While rereading the post below about Jordan Neely, it occurred to me that I should write something about why so-called "community treatment" of mental illness doesn't work. Community treatment centers are supposed to prescribe and manage meds to keep the insane more or less under control without necessitating their incarceration.
The problem is that those being "medicated" for mental illness often don't like how they feel while medicated. A bipolar (formerly called manic-depressive) friend described missing the manic highs while taking his lithium. How he felt when medicated was dull, sort of blah. He didn't miss the suicidal lows, but oh, those highs were exciting, he said he felt invincible, like he had superpowers.
When the outpatient mentally ill stop taking their meds because they don't like how they feel, we get to "enjoy" their erratic behavior. Some of us don't survive those encounters, or end up with PTSD.
----------
Afterthought: Much of our homeless problem exists because mentally ill people prefer the apparently pleasant effects of street drugs to the dulling effects of Rx meds for their conditions. Perhaps we should provide drugs similar to street drugs in our inpatient facilities, drugs the mentally ill would enjoy, something like Huxley's Soma?
