Letters to the Editor

Ok, maybe I am over-reacting....whatever. I recently picked up a copy of my school newspaper and read some of the letters to the editor. It seems that whenever I read the school newspaper, something pisses me off. Here is the letter that sent me into orbit, and my response to it. All names have been taken out.

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Given the negative press the UPD is getting regarding their arrest of a student for sending threatening messages on myspace, I have to take a minute out of the chaos called the end of the semester to say kudos to UPD and the other law enforcement agencies involved for actually taking a threat seriously. I also have to commend the faculty member who came forward to say he or she had been threatened for having the courage to do so.

First of all, I must say I do not know Mr. ***, nor has he been proven guilty. He may very well be innocent. Therefore, the following is not necessarily directed at him but at the events of the last few weeks regarding safety on university campuses and everywhere else for that matter. As the victim of threats in the past, I think the following needs to be said.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how well you think you know a person, you can NEVER know if they will do something crazy. Mental illness does that to people. One minute som eone can be the most wonderful, loving person in the world, the next minute they can turn into a horrible, incredibly violent person. The Cho family said last week they can't believe that their son/brother would do something that terrible. The person who went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech was not the Seung-Hui Cho they knew. Cho was mentally ill and many of those who are mentally ill are excellent deceivers. We have got to come up with a better way to handle the mentally ill in this country, especially those with violent tendencies. We have gotten so politically correct that we don't even let people know that someone around them has a problem that could lead to violence. It's terrible that someone is mentally ill but the safety of innocent people should come before the "privacy" of someone who is violent and mentally ill.

Also, once someone has threatened someone else, the person threatened has no way to know if the threatener will actually carry out those threats. Many, if not most, threats are probably never intented to be carried out. But, you can never know for sure. That's why people who make threats need to think before they speak or otherwise deal with the consequences (ie. jailtime). Noone should have to live in constant fear, just because someone spoke a few careless words.

I have much more to say but no space or time to say it. One last thing, I was a little leery about signing this letter with my real name. Unfortunately, one thing I've learned in life is there are very few people you can actually trust and putting my name out there almost makes me feel like a target. Too many people are stalked and threatened everyday and we never hear about it. Victims are afraid to come forward about it because they could face violent consequences from the person who threatened them especially if their claims are not taken seriously by law enforcement. I refuse to stop living my life and speaking out because of fear. Franklin Roosevelt said it best when he said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." If this letter makes me a target, so be it.

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There you go......that pissed me off......and here is MY letter to the editor, which will most likely not be printed because it makes too much damn sense :)

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I have 2 words for *** **** : Educate Yourself. I hate to be the one to break it to her, but she sits in her classes every day with mentally ill people. One out of every 10 people in this country has a mood disorder, and I am one of them.

Never, even in my deepest lows or highest manic states, have I been a violent person. In fact, I think of myself as very laid back and successful. I have a state job, I am a graduate student at ***, and I maintain a 4.0 GPA even though I work full-time. I am married to a wonderful man and lead a fairly normal, productive life.

I had no idea that such ignorance existed today on college campuses. Surely if Ms. *** had even sat through PSY 101, she would know that the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. I am frustrated by her comments because her insensitive remarks only add to the stigma that mentally ill people face daily.

Succumbing to an ideology that a group of people need to be "handled" in this country is no different that what happened in Nazi Germany. I find her remarks to be dehumanizing, seeming to refer to people with mental illness as a group that should wear scarlet letters on their chests so everyone can stay away from them. What's next, sending us to concentration camps?

Had Ms. Foster bothered to google "mental illness and violence", she would have discovered these facts:

1.                          Research has shown that the vast majority of people who are violent do not suffer from mental illnesses.

2.                          People with psychiatric disabilities are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime.

3.                          People with severe mental illness are 2 1⁄2 times more likely to be attacked, raped or mugged than the general population.

4.                          Someone with Schizophrenia is 2,000 times more likely to harm themselves than they are likely to harm someone else.

 

If we all lived being afraid of the mentally ill, we would have been afraid of: Abraham Lincoln, Beethoven, Van Gogh, Sir Isaac Newton, Winston Churchill, Michelangelo, Theodore Roosevelt, John Nash, Buzz Aldrin, and many others who have greatly contributed to society, despite their disabilities.

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There you go. Overboard for nothing? Or did I have the right to be pissed??