You might - I say only might - be getting overly sensitive here. In the UK at least I don’t think the word inmate means what you think it means. It doesn’t carry any negative connotations at all and you may (again, I say only may) be confusing it with convict (which of course does). Mostly the term inmate was used in hospitals. That was first replaced by the more fitting (if not necessarily accurate) word patient. Then subsequently replaced by customer or client in our fucked up (to add weight to the argument) de-NHSed locale. But mostly it was used of those in workhouses, did not necessarily entail confinement, and - mostly - evokes only sympathy.
Did intensive outpatient. Would have been inpatient if I had waited longer before getting help… if I survived long enough. I walked away from that experience learning a great deal more than I expected about pain and suffering, and how these are not the same thing. People don’t understand what the worst of it looks like. You realize that you should be far more afraid for the mentally ill than of them.
Yes, patients get delusional on occasion and need to be strapped down because they’ve lost a grip on reality and will do the kinds of things any normal human being would do with the same particular delusion. Or they are having some other kind of psychotic episode. This is a dramatic crisis that is temporary. I’ve never once seen it among a group very ill people, and have only ever heard of it. Other than that, violent people can be mentally ill, and violent people do the violent things they would normally do when stressed by mental illness as they would when stressed by just about anything else. The guy who gets out his car and starts banging on your window in an awesome display of road rage is someone who may not be mentally ill, but if he was mentally ill would probably be more easily provoked. The misconception is that mental illness is some magical force that makes people do things, an idea that hearkens back to when we equated mental illness with demonic possession. It’s literally a superstitious view of mental illness, and not founded in any kind of reality.
YMMV, but we were a hospital that took in a far more variable population and the concern wasn’t so much all patients, but rather that patients can easily steal each other’s cutlery and having a cutlery policing procedure would be a perfect-storm type incident waiting to happen. Much easier to have the rule that there couldn’t be any metal cutlery on the floor.
In case you didn’t the thrust is: In the US (I can’t speak for Canada and Mexico) the term “inmate” generally means and bears connotations of a prisoner in the penal system. They are there because they comitted a crime and the judge says one has to be there and that one would likely be killed if they didn’t comply because they’re of mental acuity and health to know better pretty much all the time.
Conversely, a patient is there for their own good. They may be there against their will, but that’s usually to protect the patient from hurting themself, or very occasionally others. It’s not punishment, like in the US penal system. It’s genuinely rehabilitative in nature. So eventually, probably with some luck a patient might be cured or adequately treated to become a functional member of society. Whereas an inmate of the penal system, in the US, is only there to have shit smeared on them and to be degraded.
There is a significant difference.
Although I think you know that. Sorry If I’m coming across condescendingly, I’m just trying to respond to everyone’s comments here, not just yours specifically.
the one that eneded with “the only thing that stops a bad person having a psychotic episode with a gun is a good person having a psychotic episode with a gun.”?
Yes, but I did not read it as nuanced advocacy of publc policy, nor does its author owe me any more careful choice of words due to his elected representation of me. YMMV.
I am not getting on the page where someone might get scolded for hyperbolically using ‘inmate’ for comedic effect by a guy who regrets not being the first one to say something ironic in the thread. What if your first comment were taken as literally as you ask me to take his? Eh?
Truly, what -you- proposed is far more sensitive and accurate. Just like the best sort of humor. (/sarcasm) And what he said, well that nearly condemns the mentally ill to death en masse (/sarcasm). Or it was a joke. Which 20+ people and counting have got!
Correct. My father lives in sheltered housing and refers to himself and his neighbours as “the inmates”.
I’ve never suffered from mental health issues sufficient to need medical treatment. But I have been a psychiatric hospital visitor, part of a group trying to help patients adjust to leaving. I’m afraid that my only response to the idea of a legislator allowing the general public to bring firearms (or knives) into a psychiatric hospital is that somebody certainly does need psychiatric treatment, and in a locked ward where they can’t do further harm to the community.
For fuck sake. My initial comment responding to @anon41977465 was just satisfying my regional dialect. I recognize that. Can’t we just get along? I mean, in the EN-US context, “inmate” generally means the same thing as “convict”, and it struck me as presumptuous and perhaps even phobic. Perhaps my small explanation was inadequate, but my dialect demanded it.
It seemed to me to be an error, rather than irony, for that specific usage of inmate, and I’m sincerely trying to understand what @anon41977465 said while not accepting loaded language. Which there’s a ton of around the mental health system in the US. People always are saying “this or that gunman or violent actor was mentally broken and insane” when usually they just fell victim to a violent ideology. I was trying to clarify. But it turns out that we have you here, deciding that everyone’s usage is always exactly correct for everyone’s interpretation. It’s like you’re always out to pick a fight. I never intended to get this involved anyway.
Maybe I was right to ignore you those several weeks. Maybe we should ignore each other altogether because it’s always ugly when we speak to each other.
So you were joking, and not criticizing me for… What was it again?
The lithium thing was about the drug. I wasn’t making fun of people. Especially not the mentally ill. I was doing word play. What you’re doing is agitating and picking fights. And I’m a sucker for you, Acer. We ought to have make-up sex every now and then at our rate since we get on each other’s nerves so often.
that is more one sided than you seem to appreciate. Please don’t tell me how I feel. Thanks!
I just mean your statement about me is off base, but you can get on my nerves if you keep up with the magical thinking (you know what I feel, without asking) and off-base personal (ad hominem) statements .
You don’t get on my nerves particularly. I seem to get on yours, but we don’t automagically share that just because you feel that way. That’s your limbic system response, not mine.
Probably. That’s why I tend to ignore you most of the time. Because I know that if I pay attention to you, my own quality of life will suffer, whether or not it’s reasonable.
Anyway, don’t expect to hear from me as I’m muting you for awhile. Please try not to take it personally, it’s my own thing here.
Before I was first sent to the US on business, thirty five years ago, I got a long orientation lecture from my manager. The tl;dr is that British English shares 99% of its words with American English, but only 40% of them actually have the same meaning. (Whereas Russian shares only maybe 2% of its words with English, but it is usually safe to take a literal translation.)
Over the 20 years of my business connections with the US I got a more nuanced view on this; it is pretty safe to talk British English to US academics, though I do try to speak American. With the general public it is essential to learn to speak American but there will be slip ups as the room goes silent and you discover that a word has turned out to be taboo or have a very different meaning. (I had no idea, for instance, in that carelessly remarking that a customer was making a bit of a hoo-hah I would be so misunderstood.)
What I’m saying is, it’s better to guess that someone is using a different dialect of “English” and roll with it (have I got that one right?) rather than get offended. Let’s not get our knickers in a twist or bent out of shape. I’m running this one up a flagpole, anybody want to salute?
