Stigma Again

It seems that people with a mental illness cannot get rid of stigma. When you think things might be improving, something in the news or a movie always brings it back to the forefront. I know what Jared Loughner did is a bad crime and wrong to me and the eyes of society to commit. Is it the mental illness to blame? In the article “Jared Lee Loughner – Is Mental Illness the Explanation for What HE DID?” It says in the coming weeks that all the media will blame is his mental illness. I am a paranoid schizophrenic who is not violent without alcohol in my system. I have a record and not a nice one at that. Although all my offenses are alcohol related. I would not have a record if it were not for alcohol. I have not been stopped by the police in the last twenty years since I stopped using alcohol. When I first became mentally ill all I did was lie in bed and try to figure what was wrong with me. I would have hurt myself before anybody else. I think Jared Loughner was obsessed with what he thought were politics. If he did not have a mental illness I believe he would have committed the same crime regardless. Another article says, Jared Loughner appeared to be more driven by a delusional mind than a real interest in politics”. People want to put the blame on a mental illness. When not all people with a mental illness are violent and want to hurt someone. In the first article, it says, “What’s fascinating is why his mental health was seized upon, rather than his political extremism, history of drug use, lack of involvement with social institutions, the bullying he claimed to suffered from school, or the alleged aggressiveness of his father”. I believe because of those reasons it was him that did the crime not his mental illness.