SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Velonews reports that former champion cyclist Twigg got a CS degree but wasn't too successful in that career, and is now homeless in Seattle, https://www.velonews.com/2019/04/news/now-homeless-twigg-opens-up-in-article-with-seattle-times_492734 A longer version of the story/interview appears in the Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/olympic-medal-winning-cyclist-rebecca-twigg-is-homeless-in-seattle/
Rebecca Twigg has now been without a home for almost five years in Seattle, living first with friends and family, then in her car, then in homeless shelters and then, for a night, under garbage bags on the street downtown. She hasn't had a bike for years, and no one recognizes her anymore, she says.
Twigg, 56, agreed to share her story to convince the public that not all homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol; that there are many like her, who have struggled with employment and are "confused," as she said she is, about what to do next with their lives. She did not want to discuss mental health but feels it should be treated more seriously in Washington.
"Some of the hard days are really painful when you're training for racing," Twigg said, "but being homeless, when you have little hope or knowledge of where the finish line is going to be, is just as hard."
[...] She was spotted at 17 by famous cycling coach Eddie Borysewicz. After she won the world championship, he invited her to live in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and train for the 1984 Olympic Games, where for the first time, women would be competing on bicycles.
Americans dominated the Olympics that year. Twigg won a silver medal, missing gold by a few inches to famous racer Connie Carpenter. She continued on her way up over the next several years, setting world records, winning world titles, and racing more than 60 times a year. She became known for her competition in individual pursuit, where two cyclists start at the same time on opposite sides of the track and each tries to catch the other. She's still among the most-decorated athletes in pursuit.
But the breakneck pace couldn't continue forever. She was married and soon after divorced. She crashed in Texas, broke her thumb and got 13 stitches in her head. The following year she felt burned out. She took a break at age 26, and that year she grew an entire inch, possibly because her body no longer had to expend so much energy training.
Twigg got an associate degree in computer science and became a programmer for a seaweed-products company in San Diego.
Twigg says the career wasn't a perfect fit. She quit and started training for the 1992 Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal in the 3,000-meter pursuit after only nine months of training. As she entered her 30s, she became regarded as the best American female cyclist.
The article has more details, she tried other IT jobs, but (not surprisingly to me) it sounds like her heart wasn't really in it.
If you were in her spot, what would you do for a second act, after such stunning early success in international sports? Some former athletes become motivational speakers or coaches, but she may not be the "self promoter" type, relying on her skill/strength for her success instead of team politics.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:06PM (20 children)
No, many homeless people do indeed have families. She relates what is actually a very common theme: people rely on their families until the strain on that family becomes too great and the family feels like they can no longer offer that support. That's usually the point people slip over into starting to stay in shelters (or on the street).
And it also reads like she was someone who either wasn't given the opportunity to have a normal home, or intentionally chose to leave home early (the story is a little ambiguous about that). But I wouldn't call 16 an age where one fully understands what having a grounded life means. So she probably didn't appreciate when she was being asked to give something she was no longer capable of (her 1984 performance) that leaving that life was a very serious decision.
She also seems to have several issues with evaluating her life (mental issues with priorities evaluations), but is not ready to face them yet.
The basic theme, though, is that homelessness is never as tidy or as pretty as those who have never worked with the homeless want to imagine. (Most people don't "want" homelessness, but find themselves there.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:44PM (19 children)
She's crazy. Full stop. She was kicked out of her mother's home at 16 but not her sister. That doesn't usually happen unless there are unresolvable issues with the kid. Quitting good jobs because "it wasn't a good fit" without any backup plan. Quitting a job because she "thought she might be getting fired." Disappearing from work for extended periods with no notice or explanation. Refusing to respond to job interviews just because. The daughter refuses to be involved in the story or apparently help out mom. Family in the area have kicked her out multiple times. She decides to sleep outdoors because "she's too privileged and others have to sleep outside."
This all adds up to crazy. The article author just refuses to call it out.
Unfortunately there are no longer any public facilities to care for these people. When family gives up on trying to help, there is no safe harbor of last resort. I have seen many of them on the streets; from mildly nuts to full-on batshit crazy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 17 2019, @08:06PM
Likely so. "Crazy" doesn't solve the problem, though. "Crazy" covers way too much ground. "Crazy" stigmatizes the person and is likely a prime reason why the person won't admit that it is part of the issue.
