All those who've heard of 'Incel' put your hands up. Just as I thought; almost no-one, including me.
The word has recently come to light following the killing of five innocents by 22 year old Jake Davison (below). He shot his own mother, a 3 year old girl, and three others. Davison then turned the gun on himself.
Incel is short for 'involuntarily celibate'. It is mainly a male group, but there are female adherents. They basically feel that the world is against them because they can't find girl/boy friends.
Davison looks to be an ordinary bloke; nothing either unusual or special about him. I believe he was training to be a crane operator. But he had mental issues.
The online Incel movement was obviously known to the Police, who should have been monitoring it's members. Davison's own mother had tried to get help for him; but failed. The Police even returned his shotgun to him after a period of confiscation. Bad decision making and failure all round.
The decline in mental health facilities began in 1960, when 'Care in the Community' became the byword for handling people with serious mental problems. Rather than look after such people in safe conditions, they were simply put out onto the street and forgotten. I can remember, myself, suddenly seeing people wandering around doing strange things; these people should obviously have been cared for.
The only times the closure of mental health institutions is mentioned these days, is when it's too late, such as happened recently in Plymouth at the hands of Davison. Sadly six people lost their lives.
And not the first time Cro. When I was young such people were incarcerated usually for life, now they are as you say pushed out into the community to fend for themselves - there is a happy medium, not sadly found yet
ReplyDeleteAs I said above, I can actually remember the change in 'society' after the closure of so many institutions. I kept seeing people on the street doing odd things, or shouting. There was no question that these people should have been looked after.
DeleteI remember 'care in the community' too. Institutions closed and 'the problem' left to spill over into the streets for the general public to deal with. Every day I see people who need professional help. At my local park a young man is doped up to the eyeballs talking and laughing to himself as he walks around the perimeter hour after hour. The local train station and Sainsbury's local also have alcoholics/drug users begging for money daily. Some just sit on the floor with empty drink cans around them. The more people talk about mental health the less seems to be done about it.
ReplyDeleteYou final sentence says it all. In Brighton people come from all over; from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They come for the better weather, and because they think wealthier people will be generous.
DeleteAs you say they tend to hang around where there are people. Many are just plain alcoholics, but amongst them are dangerously ill people.
Well I have heard of 'incel' but my family is always up to date with social issues.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Bath, we had a unit for the mentally ill just down the road. So often I saw incidents of strange behaviour but what I noticed in particular was that the community accepted them and their strange behaviour. One incident a local man sitting on the pavement with a very disturbed young girl and just talking to her, gentling her down as many people in the village did just talking quietly.
We should not categorise mentally ill people as all violent though, they are still part of our community.
In Brighton (again) I've always referred to them as 'The Happy Circle'. They are certainly not all violent, but amongst them there are always those who are unpredictable.
DeleteThere was some horrendous abuse perpetrated in many of those institutions. If there was sufficient funding, which is never likely to be on the cards, the ideal would be for comfortable safe environments where those with severe problems could be sympathetically cared for by professionals. As Weaver says there seems to be no happy medium.
ReplyDeleteThat is what's needed, good quality, safe environments, where the most disturbed people can be looked after correctly. However, what we've got are some very dangerous people on the streets.
DeleteIt’s the nature of the beast
ReplyDeleteAs a former psychiatric nurse I see things slightly differently.
Mental illness, borderline personality disorders, psychopathy
Labels and ways oftrying to understand damaged people
Damaged people will always slip through whatever good intended nets are out there. The whole thing is far too complex and varied to be effectively screened away.
True there are policies and protocols that may minimise damage but people like this unfortunate man will often bypass help and kindness and understanding and the authorities
Damage limitation is all we can do
We will never solve the problem
It would take a lot of determination and funding to come close to solving the problem, neither of which are forthcoming.
DeleteThrow money at the issue cro, it will never really be sorted that’s my point , unfortunately
DeleteJohn, when I read Cro's post I thought of you and how you might respond. I am glad you said what you said. Maybe the most profound, moving (and needed) you have published in the context of your background in psychiatry. Hope others will take what you said on board.
