Running mental health thread

[Scout]

So, the older I get, the more I realize that everyone has their own **** when it comes to mental health. Of course, the type and severity differ from person to person, but it’s out there.

I’m starting this thread with this story. This started with a mental health issue and ended with a gun issue. A healthy mind does not do this.

Lloyd: Remembering Garrett Hull, the quiet boy with a sweet left-handed swing
Lloyd: Remembering Garrett Hull, the quiet boy with a sweet left-handed swing

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Nothing in that article or others I’ve read that say the guy was mentally ill. People are assuming that because what stable person would shoot his family dead, right? Well, maybe this one.

 

[Scout]

A healthy mind does not slaughter their family.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Don’t be so sure.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I was hoping this was a thread where people could discuss how they are taking care of themselves during the ****storm of <waves arms around> all this.

 

[Songbird]

By the skin of my teeth. The last year has been tough for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Going on long walks everyday on the beach, or around town and feeding the homeless, has helped a great deal.

 

[qtlaw]

I’d suggest the Mardy Fish doc on Netflix, very emotional to watch and enlightening.

 

[OscarMadison]

A healthy mind does not slaughter their family.

Don’t be so sure.

No. A healthy person walks away from toxic people.

This discussion is needed.

I was hoping this was a thread where people could discuss how they are taking care of themselves during the ****storm of <waves arms around> all this.

By the skin of my teeth. The last year has been tough for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Going on long walks everyday on the beach, or around town and feeding the homeless, has helped a great deal.

So is this one.

 

[Scout]

I was hoping this was a thread where people could discuss how they are taking care of themselves during the ****storm of <waves arms around> all this.

That, too.

It’s just watching Lasso, have a friend take his life, two daughter’s friends try, keeping tabs on a handful of people… and that’s my little world.

When I saw this in The Athletic, instead of thinking guns, I thought mental health.

 

[Scout]

I think it’s pretty obvious that not enough people in this country are not getting the mental health care they need. That’s not just the poor. That’s everyone.

If you see a psychiatrist, you used to be considered “psycho” or “crazy.” I guess calling people “mental health specialists” would be a good start.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

No. A healthy person walks away from toxic people.

This discussion is needed.





So is this one.

The husband was the toxic one.

 

[qtlaw]

We went backwards when Reagan released people from psychiatric facilities and. Said they were better (and cheaper) on their own. We’ve been fighting the wave of destruction since.

 

[OscarMadison]

The husband was the toxic one.

I was responding to your response. When you posted. "Don't be so sure," I thought you meant it generally. Yes, the husband was toxic. He may very well have been profoundly mentally ill or suffering from a tumor or a clot or a concussion or bad chemistry.

Did he seek treatment? Chances are good he didn't. Even now, there is a stigma attached to mental health issues.

When I was growing up, there was always at least one wife or girlfriend who loved to brag "you never know where you stand with" their spouse like it was a point of pride. Then the cracks would start to show. Wife would skulk through trips to Furr's or Weingarten's trying to avoid being seen with black eyes and swollen jaws. Their daughters were Daddy's Princesses until menarche happened and they turned into sluts who were beaten down to keep them home and hopefully untouched. Eventually, there would be a U-Haul manned by family and/or friends and Momma and the kids went back to Cleveland or Birmingham or wherever they came from. Daddy stayed on until the lease was up or he got the house sold and then he disappeared into the next parish or San Angelo or someplace where "the damned women weren't crazy."

Resources for abused women were minimal in the 70s and they haven't gotten much better forty years later. I shudder to think what it would have been like for an abused husband back then. Garret Hull's mother may or may not have reached out. What if she did and was counseled to "be a better wife and he'd come around?"

For too many people, that is the beginning and the end of the intervention they're given.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

I was responding to your response. When you posted. "Don't be so sure," I thought you meant it generally. Yes, the husband was toxic. He may very well have been profoundly mentally ill or suffering from a tumor or a clot or a concussion or bad chemistry.

Did he seek treatment? Chances are good he didn't. Even now, there is a stigma attached to mental health issues.

