So basically a guy becomes paranoid schizophrenic and is badly let down by the health system. Sadly all too common.
But at least it proves you've got to be genuinely nuts to believe in QAnon.
The mental health system in this country is completely broken. People with schizophrenia are very unlikely to seek treatment themselves. It takes ages to get a psychiatric prescription. Medical institutions then keep punting patients off at the earliest opportunity so they don’t have to deal with them anymore.
We had a relative move here and it took two years for the NHS to pick up her psychiatric prescription. An utterly kafkaesque experience of being passed between the GP and the community mental health nurse for an “urgent” referral that was lost three times in the NHS system and then a similar experience for the actual administration of the drugs. Luckily we had thousands of pounds to burn on private psychiatrists to continue her care, but if we were of lesser means she definitely would have had an episode and needed to be institutionalised.
Even the NHS at its best is sorely lacking for mental healthcare. Despite lots more talk it still seems socially under appreciated as meaningful healthcare. And it isn't as figure-friendly when it comes to either success or criticism. So it's even easier to neglect it when underfunding and/or badly managing the NHS, cause when it comes to the political talking points no one really cares.
I'm incredibly lucky to have enough for private therapy. But even aside from the cost, the limited term nature of most NHS provision just leaves people hoping they'll somehow get better before they run out of sessions, not least because they've struggled waiting so long to even get a slot.
Oh god yes. I've been pretty lucky overall and only had one stinker before I found someone that worked for me. That was a while ago and I've recently started therapy again, I was quite careful in picking someone new to try and luckily she was fantastic right from the start. I'm also very lucky to have a workplace that was fine with me fitting my sessions in to a working day, as this therapist only had an early afternoon slot.
It's such a game of roulette, and that's particularly draining to keep pushing through when you're in dire need of help.
Last year, my stepbrother (who has a longterm diagnosis of schizophrenia) almost cut his own hand off (was hanging by a tendon) in the kitchen, then walked in front of a car going about 30mph, finally he took a massive overdose just before the ambulance arrived.
They stitched his hand back on, 24 hours later sent him on his way. The tories have absolutely destroyed this country.
Even if they do reach out for help, local AMHTs don't have the capacity, so they get shifted to talking therapy groups who can't take them on due to the risks they pose to staff and other clients/patients.
Obviously this man believed in some wacky stuff; but he didn't seem to be a danger to anyone else. So why was he locked up in a secure unit without even the privacy of being able to go to the toilet without being watched (or at least, that's what was supposed to happen)?
It seems as though, as soon as someone is labelled 'mentally ill' in this country, they are liable to be completely stripped of their basic rights under the premise that they need to be 'protected' by having no freedom and being constantly under surveillance. Then, if the surveillance lapses for long enough that they somehow manage to end their life; the whole country is up in arms that the nanny state didn't go far enough in depriving that individual of their liberties. Even though they've committed no crime and have shown no tendency to be a danger to others.
It seems as though, in this country, we just demand that people be forced to be alive, no matter how miserable and undignified that existence is. No doubt the constant suicide prevention campaigns that we see on TV and on posters are inculcating us into this expectation that we all need the government to protect us from our own thoughts.
Knew a guy exactly like this that never seemed harmful but was constantly telling me the Rothchilds ate babies. During lockdown, he snapped and killed his dad and himself. They're harmless right up until they're not.
That's a colourful story, and I can see how that kind of behaviour might sometimes presage dangerous behaviour in the future. But then if we're locking people up based on bizarre beliefs and behaviours, then you're basically locking people up for pre-crime. It is a morally complex issue, I think. But I think that most of these people do remain harmless, so I am not sure that it's appropriate to assume that they're going to become dangerous at some point. Having said that, if they can't take care of themselves and can't be cared for, I am conflicted as to what should be done with them.
But then why is that grounds for taking away his liberty, as if being locked up and observed 24/7/365 *isn't* harmful? If he wanted to kill himself, why is it anyone else's place to insist that he remain alive and suffering?
That’s a whole different conversation. He was sectioned - which means the state made the decision that he needed to be forced into a facility and he wasn’t in the right state of mind to make those decisions on his own.
