Jared Loughner and Mental Illness

Jared Loughner, the gunman who shot Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others, received seven life sentences today. I’m glad that Loughner will never have the chance to shoot anyone else, but in my opinion, demonizing Loughner--who is clearly mentally ill and who, by all accounts, was in the midst of a psychotic episode when he went on his killing spree--will not help.

Most who know me well are aware that my mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Thankfully, she never got hold of a gun and blew anyone away while she was psychotic, but if she had done something like that, it would NOT have been because she was evil or because she was a bad person. She was severely mentally ill, and there were periods in her life when she was unable to grasp what was going on in the real world around her. Most of the time, this meant she was more of a risk to herself than anyone else. We had to watch her like a parent would watch a toddler. It was exhausting, and frustrating, and you can bet I did my share of bitching at her for doing stupid and possibly dangerous things. But ultimately the bitching was completely and totally pointless, and that’s because she wasn’t trying my patience for the fun of it. She was mentally ill, and blaming someone for being mentally ill is as irrational as blaming someone for having a nightmare.

Some people have diseases that attack their lungs. Some have diseases that attack their kidneys. Some have heart disease. AND SOME HAVE BRAIN DISEASE. You can shake your moralizing finger all you want to, preach until the cows come home, pontificate until you’re blue in the face, throw every person like Jared Loughner under the prison, and it will not prevent one single person on this planet from experiencing a psychotic episode.

The human brain is a very fragile thing, and certain people are vulnerable. We need to figure out how to get these people the help they need BEFORE they do something awful, and we need to do that while also respecting and protecting civil liberties. We know that governments can and will use its power to commit citizens for political purposes. It’s happened before. Individuals have been known to “put away” family members for nefarious reasons. We have to guard against these things, but we also need to face the fact that a certain number of people among us are so mentally ill they are a threat to themselves and others. These people need our help, not our scorn and condemnation.