When Crazy Isn’t Crazy

By Jim Hagarty
2018
Mental health professionals have been saying for some time that it is a myth that the mentally ill are violent, a characterization that society likes to promote. The mentally ill CAN be violent, but that is not a natural posture for them. If they are violent, that violence is often directed towards themselves. Hence the efforts by caregivers to protect them from themselves. But to portray the mentally ill as “psycho” makes for great movies and literature. Some say it is not even correct to label Donald Trump as mentally ill as it lets him off the hook in this environment. “Not mad, just bad. He knows what he is doing.” Our approach to the mentally ill has not advanced much over the millennia. We fear them and consider that they must be “possessed” by evil spirits. There is mental illness and there is evil. It is possible to be evil without being ill. Evil is a choice, arrived at by calculation. Illness is not. Illness can be treated. Evil is almost always immune to efforts at correction. Mental illness is a temporary corrupted condition of the mind, evil a rotting of the soul.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.