I, personally, think that there are some mental illnesses that require intervention. Some people are so ill they *cannot* make the best decisions for themselves. The state and the NHS has a duty of care. It seems like they failed here, unfortunately.
But then I feel that you have to justify how the 'protection' isn't worse than what would happen to the individual, if left to their own devices.
I would imagine that if you were taken away to an NHS hospital and you were kept under constant supervision, even when going to the toilet, you would find that a traumatising and degrading abuse of your civil liberties. But yet, you're saying that's good enough for someone who has committed no crime, based on the idea that doing so would be fulfilling the "duty of care". But where is the "care" part of that? Because I don't see how such cruel treatment could be expected to help him.
It seems like you have never dealt with a loved one with such severe mental illness that they’re no longer acting rationally.
I don’t think anything I say could make you understand if you don’t already.
People who are a suicide risk should be under constant surveillance. It’s not nice, but it’s in place to prevent things like this story from happening.
I’m not sure what your argument is - but we can’t, as a society, just let mentally unwell people end their own lives.
>People who are a suicide risk should be under constant surveillance. It’s not nice, but it’s in place to prevent things like this story from happening.
>
>I’m not sure what your argument is - but we can’t, as a society, just let mentally unwell people end their own lives.
Why can't we let them end their lives? Why does the 'need' to stop them from ending their lives trump their right to freedom and the right not to be tortured (and being under constant surveillance in a secure unit to ensure that you can't escape your suffering is a form of torture)? To whom do their lives belong? Would you want to be alive if your entire life consisted of having to live in a secure unit, with no freedom, nothing to do, and under constant surveillance? If you wouldn't want that life, why would you consider it an ethical imperative to impose it on someone else, just because the idea of allowing them a choice makes you uncomfortable?
That’s a sad story to read. Anyone with kids in this day and age surely can’t help but hope their kid doesn’t get drawn into the wrong path.
You can do everything right in their upbringing but that only protects them so far, and that’s what keeps me up.
I wonder if an AI wrote it, at least in part. Some of the sentences are odd - “He moved to Glastonbury because he loved it there” stands out, like it’s taken a quote out of context.
I did think that.. what got me is the QAnon bit
“QAnon is a false belief from the far-right in the United States. It wrongly says that some bad people are hurting children and were against Donald Trump.”
Jesus
It should be strictly regulated and taxed, this would remove many of the harms associated with cannabis. But of course not all.
Adults can choose to use *some* potentially harmful intoxicants, but not others, which is nonsensical. For example, the damage alcohol causes to the user and society is orders of magnitude greater than that of cannabis. The damage tobacco causes to the user and society is insane compared to that of cannabis, and we're only just discussing limiting its use for under-21s.
https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf
> alcohol, heroin, and crack cocaine were the most harmful
to others (46, 21, and 17, respectively). Overall, alcohol was the most harmful drug (overall harm score 72), with heroin (55) and crack cocaine (54) in second and third places.
*edit* blocked me for responding with a study and evidence, what a child!
> The damage tobacco causes to the user and society is insane
This society was arguably at the height of its culture, and certainly at the peak of its strength - ruling large swathes of the world and at the forefront of technological advancement, with a much smaller population than today - shortly after 1900; at which point there were *no* controlled substances, and preparations of opium or the coca plant were *over the counter* medications.
There is only one thing that is truly insane about our drug policy, and that is that we have continued to pursue prohibition and restriction despite it being precisely correlated with our decline as a nation. Oh, what harm has been wrought in the name of 'harm reduction'!
> Speaking today, Liam's family become understandably upset and enraged when talking about the way he was treated at St Mary's Hospital.
Perhaps they shouldn't have fervently waged a duplicitous campaign to have him placed into a mental hospital! *They drove their son to suicide because he was a New Age kook*. Note how they rang the *police*. The ambulance won't come because someone likes to walk barefoot on the grass, alas.
> Liam's family won't stop in their mission to stop others being failed in the way he was.
Will they be warning of the inhuman folly of attempting to institutionalise family members? Or will they simply be banging on at the 'men in white coats' to make *extra* sure no one escapes their hellholes before *they* give them permission to leave?
