Her dad apparently made a great recovery; the sad thing is that the event that made it possible is a heart attack, i.e. an organic condition. Shows how little society cares about mental illness IMHO (although free will issues have been pointed out)
I read (or skimmed) most of the comments here first, before reading the article. The content of the article was not what I expected after reading the debate here about whether or not to just lock up "crazy"/homeless people.<p>I am currently homeless. I am not mentally ill. I am medically handicapped. I am very clear what I need. I need an income that does not keep me sick. I find it frustrating to read discussions of this sort.<p>I think a lot of people on the street would be far better off and face far fewer barriers to getting their life back together if there was dramatically less prejudice. Most homeless people are on the street because they have overwhelming personal problems that society does not have good solutions for, not because these individuals are incompetent. Even if you are extraordinarily competent and know exactly what you need and want in order to get your life functional again, the degree to which you face prejudice and people who are dismissive, disrespectful, and controlling makes it an uphill battle, much more so than I think it really needs to be.<p>The baseline difficulties are plenty hard on their own if you have certain conditions. But facing so much social stigma and often offered "help" of a sort that makes you want to scream "Please stop helping me!" while denied access to the kinds of help you actually need, that more middle class people can more readily access, sometimes just for asking because they don't face the same stigma and prejudice -- that alone is pretty crazy making. It usually does not go over well to try to comment on such frustrations. People want to see themselves as good and right and do not want to hear that they are making things harder and are behaving in a classist manner. I am often at a loss as to where can you talk about such things and have it be a productive discussion?<p>I think that really needs to change. If we can change that, then being homeless becomes less of a trap that seems nigh impossible to escape.
Beautiful story. Not very relative to HN I think, but it's good to see the world throught other points of view, sometimes.<p>Thanks for this post.
Man, so many comments, so many musings about individual freedom and whatnot, and I have yet to see one that mentions the actual, and IMHU perfectly logical, criteria that mental care institutions use to decide whether to intern someone against their will:<p>"Is this person a serious danger for himself/herself or other people?"<p>Note that it's not the institution the one to make the decision, but a judge. And, also, taking completely someones freedom away is a very extreme measure that will only be considered for really extreme cases, there are a lot of middle grounds, from compulsory regular visits to the doctor to home visits from the doctor. But all of this, is not usually necessary because most of the people that are mentally ill, know that there is something wrong with them and will voluntarily seek treatment.<p>It's at least peculiar than when people from the US are asked about mental healthcare, their visceral reaction is "OMG!!! THEY ARE GOING TO TAKE AWAY MY FREEDOM!!!". So much fear, so little idea about how an actual mental care system works.<p>Source: exGF psychiatrist in a western European country with a strong public healthcare network.
Does anyone know why this story is suddenly in the news? I remember reading her original post at least a year ago, which had all of the same photos. Now, I'm seeing it all over Reddit and here. It feels like that Gotye song all over again.
I think it's very unethical that she published the initial pictures without consent (from what I understand, sounds like he didn't know the pictures until she showed him when he was better) even if she is a family member and did it "in good faith" and even when he gave her implicit permission after the fact.<p>I also can't help but wonder why she didn't bring him to a hospital when she first saw him in the streets. I'm actually shocked that she basically let him wander around knowing his condition.<p>Thankfully this turned out fine but it leaves me fairly disheartened.
Why wasn't he brought to a hospital by someone, people clearly saw him wandering around. I mean I can understand letting him be and live free if you know nothing about him (other people passing by daily) but she knew his condition and should have intervened herself imo.