But there's not thing "unfortunate" about it: We have chosen as our societies, Federal, State, and Local, to eliminate many of the programs which provide care for these people. We could provide greater assistance to those who want it and need it. But we do not, and it does not cost politicians their jobs to eliminate those programs.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:14PM (17 children)
"When family gives up on trying to help, there is no safe harbor of last resort."
Because jagoffs like you say shit like "She's crazy. Full stop." and feel justified ignoring your pangs of conscience. Reagan destroyed public health and education, the country has been sliding downhill ever since. Preventative medicine is cheaper and more effective than curative medicine. Just deal with the fact that it is a better idea for society as a whole to make sure these people do not slip through the cracks and become a greater burden. There is your rationale so even if you are an unfeeling sociopath there is no reason to not support the homeless.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:24PM (16 children)
I've been trying this argument on one of the worst offenders (KHallow) and getting nowhere.
The truth is, they don't really have an economic argument. Not really. They say they do, but deep down, they just don't want anyone they see as "undeserving" or even worse, subhuman, to get "free shit." They are willing to pay more (or, likely, make everyone else pay more, and not just in monetary terms) to see to it that "those people" suffer.
And when called on it, they will outright deny it. They will look you right in the face, unblinking, buttery-smooth, and deny it, and gaslight you and call you crazy or Communist or both.
I can't comprehend what could make someone this way. It would take deliberate, willful ignorance of how everything from psychology to economics works to even arrive at this position to begin with, and the defensive mechanisms deployed when reality is pointed out to them point to something deeply disordered in their personalities.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:59AM (2 children)
While I think your response is a little hyperbolic, the type of thinking you describe comes about from forming an opinion purely on principles and morals. It's an absolutist's mode of thinking. You can't argue a position arrived at through blind application of morals because it isn't a logical or rational position, and it never considers outcomes. Much like the immigration debate.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:04PM
Parser warning, you are saying "applying principles and morals is wrong" by principle.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:13PM
You know, I'm not one of those people who says "you can't get an ought from an is." That line always baffled me. Where the fuck ELSE are you gonna get an ought, which is a "what would likely work in the future," BESIDES from what already is?
So the only thing I'm "blindly applying" (read: taking as axiomatic) is that reason works, at least to some extent. That there is either an external reality or, if it turns out solipsism is true, something so closely approximating it that for all intents and purposes it doesn't matter, and that we are all bound by it.
I respect empiricism and testing. We have done the experiment: for those who are not too far gone, which is most of the homeless, housing-first approaches not only work, they are far cheaper in monetary terms (to say nothing of, e.g., morals and karma...) than the current paradigm. If this makes me an absolutist, then so be it; I am *proud* to be an absolutist for epistemology that works.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday April 18 2019, @01:34PM (12 children)
I have had this discussion many times with friends. As someone who was married to a person with mental issues, I am all too familiar in dealing with it. The sad part is that if your spouse has cancer or emphysema or any myriad of physical ailments, they understand that they are sick and work toward treating their problem. Far too often, and certainly in my case, the mentally ill deny there is a problem and actively fight the help they desperately need. When the family "gives up" it is usually because they have exhausted their ability to try to help their loved one or cope with the fallout and they transition into a position of protecting themselves instead. In my particular instance, all my kids have disavowed their mother because of all the hurt she has given them over the years. My youngest asks me to lie for him so he doesn't have to visit her. Her siblings and extended family barely tolerate her presence and badmouth her behind her back while they welcome me with open arms to family events. Both her sisters were at my house last week. After all these years I am still family to them.
The sad part is that she is intelligent and a high functioning adult that can, when she expends the effort, hold a job. She can and often does mask her illness from others despite she has been admitted to psych wards in the past. When her illness rears its ugly head in front of her friends, she pulls up stakes and moves on somewhere else to get a fresh start all over with new friends. She has never to my knowledge been homeless, but it was close a few times. I tried to get her help in those particular instances for whatever it was worth. She has no health insurance, and not because she can't get it. She is a nurse and can get a great job with benefits very easily. As a result, she has not taken the meds she needs for going on 12 years now. She actively denies she has ever had any issues despite prior hospitalization and clinical diagnoses. When we met, she was leaving a psychiatrist's appointment.