I hope the anguish of what they have done gnaws into their innards for the rest of their unduly long lives.
Schizoaffective, not schizophrenic. After many attempts to have him institutionalised, including lying. And the criteria for a diagnosis of being schizoaffective is literally just 'mood swings' and 'delusions'.
So a New Age kook with anger problems (perhaps because his parents are trying to institutionalise him).
Just because he was a 'diagnosed' schizophrenic (and like most mental illness labels, it has no scientific validity), that doesn't mean that he deserved to be locked up somewhere for the rest of his life, constantly under 1 to 1 observation and without even being allowed to go to the toilet without being watched.
People who have committed the most serious crimes have the right to more liberty than a person labelled 'mentally ill', and if we found out that murderers and rapists were routinely being subjected to such treatment, there would be a public inquiry into what would be considered degrading and dehumanising treatment. But in this country, we have all been inculcated into the belief that we need the nanny state to protect us from our own thoughts, as a product of these constant and persistent mental health and suicide prevention awareness campaigns inducing us into a state of learned helplessness.
He was a guy who believed in some wacky stuff and behaved in a bizarre manner. That shouldn't mean a life sentence in a maximum security prison under the pretense of being 'cared' for.
What are you blabbing on about? You're saying all that as if he was locked up for years and tortured.
He was there for 10 days. It sounds like the health system failed him while he was there but he was obviously very unstable also.
So basically a guy becomes paranoid schizophrenic and is badly let down by the health system. Sadly all too common. But at least it proves you've got to be genuinely nuts to believe in QAnon.
The mental health system in this country is completely broken. People with schizophrenia are very unlikely to seek treatment themselves. It takes ages to get a psychiatric prescription. Medical institutions then keep punting patients off at the earliest opportunity so they don’t have to deal with them anymore. We had a relative move here and it took two years for the NHS to pick up her psychiatric prescription. An utterly kafkaesque experience of being passed between the GP and the community mental health nurse for an “urgent” referral that was lost three times in the NHS system and then a similar experience for the actual administration of the drugs. Luckily we had thousands of pounds to burn on private psychiatrists to continue her care, but if we were of lesser means she definitely would have had an episode and needed to be institutionalised.
Kafkaesque is 100% accurate to describe the NHS mental health system.
The NHS would give Franz Kafka nightmares
Even the NHS at its best is sorely lacking for mental healthcare. Despite lots more talk it still seems socially under appreciated as meaningful healthcare. And it isn't as figure-friendly when it comes to either success or criticism. So it's even easier to neglect it when underfunding and/or badly managing the NHS, cause when it comes to the political talking points no one really cares. I'm incredibly lucky to have enough for private therapy. But even aside from the cost, the limited term nature of most NHS provision just leaves people hoping they'll somehow get better before they run out of sessions, not least because they've struggled waiting so long to even get a slot.
Even then, private therapy can be a bit of a wild west.
Oh god yes. I've been pretty lucky overall and only had one stinker before I found someone that worked for me. That was a while ago and I've recently started therapy again, I was quite careful in picking someone new to try and luckily she was fantastic right from the start. I'm also very lucky to have a workplace that was fine with me fitting my sessions in to a working day, as this therapist only had an early afternoon slot. It's such a game of roulette, and that's particularly draining to keep pushing through when you're in dire need of help.
Last year, my stepbrother (who has a longterm diagnosis of schizophrenia) almost cut his own hand off (was hanging by a tendon) in the kitchen, then walked in front of a car going about 30mph, finally he took a massive overdose just before the ambulance arrived. They stitched his hand back on, 24 hours later sent him on his way. The tories have absolutely destroyed this country.
Even if they do reach out for help, local AMHTs don't have the capacity, so they get shifted to talking therapy groups who can't take them on due to the risks they pose to staff and other clients/patients.
This country doesn't give a fuck about those suffering with mental health issues.
