
Shameful Profiling of the Mentally Ill - zzzeek
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/shameful-profiling-of-the-mentally-ill.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
======
d0ugie
While I am sympathetic to the woman in the article, consider this: I am
bipolar type one (the wilder type), ultra rapid cyclicity with psychotic
features. I have had countless manic episodes complete with week-long total
sleeplessness, hallucinations (visual and auditory) and delusions ranging from
believing I was a CIA agent to thinking the CIA is out to get me. And I've
done some really crazy, stupid things of.. questionable judgment, including
sending very crazy faxes to the White House. Been hospitalized against my will
more than once.

But now I take several drugs and am very well-treated, extremely "high-
functioning" in the clinical sense. I've been married happily and nicely
employed for years. While being manic is a lot of fun, I have no inclination
to fall off the treatment wagon. I'm a success story basically.

But suppose I wanted a government job requiring security clearance to
privileged information, should I be trusted given that I've been mentally
healthy for several years, without incident?

I think the answer is no. Obviously.

Manic depressives are, relative to everybody else, prone to poor judgment,
psychosis, run-ins with the law, suicide, not taking their medicines,
unemployment, broken relationships and vices in general. Call me a self-hating
nut but if I had a daughter (and parenthetically I do intend to have a kid,
even though the kid has a fifty fifty chance of having the disease), would I
want a bipolar boy to date my daughter, however well-treated he might be?
Absolutely not.

So regarding my people, those with mood disorders (not just bipolar), while I
appreciate the anti-discriminatory progressive stuff to make things easier for
my people, between you and me, do yourself a favor, whether you are an
employer, a money lender, an army recruiter, an immigration policy maker or a
dad - or even a bipolar person yourself who's on the dating market, keep your
distance from us manic depressives as too often we are bad news.

... Though we are more creative.

~~~
S4M
I agree that some background checks need to be done for sensitive jobs, such
as government jobs you describe. However the article is about a woman who was
just crossing the border between Canada and US. This should have just been a
formality, provided she wasn't carrying weapons or drugs, and the fact that
the check was so thorough for this is what scares me the most in the article.
Basically how long do we need to wait before the boarding agents scan our
gmails and participation to any internet forum or social network to assert we
are not gonna do crazy things once we have entered in the US?

~~~
d0ugie
I was writing more in response to whether or not "profiling the mentally ill"
is a shameful thing or a good idea for society in general, not this woman
trying to cross the border. Hers is a soft anecdote to use as context for an
important question.

~~~
fit2rule
You don't become an 'officially mentally ill person' without serious
profiling, anyway. The DSM-IV is nothing _but_ a book of massive
discrimination. One mans religion is another mans madness; and vice versa.

Make no mistake - we will never be rid of hatred and intolerance in the world
for as long as we have industrialised mental health institutions producing
their discriminating materials. Without discrimination, you can't "diagnose"
someone as having a "mental disorder" that is "socially not accepted and
therefore requires treatment".

------
auctiontheory
This seems relevant to the thread about "should I use my real name online?"
You just never know how information about you could be used against you, maybe
ten or twenty years from now, maybe half a world away. You never know.

(I'm not too excited about Google dredging up 25-year-old Usenet posts from my
college days.)

~~~
thenerdfiles
Side note: What about just consistently using a handle? And that handle being
part of your "brand"? What if Jay-Z decided to become a web developer?

Primary note: African Americans could _easily_ be labeled given the
qualification of the nebulous "threat" clause, when it is in fact Old America
( _those likely to celebrate their licensed gun-ownership_ ) that is going
about shooting them in the face[0].

White supremicists, Men's Rights Advocates of many stripes, and the Tea Party
are stridently making cases that African Americans are sub-human[1]; wherein
it stands to reason they so too could be required to have "clearance" given
their supposed "lack" of psychological integrity, etc.

There are many nets and dragnets being cast to categorize arbitrary lots of
"unmentionable" society. There's a significant rate of undiagnosed depression
in the African American community[2].

[0]: [http://www.upworthy.com/she-knocked-on-his-door-to-ask-
for-h...](http://www.upworthy.com/she-knocked-on-his-door-to-ask-for-help-he-
shot-her-dead-why-isnt-justice-being-served?c=ufb1)

[1]: [http://whitelocust.wordpress.com/morality-and-abstract-
think...](http://whitelocust.wordpress.com/morality-and-abstract-thinking-how-
africans-may-differ-from-westerners/)

