I went for a walk today to get out of the house, but to keep up with social distancing. We passed a bar, and dozens of people were sitting next to each other at the counter, and small tables and I wondered, “What is going to change people’s minds and make them care about the health of others?”
Shortly after I got home, the governor of California followed Ohio and Illinois’s lead. He ordered all of our bars closed, and our restaurants have to move tables to provide for social distancing. My cousin in Ohio said, “If people are going to be irresponsible, then the government is going to have to step in and mandate that we do the right thing for each other.”
My husband has a compromised immune system and damaged lungs. He is at risk for severe and possibly life-threatening complications. My mom and stepdad and my dad and stepmom are all over the age of eighty, and most have underlying health conditions that make them high risk. It recently came out in the press that those over eighty who are sick in Italy will be left to die. Italy’s health system simply can’t handle all the people needing care (you can easily find articles about this online).
Perhaps the thing that gutted me the most was that people in every country where the virus is present, are dying alone. Family members can’t visit many who are sick because they are in isolation. Just knowing that people are dying alone without loved ones surrounding them pushed me to a new level of anxiety, fear, and sadness.
I don’t think any person should die alone. I don’t think anyone wants to decide who lives and who dies like the doctors are doing in Italy. I can’t believe people refuse to stay home for two to three weeks to save another person’s life. Rarely in this life do we get the chance to be heroes. If we are not doctors or nurses, we rarely had the opportunity to save a life. Now is the time. Right now is our time to be great, to be heroic, to do something that makes a life or death difference. I know you might never get a thank you for not going out to a party, or staying home from a social gathering. But I thank you. My husband thanks you and the millions of people who are high risk would probably thank you too if they knew that you made choices to put their lives over something as trivial as getting a coffee with friends.
You are the sanest person on the Internet.
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I should have said, ‘You are the sanest individual on the Internet despite having schizophrenia.’
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Thank you! So much irony in that statement.
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No irony was meant.
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Thank you!
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Why do individuals with schizophrenia refuse treatment? They think they have valid points of view, which they mostly certainly can, and/or they hold their idiosyncrasies which are keeping them afloat are harmless which they very frequently are. However, given there are differences in views individuals with schizophrenia are held to be per se wrong where views of individuals with schizophrenia must be eradicated by increasing dosages of pleasure killing anti-psychotics. Also many individuals hold that rules of civility do not apply to individuals with schizophrenia. Rules of etiquette appropriate to when individuals hold different viewpoints or have quirks simply do no apply to individuals with schizophrenia.
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Do you mean that society doesn’t hold people with schizophrenia accountable for their views, or that people with schizophrenia don’t think they are accountable for their behavior/views?
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I mean views of individuals with schizophrenia can be totally correct. Your views on Covid-19 are totally correct. I am right about the biological basis of schizophrenia. See my website. As you are doing very well there are no treatment points for you on my website. Individuals with schizophrenia can have difficult family situations which they can have accurate views on. The mental heath system is in a shambles. The mentally ill who complain about the mental health system are frequently on target. Treatments for mental illness are extremely mediocre though they work extremely well in your case. Individuals with schizophrenia can have valid views on Justice. Most proposed solutions to the mental health system benefit first and foremost mental health professionals not individuals with mental illnesses. The goal of individuals taking anti-psychotics should be to be safe for themselves and others not to eradicate all false views. I am most definitely not arguing against taking anti-psychotics which in fact I do take. Moving away from being safe for themselves and others perhaps more tightly construed over to individuals with serious mental illness have no insight has been an absolute tragedy for the mentally ill and their families. With the ‘they have no insight’ the mentally ill become disconnected from mental health professionals and their families.
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I take antipsychotics as well. I think when most people say that people with schizophrenia lack insight they simply mean they can’t recognize when they are sick. I lack insight when I am psychotic. When I am psychotic I think I am perfectly fine when in fact I need medical intervention.
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I am definitely not for the anti-psychiatry movement either. Serious mental illnesses are biological illnesses, medications can be helpful and mental illnesses are not just different but equally valid lifestyles. Thomas Szasz and E. Fuller Torrey are equally and totally wrong.
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I’m not familiar with these doctors.
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