What do you do when someone is mentally ill and denies it or can't even understand what it means? When they fight you when you try to get them help? They are adults and you can't force them to want to get better or even accept that there is something wrong. THAT is why family gives up. THAT is why we have crazies living on the street. What is YOUR solution?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:04PM (6 children)
Make a place for them to be where they have a roof over head and food on the table. "Food on the table" is generally covered in this country, mostly. Roof over head is not. Which was one of the points TFA was trying to make.
My other solution: Don't cut the programs which are offering help because the rich need to be richer and it's low hanging fruit. Someone who won't be helped can't be helped, but that doesn't mean that those who want help shouldn't be helped because greed.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday April 18 2019, @04:26PM (4 children)
Re-read the article. Rebecca Twigg HAD a roof over her head and chose to sleep on the street because she felt shame for her privilege. She felt bad for those that had no roof, but offers no explanation why she could have public shelter and they could not. She "refuses" to talk about mental illness.
We're not talking about people who lost their job in a recession and suddenly find themselves homeless. Should we lock up those who won't seek out help on their own or actively refuse it? Force medicate them? It sounds like your solution is just build them a doghouse and feed them like you would a pet. What is YOUR solution to the problem? I don't mean feelgood fix for the symptom. How do you solve the problem and help those those who want no help because they see no problem?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 18 2019, @05:15PM (3 children)
You are being obtuse.
I'm not talking about Rebecca Twigg's case specifically, but rather the position she advocated. Namely that the homeless should have the opportunity to have a roof over their heads. All of them. And not just a temporary homeless shelter though that would be a nice start. If someone voluntarily chooses to be homeless and are not directly endangering themselves or others they are free to be that way and they can still get food resources. (Until they catch pneumonia and are taken to a hospital for recovery, anyway).
And screw your characterization of "feelgood fixes." Before you can attempt therapy for someone's mental state you had better first make sure the person has the opportunity for food and shelter. That's a little more important. Go read Maslow and then get back to me.
Then go look up some homeless center statistics, specifically the ones that show that we already do not possess enough even temporary shelters, let alone permanent housing. Here's a couple for you to start chewing on: https://www.kktv.com/content/news/Were-at-capacity-right-now-Shelter-bed-shortage-forces-homeless-shelters-to-turn-people-away-497543781.html [kktv.com] https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/state-of-the-homeless-2018/ [coalitionforthehomeless.org]
And if someone has food and shelter and still refuses to work out their problems.... then you need not do anything because they have food and shelter. But we are miles and miles away from that position, sunshine.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Oakenshield on Thursday April 18 2019, @07:11PM (2 children)
Nor was I. If you look up the thread I was speaking more generally about the mentally ill who are homeless as a result of their illness. Much of the blowback I received seems to be directed at my use of the word "crazy."
There is a guy in my town who is clearly crazy. He hangs out at the only Laundromat in town because it is open 24 hours and has a bathroom. He holds a job delivering pizzas and actively refuses all help at getting shelter. A couple years ago I was sure he would freeze when he was sleeping in his vehicle and the temperature dropped to twenty below. While I waited for my stuff to dry, I tried to talk to him about getting housing but he was adamant against it. "That's how they trap you." I stopped in one afternoon to wash some blankets and he was on a rant with some random man and I thought he was agitated enough to blow. The man saw I was watching carefully and kept smirking toward me at the dude's rambling incoherence. He started talking about his handgun and blowing someone's head off. I nearly called the cops that day.
Should this guy be locked up? He hasn't hurt anyone yet.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. What are you going to do about people who are obviously crazy and refuse help? Again... I'm not talking about people who WANT shelter and the system is too overwhelmed to help. I know that California, Oregon and Washington in particular have a big problem with that. What are you going to do about the nuts out on the street who don't want help?
You do realize that people can be absolutely normal for a majority of their lives and one day they lose grip on reality. A former co-worker in his late 40s tried to commit suicide out of the blue. He was suddenly convinced he was a mass murderer and couldn't live with himself. Off his fucking rocker. Luckily has was institutionalized by family and helped. He's out now and living a "relatively" normal life.