When I was growing up, there was always at least one wife or girlfriend who loved to brag "you never know where you stand with" their spouse like it was a point of pride. Then the cracks would start to show. Wife would skulk through trips to Furr's or Weingarten's trying to avoid being seen with black eyes and swollen jaws. Their daughters were Daddy's Princesses until menarche happened and they turned into sluts who were beaten down to keep them home and hopefully untouched. Eventually, there would be a U-Haul manned by family and/or friends and Momma and the kids went back to Cleveland or Birmingham or wherever they came from. Daddy stayed on until the lease was up or he got the house sold and then he disappeared into the next parish or San Angelo or someplace where "the damned women weren't crazy."

Resources for abused women were minimal in the 70s and they haven't gotten much better forty years later. I shudder to think what it would have been like for an abused husband back then. Garret Hull's mother may or may not have reached out. What if she did and was counseled to "be a better wife and he'd come around?"

For too many people, that is the beginning and the end of the intervention they're given.

I live about a 20-minute drive from where this happened, which is in a fairly affluent Cleveland suburb where this kind of thing doesn’t happen. So I’ve paid closer attention than I usually would. I haven’t read anything that indicates the guy was mentally ill. Nothing in the posted article or others I’ve read hints at it.

The premise seems to be, no one in his right mind would do that, therefore he was mentally ill. I dunno. I think there are plenty of evil people who do evil things. Maybe this guy eas one of them. A lot of people on the social media’s around here are writing that he was mentally ill. But check out the comments when something similar happens in the inner city; no assumptions like that.

I do know from some of my own research that the guy was unemployed and had made a lot of donations to Trump campaigns the last few years, though it appears he hasn’t voted. His wife was very successful and I believe her job is the reason they moved to the area. I’m wondering if he was just some angry misogynist who couldn’t handle having a wife more successful than him, so he killed them all because the socialists are taking over the world.

 

[OscarMadison]

I live about a 20-minute drive from where this happened, which is in a fairly affluent Cleveland suburb where this kind of thing doesn’t happen. So I’ve paid closer attention than I usually would. I haven’t read anything that indicates the guy was mentally ill. Nothing in the posted article or others I’ve read hints at it.

The premise seems to be, no one in his right mind would do that, therefore he was mentally ill. I dunno. I think there are plenty of evil people who do evil things. Maybe this guy eas one of them. A lot of people on the social media’s around here are writing that he was mentally ill. But check out the comments when something similar happens in the inner city; no assumptions like that.

You could be right.

Two things I want to add:

I do think there is something intrinsically broken in cruel people whether they engage in bullying or worse.

SES affects the filter, but not the substance of this. There's a reason two of the biggest mental health facilities in Nashville had smaller referring and day treatment centers here with their residential centers conveniently located at far flung locales in Wilder Beulahland.

Side note here:
I worked as an activities counselor at a facility just southwest of Nashville. I was getting ready to fill in on third shift when we got word that an SNL cast member had checked themselves into rehab. The info got leaked that it was somewhere in the south, so we were inundated with rented cars full of media that night. I sat on the hood of my car with one of the nurses and blocked the only driveway in and helped turn away reporters. One guy informed us he was with the Plain Dealer.* We had to let him in. I walked around my car and got out a hockey stick. Don't know what he thought it was, but I've never seen a fat man run so fast.

I'm still mad the clinical director wouldn't let me sit crosslegged and barefoot and play my banjo** for the nice people.

*Yeah, I call bull**** on that one.
**Shut up!

 

[Regan MacNeil]

 

[Scout]

I’m wondering if he was just some angry misogynist who couldn’t handle having a wife more successful than him, so he killed them all because the socialists are taking over the world.

You just described the exact person who should be seeing a mental therapist.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

You just described the exact person who should be seeing a mental therapist.

Doesn’t make him mentally ill.

 

[Scout]

Doesn’t make him mentally ill.

So what should have happened? As a society, are we helpless against these people.

And if someone needs some counseling, or whatever term you want to use, they are not feeling well. They need help. That’s not in full health. That’s being ill.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

You could excuse every crime by saying the person was mentally ill since upstanding members of society wouldn’t do it.