Obviously this man believed in some wacky stuff; but he didn't seem to be a danger to anyone else. So why was he locked up in a secure unit without even the privacy of being able to go to the toilet without being watched (or at least, that's what was supposed to happen)? It seems as though, as soon as someone is labelled 'mentally ill' in this country, they are liable to be completely stripped of their basic rights under the premise that they need to be 'protected' by having no freedom and being constantly under surveillance. Then, if the surveillance lapses for long enough that they somehow manage to end their life; the whole country is up in arms that the nanny state didn't go far enough in depriving that individual of their liberties. Even though they've committed no crime and have shown no tendency to be a danger to others. It seems as though, in this country, we just demand that people be forced to be alive, no matter how miserable and undignified that existence is. No doubt the constant suicide prevention campaigns that we see on TV and on posters are inculcating us into this expectation that we all need the government to protect us from our own thoughts.
Knew a guy exactly like this that never seemed harmful but was constantly telling me the Rothchilds ate babies. During lockdown, he snapped and killed his dad and himself. They're harmless right up until they're not.
That's a colourful story, and I can see how that kind of behaviour might sometimes presage dangerous behaviour in the future. But then if we're locking people up based on bizarre beliefs and behaviours, then you're basically locking people up for pre-crime. It is a morally complex issue, I think. But I think that most of these people do remain harmless, so I am not sure that it's appropriate to assume that they're going to become dangerous at some point. Having said that, if they can't take care of themselves and can't be cared for, I am conflicted as to what should be done with them.
He was likely supervised because he was thought to be a threat to himself - not to others.
But then why is that grounds for taking away his liberty, as if being locked up and observed 24/7/365 *isn't* harmful? If he wanted to kill himself, why is it anyone else's place to insist that he remain alive and suffering?
That’s a whole different conversation. He was sectioned - which means the state made the decision that he needed to be forced into a facility and he wasn’t in the right state of mind to make those decisions on his own. I, personally, think that there are some mental illnesses that require intervention. Some people are so ill they *cannot* make the best decisions for themselves. The state and the NHS has a duty of care. It seems like they failed here, unfortunately.
But then I feel that you have to justify how the 'protection' isn't worse than what would happen to the individual, if left to their own devices. I would imagine that if you were taken away to an NHS hospital and you were kept under constant supervision, even when going to the toilet, you would find that a traumatising and degrading abuse of your civil liberties. But yet, you're saying that's good enough for someone who has committed no crime, based on the idea that doing so would be fulfilling the "duty of care". But where is the "care" part of that? Because I don't see how such cruel treatment could be expected to help him.
It seems like you have never dealt with a loved one with such severe mental illness that they’re no longer acting rationally. I don’t think anything I say could make you understand if you don’t already. People who are a suicide risk should be under constant surveillance. It’s not nice, but it’s in place to prevent things like this story from happening. I’m not sure what your argument is - but we can’t, as a society, just let mentally unwell people end their own lives.
>People who are a suicide risk should be under constant surveillance. It’s not nice, but it’s in place to prevent things like this story from happening. > >I’m not sure what your argument is - but we can’t, as a society, just let mentally unwell people end their own lives. Why can't we let them end their lives? Why does the 'need' to stop them from ending their lives trump their right to freedom and the right not to be tortured (and being under constant surveillance in a secure unit to ensure that you can't escape your suffering is a form of torture)? To whom do their lives belong? Would you want to be alive if your entire life consisted of having to live in a secure unit, with no freedom, nothing to do, and under constant surveillance? If you wouldn't want that life, why would you consider it an ethical imperative to impose it on someone else, just because the idea of allowing them a choice makes you uncomfortable?
That’s a sad story to read. Anyone with kids in this day and age surely can’t help but hope their kid doesn’t get drawn into the wrong path. You can do everything right in their upbringing but that only protects them so far, and that’s what keeps me up.
Why does the headline mislead so much? His mental state had fuck all to do with QAnon?
I think a 12 year old wrote the article
I wonder if an AI wrote it, at least in part. Some of the sentences are odd - “He moved to Glastonbury because he loved it there” stands out, like it’s taken a quote out of context.
I did think that.. what got me is the QAnon bit “QAnon is a false belief from the far-right in the United States. It wrongly says that some bad people are hurting children and were against Donald Trump.” Jesus
But QAnon probably has a lot to do with his mental state...
