Flatline wrote on Mar 1, 2017, 15:36:

BobBob wrote on Mar 1, 2017, 13:20:

Flatline wrote on Mar 1, 2017, 13:01:
And probably this is a good thing. Back in the day you could commit someone against their will and basically lock them up and forget about them. There's some real horror stories about husbands doing that to their wives, political and legal retribution, etc...

On the flip side it's harder to get help for someone who doesn't want help. Real nightmare for paranoid schizophrenics who freak out at the idea of getting help.

It went extreme in the wrong direction. How many times has a mass shooter known to have an undiagnosed, untreated or unsupervised mental illness? Approximately 30% of homeless people are mentally ill, trapped in their own mental nightmare and cannot get out because they are too ill, impoverished, depressed, or paranoid to seek treatment. There needs to be some kind of evaluation system to force treatment or supervision on people who are obviously hurting themselves or a potential danger to others.

We can thank Reagan for this. And many believe Trump to be the next Reagan. If true, we are fucked.

However, there is a sliver of hope.

Very true. There probably is a sane middle point that we can reach.

And you're dead right about Reagan. He hosed California's mental health system really good back when he was Governor. I don't know anyone who has a severely mentally ill family member in California that doesn't spit on his name.

Why we haven't fixed the system though I'm not sure.