It's comparing bad apples with mental illness..

[undergroundpanther]

This is why I think sociopaths and the symptoms of no conscience and no empathy and addiction needs to be put in a separate diagnostic category and defined separately from the usually non-violent manifestations mental illnesses.


First, what I look like,I have a mowhawk,it is usually some bright unnatural color.I have huge tattoos covering my arms,pierces, and my gender is mixed and I wear a lot of dark and punk/goth stuff some times I appear very different than how others look out here where I live.

A few years ago I was feeling really bad,and overwhelmed by the shit going on at that time. So I called my counselor left a message, it took a long while until he called back. I cut my arm to cope waiting on his call.I told him I was really having a bad day& I did a few shallow minor cuts on my arm.

My therapist at the time had worked out with a mutual treatment 'contract' that if I cut i had to do it a certain way,and I was to call my counselor,at the program and tell them what was going on I was not to be sent to any hospital because we agreed it was not useful.But contacting someone to talk was important and part of the agreement...Since he was out of town he said he could not do an off site with me but he had to call the EMT's to verify it was not a serious injury.

So he hung up ,called the EMT's to check me out to cover his butt,which I understood and was ok with. Later he apologized for the fiasco that follows, he told me later when he called the ambulance to come to my house,the dispatcher was all on alert asking does he have a weapon etc,He said no and said I was not dangerous. He called me back told me the EMT's were coming over and it was procedure to ensure I was safe yadda yadda. So I talked to him as I waited.

Then the knock on my door. My counselor told me to call him back after the ambulance left. I hung up the phone ,I answered the door, the EMT's came in first. Than,2 cops.I told them everything about the situation, my counselor unable to do an off site,this is why he called you guys etc, I sat down and showed them the cuts.I said it was minor, they agreed it was minor and that I am dealing with it with my counselor & I was talking to my counselor before you came and I am gonna call him back when y'all go.. The EMT's declared me OK not injured and able to handle things and left.

But the 2 cops stayed. I told them I was ok. Pointed out the EMT's said I was ok too..The cops seemed to have decided I HAD to go to the ER. I was not violent,or talking about suicide or anything,I was if anything more passive than usual.,

One cop acted like an authoritarian ass while the other cop was a bit less hostile. The asshole one began to trigger me with his authoritarian attitude began looking around my house. I asked the nicer cop to tell the other cop to stop talking at me that bullying way and tell me why he's searching my house for? I said this calmly.

Than based on these two cops opinion I was told I was going to the ER anyway.?? I asked why,The EMT's said I was ok? Why? I'm not threatening suicide or hurting anybody nor do I intend to,so Why??
they did not answer that.

So I knew I had no choice or voice in this. So I told the decent cop I was not going to the ER without my insurance card and wallet with my medications list and info in it .It was in my bed room, I told them where it was at in my room. Nicer cop sent the asshole cop to go get my wallet. I was not threatening at all. I was more passive than usual.

It was cold out so I told the nice cop I needed a coat if I was going to the hospital.I got my trench put it on and sat down.Asshole cop gave me my wallet I put it in my pocket,then I stood up to go,and they told me to turn around,they actually cuffed me, I asked why they cuffed me, did I break the law? Why..Nice cop said they had to and again I asked why,because I wasn't being loud rude or dangerous and I never been cuffed to go to a psych evaluation in my entire life.


I was told it is 'procedure'.They led out of my house both cops grabbing my upper arms by that time I was scared triggered and dissociating. They paraded me past two neighbor's houses on the way to the police car.I asked why they didn't park in the driveway? They said they didn't want to 'embarrass" me. I thought to myself,WTF? It's more embarrassing to be cuffed and paraded past my neighbors.. They opened the car door,I could not bend my knee far enough to sit in the back seat as the front seat was wedged very close to the seat and my knee would be forced to bend back further than I could bend it.I was still recovering from a knee injury .My knee's normal range of motion was not there after having it in a brace for over a month..

So I asked them if I could lay in the backseat. I had to ask them to help me get in car enough to use my good leg to push myself in far enough,to fit my stiff leg past the door as my hands were bound. I laid there in the car in a lot of pain having my hands cuffed. It was killing my back to be laying that way and since I have carpal tunnel that runs down both my arms from the nerve in my neck that's compressed by bone spurs it really fucking hurt to be cuffed. When we got to the ER I was unable to get myself up out of the car so I asked them to pull my good leg so I could get leverage,than to help me stand up..They grabbed both my upper arms and it hurt so bad being jerked like that,I gasped and I almost passed out.


