Mental illness... a common public danger?

[RidgeHunter]

I've only felt threatened by a homeless person once and it was in Denver. I was walking down the street (colfax if you know denver) with my girlfriend and her best friend and they were laughing like chicks do, telling old stories. I saw this guy yelling at traffic way before they did, but it was too late to tell them to stop laughing. I knew what was about to happen. Sure enough he thought they were laughing at him and he went off. What are you laughing at bitches, etc. Followed us to the corner where we were waiting on the crosswalk light to change and got in our faces. Inches from us - screaming as loud as he could. I put myself between him and the girls and he went off on me. Apparently they were dykes and was their "*** boy". Also the very pale white girls were "ni*gers". The light changes and he follows us into the street halfway and launches into a string of profanity and racial slurs that was so absurd we all started laughing when we made it to safety. Every insult he said to me I just nodded my head. I knew anything I said would make it worse. It was a little nerve racking. The only comforting thing was he was a tiny guy, but he had weird stick & poke tattoos on his face and was clearly schizophrenic or the like. Little guy or not, most homeless guys can outfight the average untrained Joe. The ones that can't don't make it on the streets long. I did not want to have contact with him. For all I know he had dirty needles in his pockets.

I've just came to accept it as part of city life. I live off Cherry St and we have plenty around the neighborhood. The extremely unstable ones can probably never be helped, but I wish more could be done for the rest of them. The ones that are often victimized by the violent ones.

I prioritize and give to the homeless with dogs, the ones without signs, etc. On Thanksgiving there was a guy sitting out of the rain under the overpass at Utica and the BA. No sign, nothing. Just trying to stay dry in all that rain we had. I saw he had a dog all wrapped up in coats and stuff by his feet. I went home and put together a bag with a hat, some gloves, some quarters from my change jar and a couple dollar bills, dog food, and 2 beers in it for him. He was a really nice guy. I asked him if he needed anything from the grocery store and he said no, he already ate the free turkey dinner and I'd done too much. I still see him around. probably put together some more stuff for him soon. Had a similar experience in Dallas last year - guy told me he didn't need anything but I said "so you're saying you wouldn't eat a cheeseburger? because I'm getting cheeseburgers" and he just smiled. I brought him In 'n Out and he inhaled it. LOL. Old Indian drunk dude. Said his best friend got killed the year before and he'd been beat up a few weeks ago by a young homeless guy.

Homeless are like people in the business world often are. The selfish ****** ones without empathy can often rise to the top so to speak. The top of the homeless food chain ain't much, but it's sure better than the bottom.

It's a ****** world for a lot of people. A couple times I've seen young women appear around the neighborhood that look "newly homeless". Clean, carrying a couple pairs of shoes and other random stuff. One sat crying off and on for a long time one day. Looked like someone just dropped her off at the gas station Could be traveling hookers or just girls who lost their place for whatever reason. I can't imagine how scary that would be.

 

[Frederick]

I think we all know there are instances of shootings and such perpetrated by people with significant mental illness, either diagnosed or hidden.

But I had to go downtown Tulsa yesterday for a meeting and I saw a couple of people that made me very nervous.

I had to drive around a few minutes to find a parking place, finally ended up on the top story of a parking garage. I was carrying concealed and wearing a coat, as it was pretty cold. But as I come out of the garage, I hear someone yelling, sounds like someone fighting. As I look around, waiting for the light to cross over, I see a guy ambling down the street in the same direction I am going to be heading, obviously homeless. This guy is yelling at the top of his lungs, very angry, cussing up a storm, though you can't tell what he's worked up about. I mean, I think it was obvious he's mentally ill, he's screaming obscenities at the air, looking all around, gesticulating, but not in any hurry to go anywhere, no one else around, etc. Definitely made me pay attention and I made sure to hang back about a half-block from him until I got to my destination.

So then, when I come out a few hours later, I see another guy walking down a street perpendicular to mine while I am waiting for the light to cross. This one really kinda made me look twice - this guy was wearing a coat, but above the coat he was wrapped tightly in multiple scarves to the top of his head. Including his face. Not like... wearing a scarf because it's cold and have your nose and mouth covered - this guy looked like he was mummified, tightly, and had eyeholes cut out. Not a slit where he didn't wrap it, actual eye hole cutouts. And it wasn't like a ski mask, it was scarves or bandannas or something wrapped around. He's holding what looks like a phone toward his lips, horizontally facing outward, like he's blowing into the mic on the bottom, and as he walks out into the road to cross without paying any attention to the light, to any cars that might be coming, etc., he's waving his hand around flipping the bird up high to all the high-rise buildings around us. Not to anyone (no one else was around), not to traffic, nothing like that. Just randomly flipping off buildings, it looked like. Was pretty strange, you couldn't see a lick of skin on his face, hands, nothing. Couldn't have been able to even tell his skin color to tell the police if something had happened.


