Overall, great post. Could I speak to the other side of it...somewhat? I've been critical of the lack of facilities ushered in by politicians greedy to capitalize on what amounts to Psychiatrists claims that they can medicate patients into sanity. I think the criticism is worthwhile but at the same time, most of the facilities were places where very bad things occurred. When you think about it, the rise of Psychotropic medication has allowed a lot of folks to lead semi-normal lives walking around like the rest of us, where before their advent, commitment was probably the best option.
That said, your point about pschiatric drugs...and other drugs, having the opposite or near-opposite effect they are supposed to, is well-taken. And it also seems like sometimes the patient is not at fault. Many times the patients decide to self-prescribe and decrease or quit taking meds, but sometimes it seems like a med can be working fine and then just quit or have a different effect. Strange and concerning.
At any rate, this is the conversation that should occur as to mental health, not some sort of test which will, no doubt, throw out anybody who wants to own a gun as "crazy" given the overall liberal bent of the profession.
I wonder if anybody remembers back about 1969 when the ACLU was going to court to empty the mental hospitals because of the patients' civil rights being overlooked. Made it a lot harder to put a psychotic person into some controlled environment. Maybe the ACLU is responsible for all this mass murder.
