I got involved in a recent conversation about the current war in Iraq. the person in question was very anti-American, female and has a debilitating mental illness. I personally found it kind of funny that she would be not just against an invasion of Iraq but that she was so supportive of a country that I doubt would offer her the same freedoms of speech as she enjooys in her home country (UK) simply because she is female. then I wondered if her mental illness wqould also be a factor. Does anyone know what the view of the mentally ill are in middle eastern countries, particulalry Iraq? I don’t mean Fattima or Jihad with a little depression now and then, I mean schizophrenia, bipolar, etc…
“Demon possessed” was the term I’ve heard. There have been several news articles in my area regarding folks from the Middle East and near Asian countries who came to the US for help for their children and are afraid to go back. Apparently, things like mental illness, retardation, autism, and severe cerebral palsy are seen as afflictions from Allah in pushniment for family sins, possession by evil spirits (beatings are sometimes used in an attempt to drive them out), and the like. In Afganistan there was a report of a mental “hospital” (if I can use that word) where the mentally ill were chained to walls by their ankles. Certainly, for the poor psychoactive drugs are probably non-existant. The whole family may be shunned if there is an afflicted member.
So I don’t think your acquaintance would find the treatment very pleasing.
Disclaimer: this information has been gleaned from the press and TV and thus is subject to the limitations of that media. I am not an expert in the Middle East. If someone more knowledgable comes along they will likely clarify things further.
Sounds about as accurate and as humanitarian as what they believe and what they do here. (Given a choice between involuntary neuroleptic drugs and being chained to the wall, I’d take the chains).
“Possession by djinns” is something I’ve heard they claim for badly-behaved children. That said, they’re probably not medically impaired (eg ADD or hyperactive), just incredibly badly brought up. Not brought up in fact, just spoilt.
I think they are becoming more open about mental and physical disabilities in this part of the world, ie the lower Gulf. They have a few special schools and charity days and stuff here in Dubai, many of the children with special needs are expat children of course. But we still here rumours of institutions in places like Saudi where AIDS patients, mentally ill and birth-defected people (the extra rumour of course being that this is a result of “inbreeding” and cousin-marriage) are basically locked away for life.
I don’t think you can blame this ladies mental illness on her war views. Many mentally ill people can be very competent people.
I am bi-polar and I support our service men and our country. My psychiatrist is there, in Iraq, taking care of our troops.
Of course, I was devestated. I didn’t think I could live without him. But we have a fill-in doctor and he is not messing with my meds, that are working fine.
I know that my doctor is going to be better used there, at the moment. Our troops (even the so-called normal ones) are in desperate need of him. I just cannot even imagine the mental problems some of our troops will experience when they come home.
Now my co-worker, who does not have a mental illness, is hysterically against this war and, for the freedom of a dictator to be a dictater. She is ready to send he son to a foreign country in case the draft is reinstated. She is a very radical person and hysterically against anyone involved in this war, except our boys who had no choice but to be there.
Mental illness does not make a person anti-American.
Islam was the first major world power to begin to treat the insane relatively humanely. In ‘our’ later dark ages when we were chaining the insane to church walls, Islam set up the first recuperative and rehabilitative hospitals for the mentally infirm.
Please don’t demonise Islam without good evidence.
Of course, with history continuing to change societies, and the Islamic world becoming relatively poor, their own current treatment of the mentally ill may seem ‘backward’ but this is very much culture based.
A society which abandons its mentally ill to die on the streets, uses shackles in hospitals and proven poisons on inmates deserves all the criticism due to it (but of course I am here talking about the West today.)
Pjen - mistreatment of the mentally ill is certainly not an Islamic thing, if anything it is a cultural thing. The fact that this part of the world is predominantly muslim is possibly causing the confusion, if any.
Plus anything the Taliban may have done in Afghanistan is also not in any way representative of true Islam. Any more than mudering an abortion doctor would represent true Christianity.
No, no, you mistook what I said. I never said she was anti-American due to mental illness. She is anti-American due to her own verbage! However she sings high praises for a country that I beleive would shun her because of her mental state.
And I am not looking to demonize Islam either. I just asked the question and it really had nothing to do with religion, but with a regime. I did not know Islamic countries set up recuperative hospitals; this is why I asked. But I am confused - is it a plague from Allah or are they pretty accepting of the plight of the mentally ill? Both perhaps?
Don’t worry Pjen, I read your original post carefully.
I’m with Broomstick. She’s seen news articles about people who would rather remain in the US because of family members with mental illness or other problems. I’ve known people who had no intention of returning to Iran or Iqaq because they feared for their childrens treatment. These were people who had the money to travel to the US or UK for various reasons, but were not particularly wealthy.
One assumes that the wealthy can always find good care, if they want it - anywhere, anytime.
AHunter3, would you really rather be chained to a wall, beated and underfed than be given neuroleptic drugs without your consent in a facility with decent food and sanitation? I really don’t think agreeing on the fact that we overspend on the “worried well” and underspend on the seriously mentally ill can lead to the conclusion that imprisoning the mentally ill is a better solution.
In recent years, western medicine has made great strides in compensating for “broken” bodies. A modern prosthetic hand, for instance, may still be very limited compared to the owner’s original flesh-and-blood model, but it’s lightyears ahead of a simple hook strapped onto a stump. Likewise prosthetic legs now allow people to not only walk but run in footraces, which is far and away an improvement over a simple “peg-leg”. We have wheelchairs for those with no legs. We have all manner of splints and braces for weakened limbs.
“Broken” minds, however…
It’s not an easy problem to solve. In many instances, we don’t know what causes the problem, much less how to solve it. How do you keep an adult from harming him/herself or others, but still allow them as much freedom as possible? The Washington Post last week ran a gruesome story about a schizophrenic who, despite medication and the constant presence of an attendant, managed to gouge his own eyes out. After sedating him and bandaging up his face, they had to put him in restraints to keep him from ripping off the bandages and continuing to dig in his now-empty eye sockets (he was still “seeing things”…)
If our treatment is barbaric, maybe it’s because we don’t really know what we’re doing.
I used to live in a neighborhood in Chicago with a woman everyone called “Crazy Mary”. She was a pretty functional schizophrenic, and because her meds actually helped her, she took them willingly. But she was a constant victim of muggers, theives, and cons. Yes, she’s a grown woman, she’s not a danger to herself or others, she’s compliant with medicines that actually do help her… but she can’t defend herself from the dangers of the world. Too well to be locked away, not well enough to be truly independent. What do you do with a person like this? Ideally, you’d like family to step in and help, but she had no known family. Eventually she wound up in a sheltered living situation where someone checked in on her daily and, when necessary, was legally able to intervene on her behalf (such as authorizing medical care for her when she was beaten up, her meds stolen, and she was incoherent in the ER - which happened all too often). She was lucky - she would up being able to live in the community with minimal restrictions on her freedoms.
Mental illness gets pretty complicated at times - and not just for the person with the problem.