The town I used to live in has a guy that is batshit crazy. I used to see him every day while driving home from work standing at the crossroads of the center of town, beet red in the face, screaming at passing traffic. If there was no traffic, he would scream at the road signs and pace back and forth. The restaurant on the corner would let him in and give him food now and then. A friend told me his father had worked with him when he was younger and he fried his brain with drugs. Never was the same. He lives with family. What happens if the family pushes him out when they can't cope anymore? This guy doesn't have the cognition to ask for help.
You want to put the cart before the horse. The "opportunity" for food and shelter is pointless if the beneficiaries avoid it. That's why I call them feelgood fixes. The pizza delivery guy in the laundromat has ample opportunity for shelter and he is offered food by the community all the time. He told me he eats at fast food places every day. He showers at the community center every day. Look at Rebecca Twigg. She has the resources to care for herself if she was treated for her crazy. She has a marketable skillset that she used to support herself. If you FIX THE CRAZY she can care for herself instead of setting out food for her and bringing her in at night like she is some kind of feral cat.
Don't conflate refusing to work out their problems with being unable to work out their problems. You want to mix the two up and I have only ever referenced the street crazies in this thread. People who struggle due to bad circumstances will generally accept help. They can be helped with adequate resources. The ones that struggle with reality and self awareness are the true problem. Your simple minded throw-more-money-at-it solutions will not work for them. It will require a whole different treatment and assistance paradigm to offer them rescue from themselves. Unfortunately it may violate their self determination if you want them to be safe and sheltered.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:37PM (1 child)
I think we're talking a little bit at cross purposes. If you don't have the shelter to offer everyone then why would you worry about those who are refusing it? If the resources aren't there then there's not much need to worry about the ones who aren't taking them anyway.
For those who won't take help at all then no, you can't force it unless there's either a criminal action or if the person is genuinely a danger to themselves or others. Your suicidal person: with an attempt (or even the slightest credible threat) of suicide you take that person into custody. And then if necessary you get a court order forcing confinement. You do the same with someone stabbing themselves, or trying to cut someone else up, or any other condition where there is a genuine threat to the life of the person or someone else.
Can one do the same with the other examples you describe - try to prove to a court why the person is no longer competent and ask them to be confined? Yes. But if there aren't enough resources already, how will you arrange for care of such people without 'throwing money' at the problem? You don't. It's useless to try and get people help which requires specialized care if the resources have already all been cut because greed.
But that's not the problem we're in. As above, there is a much more fundamental issue. Without shelter it doesn't matter how badly you want to help the person. IT WON'T MATTER. Force meds down the throat: It doesn't matter at all if the person dies of exposure. And you can't fix higher level problems without addressing the more basic needs first. You want to suggest that if only we fix the higher level problem then the lower level takes care of itself. First, it doesn't. But second, fix those basic needs and the higher level problems might disappear entirely or be mitigated. But you don't worry about fixing your power steering if your car doesn't have tires. Only after you actually have a car to give somebody can you begin to wonder about who's behind the wheel and if they have a driver's license.
So, yeah, throw money at the problem until every person has a place to live. And then throw money at fixing the mental issues. And then if the person is healed help them transition to the normal life you and I take for granted, which frees up those earlier resources for the next person in line. But fix the issue with not having enough shelter for people first. Or fix the other first: Either way you're burning resources, although many studies have shown that providing housing first is the more economic route.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @06:06PM
One thing I don't see mentioned in this sub-thread is the stigma about mental illness in USA. If we could fix that, I believe that at least some of the mentally ill would be more inclined to seek and stick with treatment (when it is available).
When I was a kid, I thought the number of people with mental illness in my extended family was unusually high--we have have multiple cases of mental illness in every generation. Then I started to talk about it with a variety of people and discovered that it is actually very common. So why is it still a cause for shame, in so many ways?
From limited reading, it seems that not all cultures stigmatize mental illness, sometimes it's just another problem that happens and not such a big deal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:10PM
> because the rich need to be richer
This is an incomplete model.
