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ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Rethinking Responses

Jack Bragen
Thursday October 01, 2015 - 10:58:00 PM

Schizophrenia and bipolar are both illnesses that can worsen the tendency toward anger. This is more so for someone who refuses treatment. However, despite being medicated, a schizophrenic or bipolar person can have a worse than average temper, because of how our brains are built. Therefore, in order to exist among people, we must work to remain as peaceful as we can and we must learn to avoid getting verbally abusive.  

In my last psychotic episode, which took place in 1996 and was a result of stopping medication, authorities described me as "hostile and nonviolent."  

When I was being 5150'd, I nonviolently resisted police. In that instance, police did not overreact, and knew that I needed to be hospitalized rather than jailed. This is partly because communication had occurred with my girlfriend (who would later be my wife), with the individual at the church (probably the rector), police, and with my mom. This meant that there was some understanding that I was mentally ill, among police and with the head of the church to which I had walked (about an eight-mile, or ten-mile walk, from downtown Martinez to Pleasant Hill).  

Later, when I met with the judge in a "Riese Hearing," (a legal process which was for the purpose of getting me to take medication) the judge said he would tell the two officers not to press charges for resisting arrest if I would agree to take antipsychotic medication.  

Aside from the main subject of this article, the above is an ideal example of how things are supposed to work when dealing with a mentally ill person who is acutely ill. I was fortunate. The above is also an example of how I had learned to have nonviolent responses ingrained to the extent that they continued to work for me even when I had become acutely ill.  

Once in treatment, rethinking responses to situations that feel extremely stressful or provocative is a very powerful technique and can prevent other people from abandoning their attempts to deal with us. If we feel that we are going to get mad at someone, we are better off walking away and getting some space.  

Changing the emotions behind this is a bit more difficult, but can be accomplished given enough practice. Medication also helps with reducing anger levels. Depakote is a mood stabilizer that can alleviate a lot of anger, and so can Zyprexa, an antipsychotic with some mood stabilizer properties.  

At some point, friends and family became tired of my tendency to get hostile, and I was forced to employ a lot more tact, or I would reap some consequences. In recent years I have given more thought to the feelings of other people, and have put my discomfort into a perspective, in which a situation is no longer just about how I feel--other people have feelings as well.  

A simple method that helps in alleviating anger is to try to see things from the perspective of the other person. Another method is to imagine you are an observer who sees you from an outside perspective, and who assesses how you come across. A third method is to gain an understanding of oneself in order to discern why a particular situation or event is upsetting.  

Angry responses to events aren't universal--things that make one person angry do not make another person feel that way. While our culture expects us to be upset by certain things, our culture is not intrinsically correct. Just because certain things make 99.9 percent of people angry, it doesn’t mean that you have to feel that way. 

On the other hand, if you have been a recipient of abuse, you probably should not try not to be angry about it. Forgiving a perpetrator is iffy territory and can sometimes be bad for you. Do not forgive until ready. Readiness to let go of anger perhaps means that you have dealt with your feelings concerning an event, and you have become ready, on a psychological level, to rise above it.  

Abuses happen in the mental health treatment system, sometimes perpetrated by supposed mental health professionals. This is one of many reasons why sometimes it is hard to get mentally ill people to accept treatment. To some mentally ill persons, accepting treatment feels like accepting supposed help from an abuser. It is necessary for a mentally ill person to understand we are accepting treatment to help ourselves and not in order to please any other person.  

Toning down anger is generally a favor that we are doing for ourselves. If we get angry and speak in an angry tone too often, we risk losing people's cooperation. Since we live in a society filled with people, we need to deal peacefully with some of them.