i thought since the original post was locked i thought i'd put this up for discussion.

JD seems to think he has some magic insight into my value judgements arround mental illness, and by doing so has really miffed me off! putting that on one side.


so as a rebuttle and as a general open question, do people think that being mentally unwell can be used as an excuse for a persons actions? good or bad?

I think this thread will, and should, be locked very shortly. You raise a very interesting question but even with OT attached to it, this really is not the place to discuss it.

it was originally raised in relation to a certain rugby league player who was suffering from stress. i felt a need to redress a rather opinionated response to my post, that along with a generalised open question about mental illness in general.

people have all sort of O/T discussions on this forum including which pub has the worst scouse landlord, so why not my thread?

Good question but a straightforward answer imo.If a person is deemed to be mentally unfit if he/she commits an offence that to me means not of sound mind so therefore that person is surely not responsible for their actions but strangely that makes me think of The Yorksire Ripper who i still say hoodwinked the shrinks just so he could go to a cushier place.Good question though.

but did he, initially he went to wakefield prison where he later ? developed a mental illness. he still was sentenced as not mentally ill.

Mental illness makes people think and behave irrationally. It isn't an excuse for one's mistakes, it is often the reason for them. The law recognises that so why should a rugby league forum be so condemning? I hope you never have the misfortune to experience what the effects of mental illness are on the individual, the family and the people around them. Stress isn't just feeling a bit under pressure, it affects every waking moment. I would hope that if it was a member of your family you would react with a bit more sensitivity and compassion, and the same is due to strangers, sportsmen and celebrities.

Slim edit your 1st post so that it looks more constructive and doesn't look like a personal attack on JD i.e. Make an opening statement or ask a question rather than respond to a previous statement on another thread (which was locked).

If you do that i'll keep it open.

you put that so much better than i could have!

done



i must be honest i was outraged when i read the response to my original statement yed. i typed in anger as a response to a veiled personal attack. i do however feel that discussing stress and mental illness in general, not just in rugby league is relevant.

Until about 12 years ago I had never encountered anyone that I knew to have any form of mental illness (I now know that as a result of his experiences in the Far East during the war my Grandad suffered terribley from schizophrenia and depression when I was very young - would now be called post traumatic stress, but the family would hide this from 'the children')

I now know differently. Some forms of mental illness can be massively debilitating to the person involved and also has an enormous impact on their close family and friends. People can do the most irrational things from simple apparently eccentric behaviour through to some quite disturbing acts against themselves or others. I think that unless you or a member of your family has suffered then it is very difficult to understand how an invisible illness can affect someones emotions and behaviour so dramatically.

Regardless of the causes, often their are no causes, to dismiss or laugh at someones illness is unacceptable.

On a similar tangent

I remember My Aunt Louise as a kid, fantastic cook and baked the most beautiful cakes for me even to this day,her lemon meringue pie was my favourite and i went to her house every 2nd Sunday for lunch. She had a wonderful aura about her and although she had a deep husky voice from all the cigs she smoked from being so young she was an absolute lady.

In her late 60's she started becoming awfully forgetful and i remember eating my potatoes with a lip pursing sweet gravy then tucking in to the worst salty cake ever when she had mixed up the ingredients. From then on i watched her slowly leave us, she was still there in body but about 8 or 9 months from that incident she didn't even know who i was and about 4 years on from that she was gone completely.

Illnesses of the brain are probably the worst and least understood and i don't think it would do the world any harm if we tried to understand and empathise a little bit more.

As i have spent time in the priory clinic in Hale/Altrincham i know what the effects of my illness were on my family. I suffered for quite a while with depression and know that i will more than likely have repeat instances throughout my life. My eldest 2 boys at that time were 4 and 2 and not able to understand why there father could lurch from intense highs to debilitating lows. Why at the drop of a hat there father could start kicking in the kitchen cupboard doors for no apparent reason or spend a whole day in bed. I got help and through the priory using chemical and cognitive therapy i managed to turn it around. Anybody who thinks that mental illness is to be sneered at or ashamed of wants to spend a day there talking to the residents. Thankfully im annonymous on RL fans thats why i can tell you my story without worrying about the unavoidable stigma that comes with it.

That part is a really sad reflection on society, i suffered with it heavy for 4 years and actually through tough PMA and will power got my self out of it, i got through the stigma through strength of character and openly telling other people who felt down what i had been through to try to inspire them that there is a way out of it or at least just giving hope for some people.

I'm another who has struggled with depression through my last two years of university, this was down to becoming a bit of a recluse and being quite alone with my thoughts for a long time. However thanks to friends, family and some great treatment from therapists and doctors i managed to bring myself out of it again. Those who dismiss 'mental illness' so lightly have never struggled with, or known someone that struggled with it.

On the Gleeson thread there were a lot of people being very negative, now i don't support a lot of the decisions he has made in his career, but i don't know the in's and out's of his personal life and therefore try not to make such swift judgements on his leave of absence through stress.

For all we know, the club could be protecting Gleeson by saying he is stressed, and it could be some much more deeper mental illness that he and they do not want to expose to the public, which is completely fair. Having lost one of his best friends and mentors last year, his head could very well be scrambled and i think if i lost someone so close to me in those circumstances, i wouldnt be able to concentrate on my work.

For those of you that have suffered before, you are not alone, and we will see brigther days, but for those who haven't, try not to be so quick to judge next time, you never know it might be you begging for help and breaking down next.

Personally I've never suffered directly from a mental illness but I have suffered indirectly. My mother suffered and as a direct consequence all around her suffered. How my Dad put up with what he did I'll never know.

the public's attitude to mental illness is quite simply cynical. If you can't touch it, it's not real. A broken leg, a tumour, stitches all will evoke sympathy from all around. Say I'm feeling a bit down and can't really cope will just evoke scorn and speculation.