DeleteU
With all due respect to you, Ursula, and John, I sincerely believe that Cro understood this when he wrote the post.
DeleteRachel, I am sure Cro understood whatever he understood.
DeleteI paid John a compliment as to his reply.
U
My comment isn’t a disagreement just a statement about the complex nature of mental disorder .
DeleteOf course mental health services need properfunding. In my experience they are hugely lacking compared with the general health sectors, especially in rural areas such as wales and in your neck of the woods.
CPN ( community psychiatric nurses) generally have too big a case loads and rely on untrained support workers to police, support and treat their patients and “ inadequate’ characters like this gunman appears to be , probably never had any psychological support ever in his lifetime.
It’s these characters that often kill and hurt others and themselves .
Attempting to care for adults in a community setting is not cost effective and could never like for like match the old Victorian asylums. 4 to 6 adults in a home require at least 4 staff for 24 hour cover. Asylums housed 400 to 600, with locked wards, farms and gardens. Gradually it all went pear shaped, too much to write here, and I"m on a train, but what we have now is nowhere near what is needed.
ReplyDeleteThat really was what my reply to John suggested. Too big a problem, too little commitment, and not nearly enough cash.
DeleteYes, the problem is just too complex
DeleteWhy did Davison require a gun in the first place? What was he going to do with it? I'm more concerned with those fundamental questions than issues surrounding the return of his licence and his gun. By the way, "Care in the Community" didn't really get going until 1983. It was mostly about saving money.
ReplyDeleteI've only once applied for a shotgun licence. I was living in Shropshire and had several farming friends who offered me access to 'rough shooting'. I applied for a licence so that I could bring my shotgun over from France. I was told that I'd have to bring the gun over first. When I asked what would happen to me if I was found in possession of a shotgun without holding a licence, the cop just shrugged his shoulders, and said "dunno".
DeleteWe see 'loonies' all the time - the grown man who dresses like a cowboy and the chap who stands at the side of the road waving on every passing car. Most are harmless, leading to the false assumption is they are all harmless.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at school there was a man who dressed liked a cowboy in the town. We'd all say 'Hi Tex' when we saw him, and he'd reply 'Howdee partner'. He was harmless, and rather fun.
DeleteMental health is very complex and support systems are varied and often lacking. An individual with mental health issues should not have a gun. The fact that they can own a gun is a problem.
ReplyDeleteThat is the absolute and obvious truth.
DeleteAmazing.
DeleteAnd yet, here in America, even that will be hotly debated.
DeleteI've heard of incels. There seems to be an epidemic of un and under employed young men without prospects for a decent future who turn their rage towards women. Mental illness is part of it, but a changing society that leaves lots of these young men behind is partly to blame, too.
ReplyDeleteI'd not heard of them, but nothing surprises me any more!
DeleteI'm aware of incels. I used to follow a woman blogger who seemed quite nice, but I gradually learned she belonged to a community classified as a hate group because of their rage against women. I was shocked.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
That sounds very odd. Best left to their own bizarre ways.
DeletePretty awful business. I heard the word incel a couple of years ago in connection with a mass shooting in North America. I can't remember the details now. There should have been much more thought and balance used when deciding if people with mental illnesses should be on the street or kept in care, instead of opening the doors and pushing them out without sufficient support and monitoring.
ReplyDeleteIn the UK it seemed to be almost overnight. One minute there were institutions where they were looked-after, the next they were roaming the streets.
DeleteThey did the same thing in the USA starting in the 1970s and accelerated after that, they just let these people out of mental facilities, onto the streets to fend for themselves. As a friend said when someone walking down the street is hearing voices it's not from the spirit world but a mental problem. Also once they're out on their own, no medications , and everything in the States has to be paid for, no NHS. Maybe there would be just a few less dead here, the gun capital of the world.
ReplyDelete