman she described perceptions of her life and the world around her.
Not only that but the OP doesn't even seem to care what the "Bus stop lady's" perception of anything was.

The OP simply saw a person living the kind of life the OP would perceive as hell on earth and assumed the "Bus stop lady" didn't like it either.

IMO. The real sad thing going on here is that the OP did not view the subject of this thread as equal human being living her life on her terms, but chose instead to pity the woman.
 
WildCat said:
Yes, I'd like to know how you determined LL's position by the words "I am sad that she died there alone, and I’m angry that a large, rich, and powerful country cannot take care of its mentally ill citizens."

If the goal is no mentally ill persons living on the streets I'm afraid there's no way to do that short of forced medication/institutionalization. A lot of mentally ill people don't take their medication, because they're mentally ill. And haven't the courts ruled against forced medication of mentally ill but otherwise law-abiding adult persons? And when the policy was to forcibly medicate/institutionalize wasn't there a lot of problems?
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This analysis, Learning From History: Deinstitutionalization of People with Mental Illness As Precursor to LongTerm Care Reform discusses some of the issues. The reason your post looked like a false dichotomy can be explained by this paragraph in the introduction.
The early focus was on moving individuals out of state public mental hospitals and from 1955 to 1980, the resident population in those facilities fell from 559,000 to 154,000. Only later was there a focus on improving and expanding the range of services and supports for those now in the community, in recognition that medical treatment was insufficient to ensure community tenure. In the 1990’s whole institutions began to close in significant numbers and there was a greater emphasis on rights that secured community integration – such as access to housing and jobs.
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As a person working in health care during some of this time and being the Progressive political person that I am, I'm very cynical and saw the changes as a means of cutting government costs rather than so much concern about the rights of institutionalized people. It's not that there weren't important social reasons to grant more freedom to the mentally ill. There definitely was good reason there for change. But it was a bit too convenient for politicians to cut budgets in places not many had a voice to protest.
 
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Brattus said:
My point being. Who are we to assume living on the streets is a bad thing?
What I described could sound like a nice life to some and overwhelming hell to others.

My point being. The OP is making a large amount of assumptions with no idea of the woman she described perceptions of her life and the world around her.
Not only that but the OP doesn't even seem to care what the "Bus stop lady's" perception of anything was.

The OP simply saw a person living the kind of life the OP would perceive as hell on earth and assumed the "Bus stop lady" didn't like it either.

IMO. The real sad thing going on here is that the OP did not view the subject of this thread as equal human being living her life on her terms, but chose instead to pity the woman.
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I seem to have missed your point. In fact, I agree with you that we are making a number of assumptions about the person that may not be true. For all we know, she may not have been particularly unhappy even if her life was probably not that comfortable.
 
Actually, I respected her for her ability to strive for normality. I disagree with your perception of my feelings toward the lady in question, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
 
Brattus said:
....
IMO. The real sad thing going on here is that the OP did not view the subject of this thread as equal human being living her life on her terms, but chose instead to pity the woman.
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And yet you pity the man whose life consisted of doing some meaningless task day after day. Maybe that's what he enjoyed.

I think regardless of one's life, being alone is only rarely valued by human beings.
 
My youngest is suffering with mental illness. At present, he's unable to function without serious help. Peggy and I are caring for him as best we can, and he lives alone in an apartment which is paid for with his VA disability.

Occasionally, he slips. But we watch him. He has us taking care of him and looking out for him, but he still worries about those he knew while he was homeless himself.

He wishes he could invite a few of them over, give them a chance to get off the street, clean up, help them out. He also knows he can't: his lease won't allow it.

We're a wealthy nation, materially. On the other hand, we have duped ourselves into thinking that the only wealth of value is kept in our wallets.

Probably why we carry them in pockets well situated near our asses.
 
ANTPogo said:
Her words can mean she supports any number of different positions. But since she never actually wrote anything like "we should round up mentally ill people and institutionalize them" in her posts, the answer to your direct and specific question is, indeed, "no".

Or are you trying to present a false dichotomy after all?
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I was trying to find out what LL thought should be done, and I started off with the outer extreme in an attempt to narrow her down.

Because one of my pet peeves is someone decrying a situation with "how can this happen in our country" without offering any alternatives at all.
 
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