Is the stigma against mentally ill people this big because they suspect us of being violent/ potential shooters?

[noname223]

I would never hurt other people. I never was a danger for other people. Though during my first psychosis when the doctors gave me the wrong medication they considered me a threat for others and myself. I still was pretty peaceful. Though with my philosophical thoughts of a rebel I almost started a rebellion in the psych ward. Not sure how distorted my memories are concerning this event. I never was violent. I was violently abused by my mom as child and teenager. My sister once told me I just should have smacked her back. This was clearly victim blaming. My sister hurt me with this statement a lot. It has damaged our relation.
Normally I try not to be resentful concerning those statements but fuck no. This was pretty disgusting.

I had the idea for this thread because there were some violent incidents in my country often caused by mentally ill people. For example one person who probably had a psychosis crashed his car in a crowd full of people. (also children). What a nightmarish incident. I feel very sorry for the victims. I am really glad I never was violent in my psychosis. Like imagine I had to spend my whole life in a psych ward. And there suicide is even forbidden which I consider as inhuman. I am so scared being forced to such a place. Being on suicide watch for the rest of my life sounds extremely scary. I think I would try to sue for right to die/assisted suicide.

Luckily I am not violent during my psychosis. I just study extremely hard which is like a torture for me. I sometimes flirt with women in a very cringey way. I feel really ashamed about that. It almost drove me to commit suicide the last time. Though I tried to comfort me with the fact that many people do the same shit when they are drunk. I just had this extremely pathological feeling of being a pervert. This was caused by the crash after the mania/psychosis. I almost killed myself due to that. And if this repeats I cannot endure this once more. The pain was unimaginable.

Some people in college know I am mentally ill. One person even knows I had psychosis. I ask myself if so many violent mentally ill people are on the news what are they thinking about me? I think many people consider me a striver who always abides the rules. They are kind of right with both. It is rather unlikely they consider me a danger for other people (?) But honestly I am not fully convinced.

I often was scared people consider me a drug addict. I don't know exactly why but I was/am extremely scared people could consider me drug addict. Maybe the reason is I am scared people think I would have destroyed my life with drugs, then they consider me as stupid etc. Make fun of me due to that. Yeah my usual paranoia whether people consider me smart or not. Lol. Other people have reassured me I don't look like/ behave like a drug addict.
I hope I don't offend people here in this forum. Maybe this anxiety is also influenced by my own stereotypes about drug addicted people. Though I love DFW's work and Juice WRLD/ Eminem's music. I think their artistic work has decreased my anxiety to be perceived as a drug addict.

Have you ever been discriminated against because you are mentally ill? I have. But most people did not consider me as dangerous for the society. Which is pretty true. The only person I want to hurt is myself. I am quite a peaceful person even during my psychosis.

Have other people treated you as if you were a danger for society? I read another article recently. In my country there are increasing cases where mentally ill people are violently treated by the police. Maybe you have experienced that? I hope not.

 

[LunarPyotr]

It's because some people don't want to accept the truth. It's kinda like with the one shooter from US, who went to a elementary school and killed some people...
The government officials and other idiots give the blame to FPS Games because the person "trained how to use his weapons" in those games XD
Yeah, that's very realistic. It's like saying that playing Fifa 2022 will make you the best soccer player.

When it comes to the whole "treated you as if you were a danger to society" kind of thing, then yes.. I once experienced that but I didn't give a fck about it.
Maybe it's justified because I started a new life in Poland and later on got caught by private detectives which were hired by my stupid ass parents but what did I do to deserve such a treatment at that psych ward? Sure, I basically did that thing but I didn't hurt anyone, I wasn't a treat to other people and I just lived a quiet life in a small village where I had chickens, some stray cat that was walking on the property and I was doing the things that I loved.

It's not as if I would just go around and start shooting people. It's not as if I would start throwing knives or frying pans from my window. How?
If you see my lifestyle then you would probably assume that I'm more of an introvert or a hikikomori nowadays than someone who would go out and start attacking people.

I guess that's because of the whole quarantine thing in my country and the fact that before the pandemic, I was more of an night owl.
I was outside till 3am, secretly earned money by doing bug bounty stuff (getting paid by reporting bugs in software) or providing small programming services for people who wanted to automate things but don't want to learn all the programming languages like C++, C#, Python, Java or Kotlin.

Sure, there are some mentally ill people who could hurt other people but not everyone would do that.
Same thing goes for black people and racial profiling. Not every black individual does drugs, smokes weed every day, steals stuff and eats stuff at KFC.
That's a stupid assumption. Or do people also think that every person who's from Nigeria, Pakistan or India is a scammer?
Or do people think that I'm some sort of hacker who tries to hack the NSA because 1. I have a Russian name and 2. I'm very good with tech.?
Yeah, there are some social manipulations/standards which let's people thinks those kind of things and North Korea and some other countries are the perfect example for this.

 

[FogFilledLife]

I'm a thread away from harming others. People don't care about you hurting others, only them. One of my old teachers made a joke about me shooting up the school.

 

[Niko66]

I don't particularly think so in most cases. It's just being around suicidal people is quite honestly a bit of a drag, very emotional draining and it's difficult to know how to handle them or talk to them if they don't experience the same, most people don't want to deal with all that rather than genuinely try to help.

 

[NOloveNOpain]

I don't think so. I've looked at multiple ways to exit but I want to make sure it doesn't involve some poor bystander getting hurt or having trauma from it.

 

[odradek]

I think it's simply people are afraid of what they don't understand and can't control. Fear of the unknown.

 

[Dead Ghost]

I have anger attacks, but very punctual and only under a lot of pressure ... a lot of pressure? for me yes, I live it very subjectively and others do not see my reaction as sufficiently justified. But luckily it happens to me a few times a year and I think it's totally controllable if the other person doesn't punch me and makes it worse by wanting it (which has happened to me most of the time I've exploded).

As for the perception of strangers knowing that I have a 73% disability due to mental disorders, the reaction is always the same: fear (and it is useless to tell them that peripheral vertigo has also been added - 4% of month added to 69% -).
They think I'm going to hurt them or something.

Spoiler: Original Text

Jo tinc atacs d'ira, però molt puntuals i només sota molta pressió... molta pressió? per mi si, ho visc de forma molt subjectiva i els altres no veuen la meva reacció com prou justificada. Però em passa unes poques vegades a l'any afortunadament i crec que es totalment controlable si l'altre persona no em burxa i ho empitjora volent (que m'ha succeït així la majoría de les vegades que he esclatat).

En quan a la percepció de desconeguts al saber que tinc un 73% de discapacitat per trastorns mentals, la reacció sempre és la mateixa: por (i no serveix de res que els hi digui que també hi ha sumat el vertigen periféric -un 4% de mes afegit al 69%-).
Es pensen que els faré mal o alguna cosa semblant.