I sat in the ER in a waiting room like place,with a couch..I waited in cuffs for at least an hour. I asked the cop to ask staff to un cuff me because of the pain and my hands were totally numb. I asked like 4 times. I waited in that room guarded by cops including being 'escorted' to the bathroom..for around 24 hours.I saw nursing staff 5 times no longer than a few minutes once to ask for info, to move me to an ER bed the wall had no nurse pull,strange I thought,and once to ask if I wanted food. last time I was seen was to sign a voluntary admission paper.I hesitated,cop told me it would be involuntary if I didn't sign it.

I signed it because if you go in involuntary you lose all of your human rights literally.. Not just most of them when you go voluntary..And then after many more hours I was sent to someplace in Delaware a state away. I was again put in restraints I was so triggered by this time I just numbed out. I was not told I was going out of state,I was riding in an ambulance for I dunno how long,still in restraints. Restraints are another big trigger for me .At no time during all this was I violent or threatening to anyone.I felt threatened,and a horrible dread on top of being depressed and frustrated.The guy with me in the ambulance was kind enough to loosen the restraints as my arms were tingling and had shooting pains due to the tightness .Loosening them eased it up some.

But what I really hated the most was being treated like a criminal,my physical well being ignored and not being told where I was going.

When we got to the psych hospital they took everything from me,went through my clothes etc. But what I found strange is they photographed me, in the stupid gown from the ER.They said it was for the chart.I asked if I could take my photo home because I didn't want them to have it on file as if I was a criminal. I NEVER had on any admission to any hospital in my life did a psych hospital ever take a photo of me on admit before.I told them I didn't give permission for them to keep the photo in my chart on my waivers to share my files with my therapist and such ,after I left the hospital.
They kept the photo against my wishes and gave me a copy of it instead when I left.


I swear if you suffer a mental illness you become a criminal by default and I fucking hate it.

But that's not all..If you are declared mentally ill and have a serious non- psych related health issue ,they ignore that and deny the pain present hurts. I think it's because is a belief all psych patients are addicts to drugs.I have NO history of addictions~ none.I rarely take meds for pain.when I do it is because I hurt really BAD and I cannot easily tolerate the awful side effects of feeling drugged that pain killers cause. But if I am in the ER for unrelated to anything psych ,like falling down stairs ,they assume I am dangerous and keep me restrained even if I ask them to come off because I am in pain..If you got a psych history you are = addict/criminal.
Once it was known and a flag for psych was in my chart,all my physical problems were ..suspect..ignored or minimized,and my gender identity became a 'delusion' and they called me a she..and to this day I hate going there because it becomes a struggle to be heard..
So when I fell for hours I got nothing help stop the pain which I go to a spinal neurologist for, which is in my chart,even when HE tells me to go to the ER,it's all different ever since that incident with the cops.. Because I have psych history I am suspect. Suspected I must be an addict/criminal. Because this belief is institutionally reinforced on staff's part I am treated with disrespect and ignored as if. So I'm reluctant to go to an ER for anything anymore.I feel dread if I do.

Before I ever was in the ER for any psych issues they treated me very differently.
They checked my spine,they treated the problem,and took my pain as what it is,pain and gave me medicine that were effective to stop it..And they respected my identity as male gender. I had gone there twice before the psych crisis was put in my file.
So I noticed the difference right away.It was disgusting.

Reality is most mentally ill people are NOT violent. But because of the violence of sociopaths and addicts being labeled as a 'mental illness'..Non sociopath/Non addicted psych patients get assumed to be criminals,addicts and violent. This is WHY I think sociopath/addiction issues need to be defined as as a different kind of issue and seen as an adjunct clearly separated from mental illness because this assumption that mental illness= sociopath/addict and people with OTHER mental illnesses get treated like sociopaths/addicts when they have no history or diagnosis of either problem.And it is wrong and it's everywhere.


