Mental illness affects the entire human race. It is like cancer that attacks all of us. The huge difference between the two diseases is that cancer usually will be detected, then treated aggressively, and hopefully conquered. We all know of individuals who have died from cancer and of individuals who have beaten this dreaded disease. When we hear of someone who is diagnosed with cancer, we are open about discussing its ramifications and supportive of the person’s needs both physical and emotional.
But what about mental illness?
Cookie Marsh has dedicated his career working with those who have this illness. He cites that every family has a mentally ill member and that one in seven people suffer some form of this malady. Yet, for the most part, it is a silent disease. No one, not even the afflicted, wishes to admit it, discuss it, and get the necessary treatment. Why? Just think of the connotation of the word,”crazy”? “Hi, I’m Tom Daniels, and I’m mentally ill as opposed to, “Hi, I’m Tom Daniels, and I have cancer.”
If you investigate the biographies of the mass murderers including ISIS, you will see a striking similarity: mental illness. The Charleston black church shooter, the Dallas police shooter, and the Colorado movie theater shooter, just to name a few, all had mental illness that even though was known to some was never addressed. Why not?
Just recently a man drove a truck through a crowd in Nice, France. Who was the man? His own sister said that he was mentally ill and allegedly was going to seek help in France after leaving his own country. The report goes on that he was quickly radicalized by ISIS because he was in such a sick mental condition. In fact, investigations have found that these suicide bombers were mentally unstable persons manipulated by radical groups to carry out terror.
What do we do with the mentally ill here in the United States? If they are diagnosed, Cookie says that they have hope of living a good life as long as someone can monitor their medication. Too many of these mentally ill persons, however, end up homeless, or on their own concoctions of medication including alcohol and heroin self-medicating their disease, or in our overcrowded jails. So many are shunned by their own families trying to keep this dark secret. Hmm, what if all cancer victims were shunned as many mentally ill are by society?
I wish that I had the answer to this crippling problem of our world. I do not. But what I do have is this conclusion: the first thought I have when I hear about a police shooting or a mass murder or a terrorist act is not that it is a RACIALLY motivated incident. As stated earlier, we have mentally unstable people in all races. Before we jump to the conclusion that the heinous incident was hate for the other race, religion, or nation, dig a little deeper.