It's been a few years since I worked at Hillcrest and we got so many of the mentally-ill homeless coming in for various reasons, but it just struck me yesterday how many people we have living on the street who are mentally ill and could potentially be dangerous, given nearly any situation. Being alert and paying attention to your surroundings is all well and good, but many of us here have been approached or even accosted by someone while pumping gas or getting a paper, stopping at a stoplight, even.

We need more facilities and medical folks to help deal with these people, but the bottom line is, you can't (at this point) force them to medicate or live in a facility. Had a family member who was a brilliant guy who could fix anything electronic, but he chose to live homeless and alcoholic when he had other options. Matter of fact, after Christmas one year he came to his parents' house, picked up a new CD Walkman they'd gotten him for Christmas, declined their offer of a warm place to stay that night, promptly walked out and the next morning was crushed to death by a Tulsa trash truck while sleeping in a dumpster.

You just can't make them....

Nothing new here, but my experiences yesterday just reminded me how many of these folks we have that society simply writes off and tries to walk around.

It's not a good idea to stereotype all homeless people that way.Not all homeless people are crazy or mentally ill, though many are. I've met some scumbaggy homeless people, but there are a great number out there who are great, empathetic people.

More medical resources won't do **** to help them. The buttom line is, healthcare is atrocious in this country and the government isn't providing enough access to mental health services. My Co pays for a mental health professional are something like 20 dollars a visit. that's 80 dollars a month. If you don't have insurance, which most of us who don't have good jobs don't, that'll be 80-120 a visit. That's insanely impossible for the poor or homeless.

eugenics

Suggesting that we should just genocide people for their mental health issues or homeless status is apalling, disgusting, insane and very Hitler-like(read:Aktion T-4)

 

[tRidiot]

It's not a good idea to stereotype all homeless people that way.

I'm sorry, I missed where I said that in my OP. I don't see it in your quoted portion, either. Perhaps you could point it out for me?

 

[TedKennedy]

Suggesting that we should just genocide people for their mental health issues or homeless status is apalling, disgusting, insane and very Hitler-like(read:Aktion T-4)

Who suggested genocide?

 

[Frederick]

I'm sorry, I missed where I said that in my OP. I don't see it in your quoted portion, either. Perhaps you could point it out for me?

You said that Mental illness is a 'common public danger' and you also said that they simply didn't want care. I think that's incorrect, they just can't access it. But that's my opinion. I'm not trying to make any accusations, i'm sorry if i gave you that impression.

Who suggested genocide?

eugenics

eu·gen·ics
yo͞oˈjeniks/Submit
noun
the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis.

So basically, Eugenics is the idea that those of lesser genes should be killed or prevented from breeding to preserve the health of the gene pool. Basically, murder.

 

[Gideon]

Today I learned:
Not having sex with genetically compromised people equals murder.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RidgeHunter]

Today I learned:
Not having sex with genetically compromised people equals murder.

Bwahaha. He's "college educated", so I'm sure he's right. It seems to be incongruous with his support of castration for sex offenders, but ya know, that's neither here nor there.

 

[Okey-Dokey]

While mental illness is certainly an issue in our world, what happens when "people control" starts making mental health the new "science" just as today's climate "science" has been? So it becomes settled science that the following people are mentally ill: Gun owners, conservatives, young white males, insert enemy of the left here..... I guarantee this is coming, folks.

 

[chuter]

You said that Mental illness is a 'common public danger' and you also said that they simply didn't want care. I think that's incorrect, they just can't access it. But that's my opinion. I'm not trying to make any accusations, i'm sorry if i gave you that impression.








So basically, Eugenics is the idea that those of lesser genes should be killed or prevented from breeding to preserve the health of the gene pool. Basically, murder.

View attachment 53053

Controlled breeding is a long way from murder.

We use controlled breeding with dogs, cats, and farm animals, but we don't kill the ones with undesirable traits, we just don't breed them.

 

[LightningCrash]

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