Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Crime Rarely Associated with Mental Illness

That is the title of this article I am writing about. I was going to write about how people with mental illness die younger then I found this article and I think it is a better article I will write the other next week.  I can attest to the article since I had my mental illness and was released from the state hospital I have no contact with the law.  This is from a person who they always stopped and even my friends would get stopped thinking they were me.  You hear about the crimes that are committed usually shooting’s that make the news.  They do not happen all the time.
What the article is saying is that they are arrested and it has nothing to do with the mental illness symptoms. Last week’s blog talked about the people that were incarcerated.  Here is some news about solitary confinement there is a bill in the house .It is bad for people with mental illness to be locked up with people who committee crimes.  The last time I was locked up was in the state hospital.  I believe that I had to prove myself that I wanted to be free.  I was on something called conditional release.  You see my sentence to the state hospital was one day to life.  To be free I had to do five years conditional release and that included UAs every month for five years.
If it had been prior to my mental illness I could not have done five years conditional release.  I could not even do one year parole without be locked up for parole violation.  Although being in the state hospital I had a chance to change my life around and I did it.  That meant giving up alcohol and drugs because with them you have no chance of turning things around.  If you take all the people locked up with and without a mental illness most are in because of alcohol and drugs when they committed their crimes. If you ask am I satisfied with my life today I would say yes.
I would not have known my grandkids except through pictures and stuff because I would have always been locked up that was the way my life went back then.  To not watch them grow up would have been hard. As I said last week people and mental illness do not need to be locked up in prison or jail they need the state hospital.  It feels good knowing that I can walk the streets now and not worry about being stopped or walking on the wrong lawn and getting arrested. It feels good getting to see my grandkids and know they can come over to visit.

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