Sociopaths,and substance addiction is still being fused with mental illnesses in the publics mind. By public I include hospital administrators, ER staff nurses doctors and cops everywhere. The writers of the DSM have failed to create important distinctions between the mental illnesses. This thoughtless merging of sociopaths,criminal/addicts = mental illness and equating it as all as the same thing really does affect how different people with different problems are treated.
A VERY clear distinction has to be made understandable for lay people too. One that is easy to grasp in identifying dangerous or addicted mentally ill people from other people who suffer from mental illness/psychiatric injury .

I know staff and other people are stuck between the very real risks posed by people with addictions and sociopaths and other people's needs. So the assumptions get made anyway.

But what about the mentally ill person whom staff are afraid to treat like any other patient? Hospitals will always act to minimize risks,even if it is totally unwarranted or harmful to the patient in question. I think it is because of this lack of clarity between mental illnesses and the piss poor job the DSM writers do distinguishing mental illnesses from dangerous people's mental illness. .This mandatory suspicion and hostility of the mentally ill in general by health professionals and cops is also assumed by so many non-mentally ill people assuming a mentally ill person is criminal ,addicted or dangerous,and the media repeats that lie and so the mentally ill are treated like a danger, criminals/addicts in ER's or on the streets by default.

Non- violent mentally ill people will be suspected wrongly, as long as the public believes mental illness= dangerous and if the fear gets too bad people with mental illness to avoid the bigotry may avoid seeking treatment during crisis,if they are mistreated by ER staff and cops who do not bother with making distinctions because as far as they are concerned there are no differences in how the hospitals or police handle mentally ill sociopaths/addicts and the non- addicted,non-violent persons with psychiatric injured and mental illnesses.


When I hear people everywhere calling addicts and sociopaths mentally ill,
I have had the results of that failure to distinguish impact me,personally. So I have to say something..

A lot of people call others crazy, as if it isn't a stigma put upon already suffering people. So many non-mentally ill are called crazy,For example,furries are called crazy, people with full body tattoos or facials are called crazy,ed has his "Psycho Talk "segment on his show, gays were once called crazy,and anyone who disagree with a right winger's politics gets called crazy too.. This means there is blurring the distinctions between mental illness/difference and qualities in people with or without a mental illness history.

Obviously,the public isn't savvy enough to see the problems with calling non- violent manic depressive,the non-violent creative appearing tattoo buff nuts ,having a regular commentary on stupid politics called "Psycho Talk",calling the non-violent person disagreeing with a defensive conservative crazy..while also calling a serial killer,random shooters , who really can be dangerous/violent and a risk to everyone else around them, crazy or mentally ill..

They are not only repeating ugly stereotypes of mental illness, they are reinforcing the wrongful implication that people with depression are dangerous,people who look very different or behave different (but not dangerously)than John Q Publick must be crazy therefore are prone to be violent and must be retrained handcuffed and treated differently in a hospital then "normal people" whom are assumed to be sane and reasonable...

Add in the false beliefs and bigoted attitudes people already have about the poor and homeless, beliefs like they're criminals lazy ,all addicts or faking mental illness/pain.. Bigotry aimed to make the poor suffer more inadvertently reinforces the same lie that all psych patients are addicts,manipulators crazy,violent,etc. It really does effect the way people get treated in the hospital.Especially when they pull out an MA or medicare card regardless if they have mental illness or not,regardless if the have a home or not,regardless if they are dangerous or not,or addicts or not..

All that suspicion and assuming makes it less likely in the mind of those helping the,poor,unusual but not dangerous people or mentally ill that the patient complaining of pain might be telling the truth,have actual physical problems separated from any psych diagnosis or any other issue feared by the stupid public that causes real genuine pain and actually need relief from that pain.. beyond two tylenol, and it's all in your mind,or here's a ham sandwich get outta here ya bum.

How would you cope if you were treated like a criminal or a liar if you called an ambulance for something like say,dehydration,an allergic reaction, chest pain or some serious injury or sickness ? What if 'procedures' aimed at criminal people that share your diagnostic category and presenting symptoms like yours are assumed to be bad people. Because some heart attack victims are dangerous to others or might upset someone else ,so you have to be handcuffed or restrained in the ambulance and restrained in the hospital,and imagine because some people suffering pain like you have, are really manipulators wanting to get high, what if your pain and symptoms are minimized or not treated regardless of WHY you went there for help for? You'd be lucky to get out alive.