[2]: [http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/black-and-
depress...](http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/black-and-depressed-
two-african-american-women-break-silence)

~~~
Crito
> _" Side note: What about just consistently using a handle? And that handle
> being part of your "brand"?"_

For me, there is too much cognitive overhead when you try to do this because
you have to be constantly aware of what you have already said about yourself
(going back _years_ ) and decide if additional information you are about to
give could be used to disambiguate your identity by somebody who had access to
the content of all your past online posts.

For example, say that mention that I am from a small town in Vermont. On
another website, years later but with the same uncommon handle, I mention that
my highschool class only had 27 people in it. On another site, I mention that
I once swam a 100 meter freestyle in under 55 seconds. Just with those three
things, each fairly reasonable things to mention in various online
discussions, an obsessed stalker could probably narrow me down to one of a few
dozen people. Now that is not too bad, but those are only three mundane facts,
and if I am using the same handle for years or decades...

Handles that are hard to google without getting irrelevant results (such as my
current handle) can certainly help, but that will only go so far. Counting on
that is making assumptions about the capabilities of future web search
technology.

~~~
lelandbatey
I agree, I found it really not worth it for me to use a handle that was not my
real name. I don't know about other people, but when I interact online, I
don't act in a way that very different from how I act "IRL". Because who I am
is the same online as it is in real life, obscuring just my name doesn't do me
much benefit.

The only way I could obscure my information online would be if I maintained an
entirely different persona/identity entirely, with totally separate lives.
Since I can't or won't do that (I'd feel vaguely dishonest), I just use my
real name anyway.

~~~
Crito
_" Because who I am is the same online as it is in real life, obscuring just
my name doesn't do me much benefit."_

I operated like that for a few years, but then I realized that although my
presentation of myself online is not that different from how I present myself
in 'real life', there _are_ examples in real life of situations where I
present myself differently. For instance, I no longer discuss politics with
family _(in no small part out of respect for immediate family members who are
now in the military. If I said to them what I am willing to say online,
feelings would be hurt...)_

~~~
lelandbatey
Yeah, it really is a luxury that many people don't have, being able to not
worry about who knows your views. I choose to not share most all my political
or religious views in real life or online. But for many people who have views
far outside the mainstream, or who would be otherwise persecuted for the
things they think, I can totally understand why they wouldn't share many
things.

~~~
thenerdfiles
Isn't this, like, the basic problem with our political system? Structural
oppression? Disenfranchisement?

Hos does this not also apply to voting? I feel the same, now I am afraid to be
in public for having the views that I have.

...

------
peeters
I appreciate that this is getting press on the American side of the border.
This was in the Canadian news cycles a little while ago, but understandably
the focus there was on how U.S. Border agents were able to access her medical
history in the first place--with speculation that the Canadian government had
some form of information sharing that involved medical history.

So it's great to see the focus on the other side of this issue as well, which
is why the U.S. is profiling in this way in the first place.

------
greenyoda
The author of this article, Andrew Solomon, wrote a book entitled _The Noonday
Demon: An Atlas of Depression_ [1] that is based in part on his own struggles
with depression.

[1] [http://andrewsolomon.com/books/the-noonday-
demon/](http://andrewsolomon.com/books/the-noonday-demon/)

------
blisterpeanuts
U.S. law (Citizenship and Immigration Services, Act 212)
([http://www.uscis.gov/laws/act](http://www.uscis.gov/laws/act)) states that
aliens are inadmissible if they have:

 _a physical or mental disorder and behavior associated with the disorder that
may pose, or has posed, a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the
alien or others_ , or

 _have had_ such a disorder and it is _likely to recur_.

It sounds as though this lady's condition does not meet these requirements,
and hence she should have been admitted.

The issue, in this case, is that the immigration agents actually searched
online for her medical/criminal history and found evidence of mental
disorder[1].

Apparently, the agent in this case did not ascertain whether her condition
presents a danger to herself or others currently. She states that it does not,
and presumably she has a psychiatric sign-off to that effect.

Unfortunately, aliens have very little power to effect change in U.S. laws and
abuse of those laws by the border guards. You just try to get past the border
people, then breath a sigh of relief. If you can't get through, you are angry
but your own government is unlikely to act.

This is just more fuel for the argument that our border control needs a major
overhaul. Certainly we should be scrutinizing people coming in from other
countries, especially ones who come from certain Middle Eastern and central
Asian places who are interested in learning to fly jet planes and so forth.
But the vast, overwhelming majority of visitors are good, honest people whom
we should and must welcome. All I can think of to help solve this problem is
to write to your Congressional delegation and get the issue onto the agenda.

[1] [http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/dhs-agent-
cites-p...](http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/dhs-agent-cites-
private-medical-history-deny-canadian-entry-us)

------
michaelochurch
It's almost hypocritical. Our lack of universal healthcare causes so many
otherwise mildly ill people to become much sicker. (U.S. health insurers, who
make much of their money by throwing red tape at people until they just give
up on legit claims, are especially vicious toward those with mental illness,
who are statistically more likely to give up easily.) Then the U.S. says, "no
sick people! We've made too many of our own!"

