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How To Talk About Mental Illness Online?
An anonymous reader writes: Shortly after the death of Debian founder Ian Murdock, Bruce Perens, who succeeded Murdock as Debian Project Leader in 1996 and was also Murdock's employer for a period of time, claimed very publicly that Murdock died of mental illness, although no evidence has been provided. Without referencing Murdock or Perens, another prominent Debian Developer, Daniel Pocock, has asserted that discussion about who has or had a mental illness is a step too far. To be fair, it sure doesn't sound like Perens was trying to do other than express sympathy in light of a tragic death.
Well for some jobs people with serious mental illnesses should never ever be placed in those positions. Like airline pilots. A crazy person's right to privacy does not trump the right of passengers to not be smeared all over the Alps because some lunatic decides to kill himself and take a bunch of people with him.
Such a person is homicidal, not suicidal. They just also happen to be suicidal.
It really depends on the mental illness. The problem you have comes when you stigmatize the mental illness and make the breadth of jobs you're disqualifying people from too big. In the United States, we have an absurd number of jobs that require security clearances and really shouldn't. Between that, the stigma, and the fact that you need to report mental treatment, we have at *least* hundreds of thousands of people in sensitive positions who can do their job, but are working with *undiagnosed and untreated* mental illnesses. Which is just dumb. A pilot or a low-level analyst at the CIA should be able to talk to a psychologist about his depression without having to worry that he's going to lose his job. Otherwise it makes him more depressed, he *doesn't* seek help or treatment, and he is much more likely--for example--to commit suicide and take a bunch of people with him. Or to compromise national security.
Some professions and institutions are better about it than they were twenty years ago, certainly. But the stigma is still very high and the pro-treatment aspect is nowhere where it needs to be.
I think he has a good, solid point. There are significantly more men in mental institutions than women, and I think I know why: nobody will put up with crazy shit from a man. He is just labeled dangerous and stigmatized. People put up with crazy shit from women all day. They are just as dangerous, you've got to sleep sometime. Men are still culturally expected to be the breadwinners, but they are probably equally likely to suffer a debilitating mental illness, so there's an additional component of stress there. None of this excuses any particular kind of behavior.
Do you have some alternate theory as to why there are more men in mental institutions than women? Because I'll read it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"