It's a problem for society to face but that begins by us all as individuals facing and admitting our own prejudice. I only hope that every one reading this does not personally experience any form of mental illness but the truth is that probably most of you have.

The next time you read a headline about a celebrity suffering from Bi-polar or stress or an addiction (which I personally class as a mental illness) stop and imagine if it was your Mother, Father, Sister, Brother or you and think how you would want the people you know to react to it.

I think this is a great OT thread, and don't see why, if we can stay on topic it would be locked. Mental illness is an extremely emotive topic. Poorly understood by the medical establishment, and even less so by those like myself.

If I am physically ill, I am able to say so and will receive sympathy from my peers. If I were to admit to the same peers, that I was mentally ill, I'm not sure that the reaction would be the same. I am convinced that this stems from ignorance and nothing more. In my very limited experience, those whom I have encountered that have had the courage to admit that the are suffering from a mental illness, have made remarkable progress. This has been achieved with the support and tolerance of those around them.

Categorisation that most of us prescribe to due to our ignorance, serves us no gain. As with physical illness there exists a wide spectrum, which by definition, most of us spend our life on. I am eternally gratefully of the support of my family, 'there but for the grace of god go I'

There is a difference though. Just as there is with any physical problem. There are conditions that are intrinsic and those that are extrinsic. Psychologists are not good at distinguishing between the two. I still have to catch myself as, upon hearing the news that somebody is suffering from a mental illness, an image of Jack Nicholson appears in my minds eye.

Perhaps threads like this, will result in a better understanding, and therefore tolerance of the issue. People may feel free to come out and say 'I don't feel quite right'. They may add 'Couldn't you see from my behaviour over the years that rather than your derision I would have benefited from you support?'

Perhaps this Nirvana of which I speak doesn't exist. I would like to think though, that as a race we could reach the stage where the mocking, and fear of those with a mental illness was regarded by the majority with the same abhorrence as the mocking of those with a physical illness.




I have an opinion on this, and will post tomorrow.

depression and stress are very misunderstood conditions in this country, especially by doctors, who tend to fob people off with "oh you have chemical imbalance of the brain" because they haven't got the time nor inclination to deal with it, this chemical imbalance of the brain is actually a sympton rather than the cause of the condition and telling somebody that it is an illness similar to cold that they've caught is wrong and counter productive, depression and stress is caused quite simply by picking up depressive thinking styles and can quite easily be treated with cognitive therapy (learning to look out for key phrases and words that trigger negative inner reactions), it can also be passed down through families because we tend to copy our parents way of thinking!

My other half is a Mental Health Nurse so i called her to look at this thread and she simply can't believe what all of you guys are saying, she says based on the commebnts so far there isn't a single person on here who has even the most basic understanding of Mental Health.

Oh and manco, she says you need to see a Doctor.

You can assure her i know plenty, more than i'd like to go on about on here. Face to face though i'd think i'd surprise her with what i know.

i did and it made me worse, whereas cognitive therapy worked, proof is in the pudding my friend, what's your other halfs solution then, drugs?

What, as in one look and she'd say 'Apologies, I got that wrong. He's definately mental.'

She doesn't provide the solutions, she provides the care.

Obviously you clearly don't understant Mental Health, there aren't any solutions, you care for the client and manage their symptoms, if you have a Mental Health issue you have it for life, at times you may not show any symptoms but the illness is still there.

Two reasons:-

1 - It's bound to descend into farce and insults like the last one.
2 - Mental health is a very serious subject - just because it has OT in front of it doesn't mean it's appropriate for this forum.

It appears the only reason it hasn't been locked is because one of the mods has experience and/or interest in the subject.

Firstly, I would like to apologise if I have so enraged you Slim that you needed to start a new thread to get back at me (this is not some sarcy post). You had enraged me and just like you admit to posting this thread after seeing red, I too rattled off a post, pressed send and forgot about it.

You have, however, started quite the eye opening thread and I would certainly like to wish those that are or who have suffered with depression in the past my most thought filled wishes. I know that it can be one of the most diabilitating things to enter a person's life.

I personally have suffered with depression since high school; however as such a young person not only was I reluctant to address my behaviour, but this wasn't helped when, after I finally went to see a medical professional, I did not disclose the truth and was told it was something else. This led to a very dark period that, although was probably natural of a mental condition, some of the actions I took then I look back on with regret. Ultimately I did eventually find the solution to my problems. It came with drugs, therapy at Garven Place and a new outlook on life. I have had bad times since going to University but I thought more like myself now than I have for years an I think I could say for the first time in years I am happy. However, as I said, I have bad periods and I know that will probably be the case forever.

However, I think of my case as extremely trivial compared to some of the people I have met. I have not many people with Dementia or Schizophrenia and personally no very little about the subject. I have met many people with very severe forms of depression. People who have not been able to leave the house through fear and this has been the case with a few people very close to me.

In answer to the question that has been tagged on the end of your post; I think you have asked a very open question. Should we hold someone with schizophrenia accountable for their actions? I would find that question difficult to answer, as I don't know a great deal about the condition and, as with all mental conditions to some extent, there is a changing in the person when suffered. When does someone not become themselves? That is the problem when we talk of mental health issues. The brain[i is[/i the person. I can only talk from my experience and my views on my own condition. I am embarrassed by some of the things I have done. I realize I was selfish at times and I don't think I am alone in that thought. I suppose my answer varies on degree of mental illness; as alien as that sounds.

I look forward to a response and some illumination, as I know this is your area of expertise, Slim.