Parents / Family – Mental disease is like any disorder such as substance abuse. In most instances, there is a denial that there is a problem. If parents do not intervene and admit the child has a problem nothing is going to be done even if the school does its job. The same can be said for young adults, if they fail to admit they have a problem then nothing will be done until they hit rock bottom. And we have seen the consequences of what can happen when a person hits rock bottom – they commit selfish acts of violence. Many studies indicate there is high correlation between mental disorders and environmental conditions. Hence, children are not necessarily born with a mental disorder, but they develop the illness based on their experiences. Kids whose parents are non-existent and therefore raised by daycare or other people are more likely to develop mental disorders. Kids who have bad diets are more likely to develop mental disorders because they lack essential nutrients and vitamins to function properly (and no I am not advocating government intervention over family diets). Kids who spend more time watching TV and playing video games than doing other healthy activities such as reading, studying, or physical activity are more likely to develop mental diseases. I do not know if there is correlation between watching violence on TV and playing violent video games with a person becoming violent. But there is correlation to kids living in unhealthy family environments and violence. It is hard to remove children from unhealthy environments. And those that are removed from their homes are usually placed into another unhealthy situation as a foster child.
Doctors – Many doctors like to treat symptoms with medication and fail to identify and enforce lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise to overcome mental illnesses.
Personal Responsibility – People must be accountable for themselves and their disorder. A bipolar person is like a reformed alcoholic, if they quit taking their medication because they think they are healed, their lives will start to spiral out of control. An alcoholic does the same thing, they can be alcohol free for 10 years and all the sudden they think they can drink one beer. One beer leads to 2 beers the following week until they are back to being full time alcoholics. Only 10% of substance abuse sufferers stay reformed. Meaning only one in 10 people who quit drinking or doing drugs never do it again for the rest of their lives. Some stay clean for 20 years before having a relapse. I think the same is true for people with mental illnesses, at some point they feel they are cured and will stop taking their medicine.
Narcissism – This is the biggest issue today and is getting worse. It is obvious that mass murderers have no compassion or feelings for others. They only care about themselves. Today, our culture is fostering narcissism. Social media, the everyone receives an award mentality, helicopter parenting, and so forth are all things fostering narcissism. Kids playing video games who are isolated from social interaction will become narcissists and this is one major symptom for people who conduct mass killings.
Channeling Anger - My personal experience is that I was both physically and mentally abused. This coupled with a learning disability did not bode well for me. As a youngster and young adult I regularly got in fights and got in trouble. I abused alcohol and regularly had thoughts of “getting revenge” and “vindication”. Fortunately, I had feelings towards others and was able to realize my thoughts were not reasonable and channeled my rage to prove people wrong. For instance, I worked hard and received an electrical engineering degree to prove to my mother I was not the “dumb idiot” she thought. Everyone needs to find a way to channel their anger. When I was diagnosed with Benign Fasciculation Syndrome, it brought back many bad childhood memories as I contemplated what could have triggered this disorder. This angered me, but fortunately I channeled this anger to try to find answers about the disorder. My point is that there must be a resourceful way for people to channel their anger, without this people with mental disorders may act irrationally.
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