How do we protect ourselves against that which we do not know???

Mental illness isn’t something to mess around with.

The guy who rented the van and killed ten people with it, was mentally unsound.

The kid who shot up Stoneman Douglas was mentally ill.

So was Mark David Chapman, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Joseph James DeAngelo, and on and on and on the list goes. Sadly there is no shortage of mentally ill who take the lives of innocent people. They’ve always been among us.

Back in the day they used to be institutionalized, and sadly, abused. Our governments got wise and stopped having “mental hospitals” but then they didn’t replace those institutions with effective facilities to not only treat them, but support them. They gave them no reprieve from their madness, in fact they did worse than that. Which was they did absolutely nothing. That is, there is no support for them until they “snap.” For example in Toronto we’re supposed to have support and care for the mentally unwell. The care only comes into play AFTER a person has a full blown episode, such as if they try to take their lives, or who simply cannot function in the world anymore through psychotic breaks. I’ve known a few people who have been admitted into mental health wards. But when the time is up, that’s it. Time is up. You gotta go, and they get sent back out into the world, to fend for themselves since full time care and support isn’t a thing that has been allotted for in the health budget.

Basically what I’m saying is that there is a giant hole in the system. There is a need that isn’t being met, not only in Toronto, but globally. We’re not doing enough.

Then there is the flip side of the coin which is when those who are in need, who and could benefit from what care there is for mental health in Toronto, in many cases they don’t even want it. Often times they align themselves with other mentally unstable people on the internet, fanning one another’s flames of hatred, bitterness, and displeasure. And then what happens? Well what usually happens in our current climate is innocent people become targets for the mad people. The people who feel displaced, the ones who feel that in some way or other humans they don’t even know have slighted them, hurt them, or embarrassed them. Then they take it upon themselves to react. To teach those innocent people who didn’t realize how badly they were hurting a lesson by taking their lives from them.

It makes no sense to me. But then again I’m not mentally unwell in that way. I have my demons. I have my confusion between reality and how I perceive things to be. I fight even to this day to have a healthy perspective of what is truth. To know that inherently everybody is good, that nobody is doing anything TO ME. But I have support. I have a loving husband, I have amazing girlfriends who will listen to me and encourage me at all hours of the night, I have the means to seek therapy when I start to lose the pedals. I, thankfully am not alone. But so many are. And for those who are, those who cannot contain their rage, their bitterness, their darkness, we, unfortunately become sitting targets for the walking time bombs. The thing I wonder about is, how are we to prepare ourselves for that which we do not know is coming???

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.