Acts of violence, mass or otherwise, are rampant nowadays. It seems you can’t turn on your TV anymore without seeing another shooting, bombing, or killing. During these times the media has a great influence, and I am not just talking about the people who are doing the reporting. I am also referring to the people who are doing the commenting, liking, and sharing. One trend I have always seen, but even more so recently, is the equating of murder and mental illness. It is almost as if, all evil people are also mentally ill, or even worse, as if all mentally ill people have a greater capacity to do/be evil. This is not true, and it is a very toxic ideology to spread.
I believe the root of this phenomena stems from two main things: 1) the villainization of individuals with mental illness, and 2) the mentally ill legal loophole you will see on various crime shows. In this article I hope to break both of these topics down, in order to, greater expose the toxicity of them.
The villainization of individuals with mental illness is not a new thing. In my experience, it is often seen when individuals use mental diagnoses to try and explain, or justify, neurotypical problematic/undesirable behavior. Examples of this sound like: “Stop being so bipolar.” “It’s not even like I’m a messy person, my roommate just has OCD.” “Stop moping, you look depressed.” Then there are the more violent examples of this, such as: “ He shot up an entire school, he must be messed up in the head.” “Anyone that would hit a child needs to see a psychiatrist.” Mental illness and violence are so closely intertwined that people act as if mental illness is the only explanation for acts of violence. “Nobody normal would microwave their baby. You would have to be sick to do that.” However, that’s just it. Normal people could microwave their baby, they do. In order to believe that neurotypical people do not have the capacity to do evil, one must also believe that there is something inherent in mental illness that fosters malicious tendencies. One must believe that individuals with mental illness either: a) do not have autonomy over their mind, and are merely robots to their disorder or b) consciously practice moral depravity, as opposed to their, sanctimonious neurotypical counterparts. It is time to retire your tired square/rectangle analogy that you use for people folks. The whole, “I do not think all mentally ill people are violent; however, I do think that most violent people are mentally ill”, is not hiding your ableism as well as you think.
TV lawyer: “My client pleads insanity, your honor.”
Individuals with mental illness who are watching from home:
Keep in mind that the suspect is almost never noted as having issues with mental illness before, nor does the suspect ever have an actual current diagnosis. No, it’s almost never any of these things, but rather, a lawyer’s last ditch effort to get some years off of a jail sentence, while some backwards ass psychiatrist signs off on it. Mental illness should not be abused by neurotypicals in order to lessen the punishment for their crimes. We, as a greater neurotypical community, have to stop using mental illness as a crutch to profit off of when it’s convenient for us.
In conclusion, I challenge you all to fight against any inclinations that you may have to equate violent acts in the media, and otherwise, to mental illness. In addition to that, I encourage you to combat and educate your peers and media when they perpetuate these inclinations. Having a mental illness is hard, why should we make it even more difficult?