"because the ones who control using money want to maximize the amount of control they exert by making money scarce. They don't want rich to get richer, they want everybody else to get poor, scarce of money, of time, of any system interfering with necessity"
This is a model which explains a lot more.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:05PM (4 children)
You're completely missing the point. Most of the homeless aren't mentally ill, and the sooner they are helped the less likely they will BE mentally ill. Preventive medicine. Again, this has to be treated like the public health issue it is, with the appropriate epidemiological methods and tools.
You are smearing every single homeless person with the "mentally ill" brush, and then saying "well you can't make someone crazy stop being crazy (so it's not my responsibility, fuck 'em all)" as if that absolves you. It does not. You have merely exposed your pathology for all to see.
I was hoping for better from you, hoping against hope that you wouldn't do this, that you'd be smart enough and wise enough not to commit obvious category errors for the sake of trying to shield yourself from responsibility. I shouldn't.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @05:09PM (3 children)
Roflcopters. You are a compulsive liar
Before I start. Helping the homeless and mentally ill is extremely important. It’s not just the right thing to do, it comes with the social returns of not having to live with its associated problems. Asshole cops, property damage, assault, disease.. The list would not end. I don’t care who you are we can spare the taxes.
You're not wrong or mistaken though, you're making shit up. You make lots of suspicious statements on here but I'm going to pick this one apart just this once to show people how full of shit you are.
So let's take a look at what we are reasonably confident we know about mental illness and the homeless.
According to the NIH nearly half of all adolescents have experienced mental illness: (AMI any mental illness, SMI Serious mental illness)
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.shtml#part_155771 [nih.gov]
That's right half. Homeless or not.
Also on that page:
So let's figure for every american adult with SMI there are 3 more adults who have a diagnosed mental illness.
If 25% of the homeless population has severe mental illness and SMIs account for 23% of the AMI population.
I'm sure there are unaccounted for variables and probably some error in these studies but:
IT'S EASY TO SEE THAT THE RATE OF (AMI) ANY MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE HOMELESS POPULATION IS SOMEWHERE IN THE BALLPARK OF ALMOST ALL
You claim to have experienced homelessness. You act like you're some sort of expert.
Nobody who has worked closely with the homeless will deny that it is difficult because they are mentally ill. It is the problem that exacerbates every other problem. People who actually try to help the homeless don't get warm fuzzies. They're sad. Being around the homeless is frustrating and at times even traumatizing.
The people who are doing ok keep to themselves and follow a program. More families lately too. Most of the ones I've met are the ones that don't appear homeless or if they do they're strung out and look normal after rehab. They will take what's offered but won't sit on a corner and beg or eat out of the trash or shit on the street.
Madison Wisconsin has numerous food banks and places serving hot meals, some of them multiple times a day. Even rich people can go to some of them. Who knows maybe you had an unexpected crisis and that bag of groceries lets you coast.
If you ate out of a garbage can in Madison, WI then you need your head examined. Have you ever offered to buy or give someone food after they tell you they’re hungry and want money? More than half the time they won't even take it, I sometimes carry food just for this purpose. I guess I feel kind of good knowing someone had a real need and I was able to help. I’m obviously not happy when I know someone tried to fuck with my emotions to get wasted, maybe even OD.
You'd know this if you were half the humanitarian you play up for the internet. Really, they want cash cause drug dealers don't take sandwiches. The only people eating out of the trash in Madison WI are idiot freegans, fake "street kids", the children of bad parents… and the mentally ill. If you hit up every food bank in Madison you could collect a month of food every week, many accommodate people without refrigeration. If you don't know what a fake street kid is; They're homeless as a fashion statement. To quote one that I worked with "oh yeah i love it and wouldn't have it any other way"
Personal favorites from the thread:
Pot calling kettle over.
5 minutes later:
You're an asshole. I care about the things you pretend to care about. You come here to get high and mighty with people for its own sake. You dress yourself like a saint for narcissistic purposes. That is so counterproductive. You’ve obviously done some reading but it’s all so you can go call people names on the internet. That’s why you don’t mind making shit up a little if it feels right at the moment. You don’t care.
