Op-ed: Mental illness is not a scapegoat
Deseret NewsMar 15, 2018
Following the
People with mental illness are convenient scapegoats when mass shootings occur. Rather than examining how we as individuals and as a community could prevent mass shootings like this in the future, we have immediately listed mental health issues as the cause and explained away the atrocity by ambiguously stating the shooter was diagnosed as bipolar and/or autistic.
According to the
The consequences of blaming mass shootings on mental illness instead of the many complex factors that lead to violent choices is vulnerable people — especially children and young adults — believing we want them to stay silent and isolated. We are saying we are afraid, judge them and may even victimize them. I have firsthand felt the scathing shame and self-loathing that mental health stigma perpetuates as one who has a diagnosed mental illness and autistic disorder. I have dealt with self-harm and substance abuse because I was too ashamed of my illness to seek support.
Stopping the stigma and changing how we talk about mental illness is one thing we can control to prevent the feeling of desperation that can lead to harmful actions. Mental illness is not the common denominator in these shootings.
Ending the crisis of mass shootings will require collaboration on multiple fronts to promote societal and cultural change. For example, we need to proactively work to prevent domestic and familial violence, which has been identified as a pattern in 54 percent of mass shootings that have occurred in the
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