Question on mental health assumptions

[dmallind]

1. Some folks have kindly answered by DU mail. I welcome more

I understand that this is a sensitive issue that many may be uncomfortable discussing, especially when asked by a group newcomer.

I assure you there is no gotcha, no responses will be shared even anonymously, and that I personally am not trying to link mental illness and the worst criminal excesses. If anything quite the opposite - my own view is that they are often reflexively linked wrongly.

I have very little knowing ineraction with mental illness. One friend/coworker a few years back had a well-controlled bipolar condition. We've lost touch since then so I can't ask him now. My uncle shot and grievously injured his girlfriend while suffering from schizophrenia (as far as the newspapers said) but this was in 1974, I've never even communicated with or met him and he lives in Australia, so it's not that I have any emotional link there either. Just an entirely dispassionate curiosity is my only motivation.

Thanks all!