By Alexandra Berrocal
I am a person with mental illness. I have bipolar disorder and take my five medications every night. As a person with mental illness, I have mixed feelings about Prop. 1. I think it’s great that our state is finally doing something about homelessness. According to research done by UC San Francisco, over eight in ten homeless people in California struggle with serious mental illness and nearly two-thirds struggle with addiction. This proposition would increase treatment beds and increase care for people with addictions. I am unhappy that they are expanding involuntary treatment. Involuntary treatment is necessary under certain circumstances. I have been so delusional that I thought I was the Messiah, despite taking my medication. I didn’t think I needed as much care as I ended up getting. I credit involuntary treatment with saving me in certain situations. However, I am concerned that involuntary treatment will be overused.
It comes down to a very tricky dilemma. To what degree can a person, whose mind is impaired, make good choices for themselves? It’s a tricky line to walk. Often, we can’t make good choices for ourselves if we are severely ill, so we need to rely on others to do what is best for us. However, this inherently violates the rights of the mentally ill to a degree. Sometimes the current laws assume we can make choices for ourselves when the part of us that makes choices is impaired. Our current system doesn’t really know how to deal with this. Either they give us the freedom to make bad choices, or we have no choices at all.
It could be argued, though, that the situation really has become dire. I actually walked through Skid Row once, with company, and was shocked by the poverty. This makes me consider that maybe the situation with mental health has become so dire in our state that involuntary measures have become necessary.
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