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Comment by reverend_gonzo | Hacker News Reader

> If a person's mind is gone so haywire that they're destroying their own body, that they don't have adequate control of their mind (as is the case with schizophrenics), that they don't eat or even respond to human communication, and they have been diagnosed with a mental disorder then you should institutionalize them until their mind regains control.

This is a very fine line. What if someone refuses to eat food, or communicate, as part of a protest or a religious fast or any other personal reason? Who are you do to decide what they're doing is wrong?

If they are not endangering anyone else, it gives you no right to interfere.

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The difference is he has a genuine medical problem: a mental disorder, i.e. it's in the DSM.

Homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder in the DSM until the mid-1970s.

The understanding of relatively highly-occurring afflictions such as PTS and schizophrenia is evolving to this day and it's a near-certainty that the DSM will be a different document 10 years from now.

I don't think we should be so cavalier about taking freedom away from people whose main transgression against the rest of society is making us feel uncomfortable when we look at them.

>Homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder in the DSM until the mid-1970s. The understanding of relatively highly-occurring afflictions such as PTS and schizophrenia is evolving to this day and it's a near-certainty that the DSM will be a different document 10 years from now.

Just because it had errors before doesn't discredit the document in its current state; it's the product of scientific investigation. By it's very nature it will make mistakes and then update the conclusions as time goes by. Yes, of course it will be different in 10 years, but currently it is our best understanding of mental ailments and the knowledgebase has come a long way.

> main transgression against the rest of society is making us feel uncomfortable when we look at them.

The main transgression is that the victims are trapped in a cycle of suffering because their brains are malfunctioning and are preventing them from recovering or seeking help to recover.

I don't think the word "transgression" means what you think it means.

The DSM? Don't make me laugh. The DSM has plenty of things in it that you can't say would require someone to be institutionalised. I'll bet there is something I could find in the DSM that you would fit into. I'm not about to commit you though.

Not every mental disorder warrants institutionalisation; I never said that. My point was to clarify that a medically diagnosed person who does some crazy action should be institutionalised, whereas a person who does the exact same crazy action but has no mental disorders should not be.

Define "crazy action"? And under what mental disorder should someone be institutionalised? All you've referred to is the DSM, so it's very unclear which illnesses and disorders you are referring to.

Incidentally, are you aware that there is a difference between a mental disorder and a mental illness?

By "crazy action" I mean for 2 years wilfully undereating, not washing, living in filth, not responding to basic communication (even to your own daughter) and standing for long stretches of time at road intersections.

>And under what mental disorder should someone be institutionalised?

Under those that are responsible for causing a person to suffer and damage their own health and fail to try to recover, or seek help with recovery, as in the example above.

>All you've referred to is the DSM, so it's very unclear which illnesses and disorders you are referring to.

You've taken this comment thread on a totally different tangent. We're arguing a wholly different point now.

> Incidentally, are you aware that there is a difference between a mental disorder and a mental illness?

No, wasn't aware. I use them interchangeably.

I haven't actually taken this on a different tangent. You literally wrote that you would only institutionalize those with a mental illness that is in the DSM, when questioned you said only certain illnesses would apply, so now I'm asking what illnesses and disorders you believe apply.

There are a group of people in Australia called Ferals. They don't eat well, and they never bathe. They do it out of choice. I'm sure some of them are mentally ill. I wouldn't be locking them up in an institution!

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