Hacker News Reader

Comment by aborochoff | Hacker News Reader

So apparently its evident to a lot of people on hacker news that kanye has a mental illness and is making bad decisions because of it.

If this is the case why hasnt someone tried to take power of attorney or something similar here?

View on HN

> power of attorney

My grandma is beginning to look like she has dementia. But we, as a family, aren't at a point where we're thinking of taking away her agency. She's a proud woman and always has been.

In many cases, its probably better for the person for them to keep their agency. If they're only going to lose money, its really not that big of a deal. We're more concerned about what if she has a fall by herself or other such issue. But those things won't be solved by revoking her agency.

But just because someone is mentally ill (dementia, bipolar, or even schizophrenic) doesn't mean they deserve to lose their agency and get power of attorney invoked over them.

Has anyone close to you been in a mentally ill situation? Have you ever tried to tell someone you love, someone you trusted, someone you used to look up to that their mental capabilities have declined and that you no longer trust them to watch over themselves? And if so, do you think taking away their ability to use their bank account is the solution to that problem?

> If they're only going to lose money, its really not that big of a deal.

This depends on what will happen after they run out of money.

Someone very close to me has an untreated dual diagnosis (mentally ill + substance abuse disorder). She is otherwise young and intelligent, and with treatment she could at least theoretically have a full life. However she refuses all attempts at help, has been unemployed for over a year, is paranoid and isolated and alone from and abusive to friends and family, is burning through her savings, and will soon get to the point where she will have to foreclose on her house.

At that point she will literally be an unemployed, homeless, mentally ill drug addict.

This is a major problem in our individualistic society with no easy answer. As my coach says, people don’t change when they see the light, only when they feel the heat. She may need to crash and burn, and she may pick herself back up. But the odds on that happening for someone in her position are not good.

And meanwhile we all have to watch someone we love slowly descend into ruin.

> Has anyone close to you been in a mentally ill situation? Have you ever tried to tell someone you love, someone you trusted, someone you used to look up to that their mental capabilities have declined and that you no longer trust them to watch over themselves?

I have, but it doesn't really look like that. It's a gradual assumption of responsibilities by the caregivers that roughly corresponds to the person's decline.

> do you think taking away their ability to use their bank account is the solution to that problem?

It's a solution, yes, when they could dramatically harm their situation/themselves doing things they no longer have the capacity to understand.

My mother is in the early/mid stages of dementia, and she recently granted my father and I power of attorney. It doesn't have to be a "taking away" if they can be convinced that it's in their best interested. Admittedly ymmv, it helps that my mother is a retired psychologist. Also it's hardly a "solution"; it's merely a mitigation. In the months before we did it my mother had been scammed out of thousands of dollars multiple times. There are so many scammers out there targeting the elderly/mentally ill, it's only matter of when not if.

I agree.

I think in your case, having someone cooperate into giving power of attorney is the best case. But in this case, my grandmother is still too proud to willingly give power of attorney to any of her children.

If she willingly gives it, I think we'll take her up on the offer. But she doesn't think she's been scammed yet. We likely have to wait until after she's realized how she's been taken advantage of before she's in the position to willingly give us power of attorney.

Forcibly taking it before that realization would be counterproductive.

It's not just evident to a lot of people; he has claimed it himself, and it's basically confirmed. Here's the relevant part of his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Mental_health

There's a lot of stuff there, among other things:

> West said that he often has suicidal ideation. In a 2019 interview with David Letterman, West stated that he has bipolar disorder.

Brittney Spears, who hasn't made any public racists remarks (at least that I know) lost control

And in that case, it seemed like her holding company was abusing her.

So invoking power-of-attorney over someone isn't always the solution to their mental health. Its an extreme move, and I'm really not sure if its designed to be used in the typical mental-health case.

Its not like the mentally ill are suddenly incapable of performing useful work, or unable to watch over themselves. They just have... delusions, bad memory, swings of mood, terrible sleeping habits, etc. etc. They need help, not someone walking in and stealing their money / taking their house / losing all sense of agency all together.

Mental health is... difficult, but livable. Extreme actions like invoking power-of-attorney probably makes things worse in more situations IMO.

> invoking power-of-attorney

You may be thinking of Legal Guardianship. Power of attorney just means someone is authorized to make the same legal decisions as the subject of the power of attorney and can be overridden by the subject.

Brittany Spears was subject to and abused by Guardianship.

It was a lot harder to make those public remarks when Brittney was at her lowest publicly than it is for Kanye right now.

I'm not saying Brittney would have, just saying that it's easier to have a very public manic episode where your every thought is aired than it was 15 years ago.

> why hasnt someone tried to take power of attorney or something similar here?

There is, at least in principle (and certainly for people who can afford lawyers, as he certainly can) a very high bar for this. As there should be.

Because doing such a thing to someone as young and quite honestly as sane as him is absurd, regardless of what twitter people thing. The man is completely capable of making his own decisions and is not a real threat to anyone, at least not enough of a threat to pass the bar for having his agency as an individual taken away. The whole situation with britney spears was a tragedy and we need to stop thinking that these measures are a realistic way to treat things except for the most egregious cases. Having a mental illness and making bad decisions because of it is not one of those cases, else you can bet the political opposition of whatever party/whistleblowers/etc will start magically having mental illnesses and making bad decisions because of it as well.

Because it’s just people arguing on conjecture that folks they disagree with are mentally ill. He is quite obviously sane if you hear him speak.

Did you not watch the Netflix documentary? The last episodes contained many non-obviously-sane conversations. Especially the one where he was talking to bankers at one of their vacation homes.

I’ve seen plenty of weird conversations in the workforce like leaders living in an alternate reality than direct reports to hawk their views, yet never felt motivated to call them mentally ill. I don’t judge how people feel they need to speak to relate to anybody, especially under the influence of alcohol as Kanye was in that segment.

This is simply the latest in a long line of erratic behavior, which eld to a pretty public divorce. The man has no friends or family left, only yes-men.

Because of Britney Spears this has become a lot harder to do in the past year or two.

For good reason. Invoking power of attorney solves no fundamental problems and just creates a ton of other problems.

It should only be done in the most extreme of cases (ie: someone turns into a literal vegetable on life support). If someone still has a degree of agency and capabilities... even if they're delusional and/or mentally ill, they still deserve to live their life. IE: Control their own bank accounts and whatnot.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com