Distinctions ARE very important aren't they?

So why can't mentally ill people who are not criminals ,sociopaths or addicts be seen as having a DIFFERENT kind of disorder that has NO clear connection to possible criminal behavior or addictions by default so they too can be treated like they're innocent until proven guilty, and treated like any other suffering human being in the ER too?
As long as SOME violent killers are declared mentally ill people,
all mentally ill people will be assumed violent or addicted
by the people scared of them and special procedures will apply..
regardless of differences, it's all mental illness and mental illness is Daaaanngggeeerrrooouuuss.

[cliffordu]

1. The difference between a mentally ill person and a sociopath is that

the mentally ill can be helped by medications.

Sociopaths cannot.

[undergroundpanther]

2. Yes

it's what they are basically. And calling sociopaths a mental illness creates confusion over what to fear,and innocent mentally ill people suffer for it.It's one thing to defy social customs.But things like war crimes, murder of innocent random people,incest or rape is hated by all cultures.What sociopaths do,it's not just cultural taboo violation it is a violation of our very survival as living beings at stake.Some acts sociopaths do are inhuman & repugnant for a very valid reasons.

[uppityperson]

3. k&r

[Mojeoux]

4. I am So Sorry that those idiots treated you that way.

I was just reading a list someone posted with all the heinous gun crimes of the past 5 years. These sociopaths have their right-wing semi-societal approval.

It seems to me that cops and all have been busy protecting us from war protesters and LGBT and/or pierced and tattooed goth people who are vulnerable and harmless.

The militaristic police forces have been on knee-jerk "Red Alert," ever since 9 11. National Law Enforcement has been coddling the Minutemen groups with the delusion that the Violent Tea Baggers are patriotic like they are. Now these Monsters are taking anti-fed aim against cops. This list is amazing. If long-haired, punky/gay or hippy-types had pulled one third of this shit, all hell would have broken loose all over the fucking country!!!!!

Instead this list gets longer and longer......... Add to it some of the 11 cops just killed this last weekend.

Add the "Minutemen American Defense" group who is just now going to trial for the murder of an Hispanic man and his little girl in 2009. The group members broke into a house they thought was a drug dealer house.......to STEAL THE DRUGS AND MONEY to fund their Minutemen activities! They shot a man and his daughter. The trial is just getting underway in Arizona!



•Mar. 2009 - Michele Bachmann (R-MN) states that she wants the citizens of her state "armed and dangerous".

•Aug. 2009 - Someone dropped a gun from their pants at a Giffords town hall meeting in Arizona.

•Jan. 2010 - Sharron Angle gives famous "second amendment remedies" speech, and also states "we have to take Harry Reid out."

•Mar. 2010 - Tom Perillo's (D-VA) brother came home to find a severed gas line after Tea Partiers posted his address online, thinking it was the Congressman's address.

•Mar. 2010 - Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said that the windows of her Niagara Falls office were broken and she received voicemail referencing snipers.

•Mar. 2010 - Eric Cantor (R-VA) discovers that even Republicans aren't immune to having their office windows shot out. Perhaps his constituents figured out he doesn't celebrate Christmas.

•Mar. 2010 - Monroe County Democratic Committee (N.Y.) were vandalized when bricks were thrown through the windows.

•Mar. 2010 - Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) angrily shouts "baby killer" while Bart Stupak (D-MI) speaks on the floor of the House or Representatives. Afterward Stupak released tapes of violent threatening "baby killer" messages left on his voicemail, presumably not also by Neugebauer.

•Mar. 2010 - RNC Chairman Michael Steele said Nancy Pelosi should be put on "the firing line."

•Mar. 2010 - John Boehner (R-OH) states, in an interview, that congressmen who vote for the health bill would be 'dead men'.

•Apr. 2010 - Sarah Palin tweets "Don't retreat, instead reload" to her followers.

•Jul. 2010 - Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) office windows were shot at.

•Oct. 2010 - Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) offices were sent white powder through the postal service.

•Jan. 2011 - Explosive packages sent to the Maryland capitol building, the Maryland Department of Transportation and to the office of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

And still this list from “Crooks and Liars”

• July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

• October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

• December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

• December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

• January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

• February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

• April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

• April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

• May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

• June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

• February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)

• March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

• March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

• May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

• May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

• May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

• July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

• September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.