Anti-ACLU-2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Finally, a bit of sanity creeps into a New York Times editorial:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/opinion/nocera-guns-and-mental-illness.html?src=me&ref=general
Mr. Nocera points out in the article that during the 1970s and 1980s there was a big move to “de-institutionalize” the mentally ill. Much of this was done by the ACLU purportedly motivated by protecting the rights of the mentally ill against abusive detainment.
The result was that the individuals who lacked the capacity to exercise rational judgment about the need for their own care were given the power to make decisions about their need for care.
This is a personal story for me, as there was a close family member who was in and out of treatment in clinics, hospitals, group homes, locked-down care facilities in centers for study of such cases. Especially after he reached majority age, he was often able to sign himself out of such places, even after he had been initially brought there by police after acting in ways that presented a clear danger to himself or to others.
It was a source of frustration over the years. During puberty and adolescence, during growth spurts and hormone changes, it was evident to me that doctors sometimes found it difficult to find the proper dosage of one or another med he was taking, even after he himself overcame the reluctance.
I did not like the idea at first of him getting a diagnosis and getting drugs instead of learning to live and cope but after a couple of what I call “episodes”, I relented to the probable need for it. My reluctance had to do with his domestic circumstances in growing up that I figured may have unduly influenced his behavior habits, which manifest among many adolescents in similar “episodes”, and seeing too much eagerness in some authorities and authority figures to administer a drug as first resort when there are other and sometimes better solutions.
But I had seen other situations in which one fellow mission worker, who was “normal” in all respects, became delusional after she skipped her medicine one day. That clinched it that there are cases where it is a matter of a physical problem located in the area of the brain, although I still know there have been cases of demonic possession as well, and some of those I understand have been documented.
Years later, the news came to me that she had been healed, her body -including her brain- had healed, and she no longer needed the prescriptions, and had re-married.
Praise God for healing.
So that gave me hope in the situation closer to me, but it ended much more sadly. I love him and miss him, but I also know that he loved Jesus, he had eternal life, and that in 98 percent of his days were full of sweetness and light and fun with the kids around him. He affected a great many lives for the better, as I saw with the pleasant surprise of how many came to say goodbye to him.
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