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.