About the only thing I'll agree on is that housing first gets blocked because people paying for their houses will cut off their noses to spite their faces when they see someone else getting a roof for free. Obviously you can’t deal with mental illness with no roof over your head. I’ll bet these people could grow a lot of equity in their homes if there weren’t people pooping all over the sidewalk and leaving needles all over the place. I feel like I have to say this because you’ve positioned yourself in a way where being critical of you is being critical of what’s right even when you’re wrong.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 22 2019, @10:27PM (2 children)
You're full of shit. I don't give people money (mostly because I don't carry cash); I offer to buy them something to eat. And you know what? Maybe we're talking to different people here, but I've only had two turn me down in the last 4 years, and I could tell already they were beyond my ability to help due to drugs.
I know of the places to get meals you speak of, for example Luke House, the one on Ingersoll Street. I went there a few last fall. And made sure to donate food in better times to make up for the three meals I had there several times over. Maybe it's just stupid pride, but I hate taking charity. To this day it rankles, and still feels like some kind of personal failure. Maybe it shouldn't, maybe I'm just too hard on myself, but that is never going to go away. Neither are the two times I used the food pantry on the west side near Lussier Community Center, or the one time from Grace right in the center of the city. Even though I always gave back much more than I took when times got better, it still lingers, like some kind of persistent infection with a face.
> People who actually try to help the homeless don't get warm fuzzies. They're sad. Being around the homeless is frustrating and at times even traumatizing.
No shit. Half of why I'm such a nervous wreck is how fucking awful it is, all the suffering you see and can't do anything about, because of how much of it is self-inflicted. It physically hurts to know there is nothing I can do, could ever do, for some of these people. It's like a steady IV drip of survivor's guilt. I've had at least one friend die due to drugs after becoming homeless (others have simply disappeared and I have no idea if they're alive or not).
When I needed Luke House's charity those few days, I got to talking to one of the families you no doubt have in mind. It consisted of a mother, a teenage daughter, and two young sons, maybe 6 and 3. The sons obviously had something wrong with them, especially the little one, and the daughter had the haunted look of a girl who had to grow up into a woman much, much too fast. No doubt you will not be surprised to know the parents were divorced, and they were divorced because the father was molesting the daughter. I cannot tell you how awful it was to see those eyes in that face. No one that age should look like that, and she's not the first I've seen. Won't be the last either.
Keep in mind, I'm not a Madison native; I spent the first two and a half decades of my life in New York City, and not the nice parts of it either, and went from there to Milwaukee, only moving to Madison last year. There is a big difference between the cities. Milwaukee feels more like NYC than Madison does, and of the three I *vastly* prefer Madison, despite its underlying hypocrisy and the cringey hipster infestation. I barely remember Milwaukee except as one long, timeless drudge. Homelessness in Madison looks like it's not as bad as in Milwaukee and definitely not as horrible as it was in NYC, but I don't ever want to find out.
Are you done yet? Have you finished venting your spleen on me? If you're going to define mental illness this way, then hell, *I* have experienced mental illness due to childhood depression.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:54PM (1 child)
Well yes this is much more inline with reality.
> If you're going to define mental illness this way, then hell, *I* have experienced mental illness due to childhood depression.
Well yeah, you did. Most of these people are stuck in a rut but they're not screaming at clouds crazy, their behavior still doesn't make sense. Yes very self inflicted and it's easy to wonder why they don't just fill out FASFA and get on with life if you forget they're ill.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:01PM
Don't conflate depression or despair with "screaming at clouds crazy." It is entirely possible to function even under those conditions; Madokami knows I did it long enough, and may still be doing it.
If anything, you are bolstering my argument for a preventive-medicine, epidemiological approach to the problem of homeless*ness.* The longer people suffer, the longer they are alienated from society, looked down on, spit on (sometimes literally, and sometimes a lot worse than spit), the more likely they are to spiral down deeper, faster, and harder into actual craziness.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I suspect very strongly that's what the "fuck you got mine" crowd WANTS: they WANT that to happen, so they can point at these people and go "See? Crazy! Not worth helping! Can't be saved!" Which is of course the coward's way of calling for democide.
The good news is that the flipside of a Pareto spread means that 20% (or whatever) of the funding really *can* solve 80% (or equivalent) of the problem, all else being equal. It just means that the longer we wait, the more funding we'll have to throw at the problem to fix it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...