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Originally Posted by somerfrost
Good answer GR....I have little to add except for the fact that mental illness is simply not understood in our culture. A person gets cancer or has a stroke and we are (usually) compassionate, understanding and caring. Someone is psychotic, depressed or delusional and we think it's somehow their fault or they are play-acting, or somehow a "bad" person. I don't want to offend anyone but it's ignorance like that holding mankind back! I guess we've come somewhat forward from the days when a mentally ill person was thought to be possessed by some mythological "devil" and tortured to death...but then, today, I read posts like on this board calling for some pound of flesh and I think...you never know when to expect the Inquisition! Oral Roberts talks to his god and he's a great man with his own college...Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and most folks today are judged insane...doesn't seem to be a pattern! All I know is this...command auditory hallucinations are not usually a good thing but theyt are very very powerful to those experiencing them...I'm not sure how folks can judge others without the experience to do so?!
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True, true. If there is any good at all to be found out of this horrible, awful tragedy, it's that post-partum depression has received much attention as a result and perhaps women who are suffering, even if not as severely as Andrea Yates, will be able to get help. Even so, mental illness is still poorly understood in this culture-- you are so right about that.