i thought since the original post was locked i thought i'd put this up for discussion.



JD seems to think he has some magic insight into my value judgements arround mental illness, and by doing so has really miffed me off! putting that on one side.





so as a rebuttle and as a general open question, do people think that being mentally unwell can be used as an excuse for a persons actions? good or bad?

I think this thread will, and should, be locked very shortly. You raise a very interesting question but even with OT attached to it, this really is not the place to discuss it.

it was originally raised in relation to a certain rugby league player who was suffering from stress. i felt a need to redress a rather opinionated response to my post, that along with a generalised open question about mental illness in general.



people have all sort of O/T discussions on this forum including which pub has the worst scouse landlord, so why not my thread?

Good question but a straightforward answer imo.If a person is deemed to be mentally unfit if he/she commits an offence that to me means not of sound mind so therefore that person is surely not responsible for their actions but strangely that makes me think of The Yorksire Ripper who i still say hoodwinked the shrinks just so he could go to a cushier place.Good question though.

but did he, initially he went to wakefield prison where he later ? developed a mental illness. he still was sentenced as not mentally ill.

Mental illness makes people think and behave irrationally. It isn't an excuse for one's mistakes, it is often the reason for them. The law recognises that so why should a rugby league forum be so condemning? I hope you never have the misfortune to experience what the effects of mental illness are on the individual, the family and the people around them. Stress isn't just feeling a bit under pressure, it affects every waking moment. I would hope that if it was a member of your family you would react with a bit more sensitivity and compassion, and the same is due to strangers, sportsmen and celebrities.

Slim edit your 1st post so that it looks more constructive and doesn't look like a personal attack on JD i.e. Make an opening statement or ask a question rather than respond to a previous statement on another thread (which was locked).



If you do that i'll keep it open.

you put that so much better than i could have!

done





i must be honest i was outraged when i read the response to my original statement yed. i typed in anger as a response to a veiled personal attack. i do however feel that discussing stress and mental illness in general, not just in rugby league is relevant.

Until about 12 years ago I had never encountered anyone that I knew to have any form of mental illness (I now know that as a result of his experiences in the Far East during the war my Grandad suffered terribley from schizophrenia and depression when I was very young - would now be called post traumatic stress, but the family would hide this from 'the children')



I now know differently. Some forms of mental illness can be massively debilitating to the person involved and also has an enormous impact on their close family and friends. People can do the most irrational things from simple apparently eccentric behaviour through to some quite disturbing acts against themselves or others. I think that unless you or a member of your family has suffered then it is very difficult to understand how an invisible illness can affect someones emotions and behaviour so dramatically.



Regardless of the causes, often their are no causes, to dismiss or laugh at someones illness is unacceptable.

On a similar tangent



I remember My Aunt Louise as a kid, fantastic cook and baked the most beautiful cakes for me even to this day,her lemon meringue pie was my favourite and i went to her house every 2nd Sunday for lunch. She had a wonderful aura about her and although she had a deep husky voice from all the cigs she smoked from being so young she was an absolute lady.



In her late 60's she started becoming awfully forgetful and i remember eating my potatoes with a lip pursing sweet gravy then tucking in to the worst salty cake ever when she had mixed up the ingredients. From then on i watched her slowly leave us, she was still there in body but about 8 or 9 months from that incident she didn't even know who i was and about 4 years on from that she was gone completely.



Illnesses of the brain are probably the worst and least understood and i don't think it would do the world any harm if we tried to understand and empathise a little bit more.

As i have spent time in the priory clinic in Hale/Altrincham i know what the effects of my illness were on my family. I suffered for quite a while with depression and know that i will more than likely have repeat instances throughout my life. My eldest 2 boys at that time were 4 and 2 and not able to understand why there father could lurch from intense highs to debilitating lows. Why at the drop of a hat there father could start kicking in the kitchen cupboard doors for no apparent reason or spend a whole day in bed. I got help and through the priory using chemical and cognitive therapy i managed to turn it around. Anybody who thinks that mental illness is to be sneered at or ashamed of wants to spend a day there talking to the residents. Thankfully im annonymous on RL fans thats why i can tell you my story without worrying about the unavoidable stigma that comes with it.