6 ms·

I agree but I have a close family member who has been struggling with something similar her whole life. Luckily between disability and family she has never been

I agree but I have a close family member who has been struggling with something similar her whole life. Luckily between disability and family she has never been homeless but for about three decades she was only part time living in reality. It would take getting arrested for making a scene somewhere and court ordered back on medication for her to come back. Luckily she has been doing awesome for long time now, even holding a volunteer job, not sure what the change was. If she was never court ordered I don't think she would have ever came back. Then again I'm not sure who can be trusted to decide if someone is making decisions based on reality or fantasy.

throwaway7767 10y ago
As a counter-anecdote, I know a mentally ill person (mostly functional, luckily, but he gets paranoid delusions during the worst times). His family pressed the doctors hard to have him involuntarily committed one time since he refused to go. From what I can tell, the primary effect of that is that he now has an intense distrust of doctors and those family members, and it would be a lot harder for doctors to help him now, even if they tried to approach him with more empathy. The only people now who can sometimes talk him down when he's having problems are me and a couple of other family members that did not participate in pushing for involuntary committal.
mercer 10y ago
What I struggle with personally is the question whether it is for us to decide what constitutes 'better off'. Perhaps for some homeless people the best life they can have, at least within our current, flawed system, is on the streets. Part of the reason why I'm struggling with this question is that since about a year it also applies to me, to an extent. My problem is unrelated to homelessness, but it seems clearer and clearer that the solution that works for me (read: makes me happier and more 'functional' than anything else I've tried) could be considered by many people to be 'worse off', and consequently eligible for some degree of intervention, simply because they are not like myself. There are no easy answers to these questions, but I feel such answers start with compassion and active engagement with and understanding of those whose lives we are 'managing'. Social workers probably qualify, and the managerial class are probably the last to do so.

throwaway7767 10y ago

As a counter-anecdote, I know a mentally ill person (mostly functional, luckily, but he gets paranoid delusions during the worst times). His family pressed the doctors hard to have him involuntarily committed one time since he refused to go. From what I can tell, the primary effect of that is that he now has an intense distrust of doctors and those family members, and it would be a lot harder for doctors to help him now, even if they tried to approach him with more empathy. The only people now who can sometimes talk him down when he's having problems are me and a couple of other family members that did not participate in pushing for involuntary committal.

mercer 10y ago

What I struggle with personally is the question whether it is for us to decide what constitutes 'better off'. Perhaps for some homeless people the best life they can have, at least within our current, flawed system, is on the streets. Part of the reason why I'm struggling with this question is that since about a year it also applies to me, to an extent. My problem is unrelated to homelessness, but it seems clearer and clearer that the solution that works for me (read: makes me happier and more 'functional' than anything else I've tried) could be considered by many people to be 'worse off', and consequently eligible for some degree of intervention, simply because they are not like myself. There are no easy answers to these questions, but I feel such answers start with compassion and active engagement with and understanding of those whose lives we are 'managing'. Social workers probably qualify, and the managerial class are probably the last to do so.