~~~
jasonlotito
Just to offer the anecdotal opposite: we left Canada precisely because the
health care system harmed my son. Since living n the US, both of them have
gotten help for far, far less than it would have cost in Canada to go the
private route, and with a dramatically shorter wait time. This is without
needing to use private insurance.

~~~
alanctgardner2
Having survived a childhood of OHIP, I find it hard to believe that your son
received a significantly worse quality of care _because_ you were in Canada. I
don't doubt some doctors are better than others, but that happens everywhere.

~~~
jasonlotito
It's not because we were in Canada, but because of the structure of Canada's
Healthcare system, and specifically Quebec's.

> I find it hard to believe

Don't let my facts get in the way of your beliefs.

Edit: Better yet, let me treat you the same way. I doubt your story, liar.
Fuck, you offer up a contradicting story, and people find it so hard to
believe and immediately doubt you.

Seriously, if you think Canada's health care system is perfect, you are
delusional.

~~~
alanctgardner2
edit: I get that this is a personal issue for you, and you got piled on for
giving an anecdote that didn't fit people's expectations. I wasn't following
the whole thread, so I didn't see you already answered my questions below.
That said, you were kind of a jerk considering you gave no detail (not the
province, not the illness, not the complaint, nothing but "Canadian healthcare
sucks").

Was language a contributing factor? With the exception of Montral Quebec tends
to be like a completely different country, and they definitely prioritize
French language services. I could see getting an English-speaking specialist
would be tough, especially in a smaller place.

~~~
jasonlotito
> That said, you were kind of a jerk considering you gave no detail (not the
> province, not the illness, not the complaint, nothing but "Canadian
> healthcare sucks").

Considering the original comment I was replying to was "US healthcare sucks,"
I don't see why I need to pony up the proof. There are 50 states, all with
different rules and regulations, all with different programs, and all that do
things better in some areas than others. I'm tired of playing the game of
having to explain it every time, so I limit my explanation to what I'm
replying to.

As for being piled on, I'm used to it. But consider it's my kids, I feel it's
worthwhile. If I can save someone else's child from suffering what my child
had to suffer, it's worth it.

> Was language a contributing factor?

No.

First, this was several years ago, before the latest government went all crazy
with the French language and French language police. It's worse now, but back
than, it wasn't as bad.

Second, we lived and would have received services in Montreal.

Thirdly, we never prioritized English. My wife speaks French just fine, and we
didn't care if it the service was in English or French.

Fourth, it was a result of regulations by the government saying that early
intervention for children with Autism is not crucial. This was explained to us
many times. This rule flies in the face of every doctor. Early intervention
for children with autism is key.

Fifth, for the amount of money I was paying in taxes, I found it evil the
amount that was being given to police the french language over Autism
assistance. I will not ever stand to support that province again in any way,
and have no qualms about fucking it over every chance I get.

Sixth, we were told on more than one occasion we should give up our son to a
state run home. Now, this is the part that really gets people, and I'd love to
say I was lying. I realize this isn't official policy, but still. It's the
mentality. From what I'm told by others working up there in the medical field,
this isn't uncommon for the French.

Anyways, that's more information than I intended to share, but point is, we
did everything in our power. My wife worked this full time, submitting
paperwork to every possible location to the point where our primary physician
told us to stop sending out letters because she was tired of getting requests
for information.

The straw that broke our back was being informed that we had finally gotten an
appointment after 6 months of waiting, and we scheduled that appointment
(which would take place 6 months later, mind you). This was with an service
that our doctor from one of the children's hospitals in Montreal had
recommended to us for our son. We got this appointment in the sprint of 2011,
and we were finally happy that we were moving forward. That afternoon, we got
a call back from the agency, and they cancelled the appointment, because they
don't take children with autism. One moment we were happy! The next, horrified
that all that work was for nothing. Over a year, and we had nothing to show
for it, and our son was almost 2 1/2\. Luckily, I am American, and we made the
decision to move that day.

So yeah, I have a deep seeded hatred for Quebec, and the Canadian Healthcare
system that allowed that to happen. Almost 10 years of living up there, and
when we really needed the system, it failed us hard. It wasn't money, it
wasn't lack of doctors, it wasn't even a lack of need.

It was purely a choice, political, and prioritizing a stupid language.

------
Daniel_Newby
ADHD is a much larger threat than all other mental illnesses combined. For
every schizo with a rifle in a clock tower, there are 10,000 people with poor
impulse control crashing cars.

As usual, FedGov is oblivious to statistics.

~~~
NAFV_P
I'm very clumsy (I might have ADHD myself) but I have never accidentally
killed someone.