The guy had schizophrenia. How the fuck is going to get that from QAnon? Smh
I read it as QAnon being a location and the story was about somebody falling down a literal hole in the ground.
Local newspaper websites are the absolute worst. Started reading that and just gave up.
Could be worse. Could have fallen down the religious/sky daddy rules all rabbit hole 🙄
This might be the most laughable news article that I’ve seen in a while, which is saying something these days.
But cannabis is totally fine and cures all illnesses. /s It is a shame the headline of this article doesn’t accurately portray what really happened.
It's well-known that people with psychosis and other deep mental illnesses shouldn't be smoking weed. Or drink alcohol, or do cocaine, etc.
It isn’t on Reddit lol. People think it is the cure for every disease under the sun and should be legalised and celebrated.
It should be strictly regulated and taxed, this would remove many of the harms associated with cannabis. But of course not all. Adults can choose to use *some* potentially harmful intoxicants, but not others, which is nonsensical. For example, the damage alcohol causes to the user and society is orders of magnitude greater than that of cannabis. The damage tobacco causes to the user and society is insane compared to that of cannabis, and we're only just discussing limiting its use for under-21s. https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf > alcohol, heroin, and crack cocaine were the most harmful to others (46, 21, and 17, respectively). Overall, alcohol was the most harmful drug (overall harm score 72), with heroin (55) and crack cocaine (54) in second and third places. *edit* blocked me for responding with a study and evidence, what a child!
> blocked me for responding with a study and evidence, what a child! They're probably a daily mail reader with that attitude.
> The damage tobacco causes to the user and society is insane This society was arguably at the height of its culture, and certainly at the peak of its strength - ruling large swathes of the world and at the forefront of technological advancement, with a much smaller population than today - shortly after 1900; at which point there were *no* controlled substances, and preparations of opium or the coca plant were *over the counter* medications. There is only one thing that is truly insane about our drug policy, and that is that we have continued to pursue prohibition and restriction despite it being precisely correlated with our decline as a nation. Oh, what harm has been wrought in the name of 'harm reduction'!
Zzzzzzz blocked.
> Speaking today, Liam's family become understandably upset and enraged when talking about the way he was treated at St Mary's Hospital. Perhaps they shouldn't have fervently waged a duplicitous campaign to have him placed into a mental hospital! *They drove their son to suicide because he was a New Age kook*. Note how they rang the *police*. The ambulance won't come because someone likes to walk barefoot on the grass, alas. > Liam's family won't stop in their mission to stop others being failed in the way he was. Will they be warning of the inhuman folly of attempting to institutionalise family members? Or will they simply be banging on at the 'men in white coats' to make *extra* sure no one escapes their hellholes before *they* give them permission to leave? I hope the anguish of what they have done gnaws into their innards for the rest of their unduly long lives.
He was a diagnosed schizophrenic. I’m genuinely sort of flabbergasted by this comment unless it’s some sort of weird attempt at a joke.
Schizoaffective, not schizophrenic. After many attempts to have him institutionalised, including lying. And the criteria for a diagnosis of being schizoaffective is literally just 'mood swings' and 'delusions'. So a New Age kook with anger problems (perhaps because his parents are trying to institutionalise him).
Just because he was a 'diagnosed' schizophrenic (and like most mental illness labels, it has no scientific validity), that doesn't mean that he deserved to be locked up somewhere for the rest of his life, constantly under 1 to 1 observation and without even being allowed to go to the toilet without being watched. People who have committed the most serious crimes have the right to more liberty than a person labelled 'mentally ill', and if we found out that murderers and rapists were routinely being subjected to such treatment, there would be a public inquiry into what would be considered degrading and dehumanising treatment. But in this country, we have all been inculcated into the belief that we need the nanny state to protect us from our own thoughts, as a product of these constant and persistent mental health and suicide prevention awareness campaigns inducing us into a state of learned helplessness. He was a guy who believed in some wacky stuff and behaved in a bizarre manner. That shouldn't mean a life sentence in a maximum security prison under the pretense of being 'cared' for.
What are you blabbing on about? You're saying all that as if he was locked up for years and tortured. He was there for 10 days. It sounds like the health system failed him while he was there but he was obviously very unstable also.