Meet the Press: mental illness (are there any employers/HR people on DU)

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

I'm kind of in a hurray. I hope you'll get the gist of what I'm saying. :)

They're talking about how society needs to reach out to the mentally ill. Their panel includes David Brooks, Rev. Sharpton, and Peggy Noonan. LMFAO! Shockingly :sarcasm: some of their proposals are seriously detached from reality and if enacted, would cut of the nose to spite the face.

I know everyone is focused on dangerous or homeless mentally ill at the moment, but there are 1,000s more high functioning mentally ill people who successfully treat their illness with medication, and who are *terrified* that an employer or HR person will learn of their illness. This may or may not be news, but the mentally are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Why? Because the mentally ill are discriminated against in the workplace. This fact is in the blind spot of this panel thus some of their proposals would make a difficult life worse for the 1000s of mentally ill willing and able to work. Obviously, this wouldn't be a problem if employers didn't discriminate. Unfortunately, they do.

If HR did a background check--they check one's credit history now, they're more interested in one's mental health--making that information more open will stick a fork in the those willing and able to work.

I fear for many people that the process of reaching out to help the mentally ill will be a disaster for years as HR and employers won't change their attitudes. For thousands of mentally ill, that's making a bad situation worse, by a long margin.

[ananda]

1. AFAIK, 90% of news media personalities are mentally ill and sociopathic.

nt

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

2. You might as well have responded: 50% of the media are women...

:eyes:

In my case, this matters because you can Google my name and bipolar will come up. That didn't matter when I was employed. But I've been unemployed for 3 years now...

Capisce?

[Cetacea]

4. But we tend not to think of women as being more violent

than the rest of us....

[snagglepuss]

6. Are you aware you can request Google to remove your name from its searches?

My name is extremely rare and googling brought up a web site that I didn't want to be associated with. How my name got on there is a mystery. The first thing to do is contact the site's webmaster and request they either alter your name ie drop the surname, or completely delete your name. Once your name is off the site(s) submit the request to google. This whole process took about three weeks.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

8. It's not like that, but thanks. :)

[monmouth]

3. I agree. A DUI 10-15 years ago is still floating in your background and

of course, makes it difficult to get a job.

[asjr]

5. I can't stand D. Gregory. Almost

all these type programs are a load of BS. They mainly give people like Noonan, Brooks, etc. time to pump up their own egos. I stopped MTP ages ago because of Gregory. And anyone who has Noonan on is one taco short of a plate dinner.

[customerserviceguy]

7. I saw that show, too

and it occurred to me, for every Jared Loughner that we could chemically neuter, we'd do the same to a thousand boys who were just going through a temporary tough time. They'd have to fight to get their lives back from being drug-addled zombies.

Think I'm exaggerating? Look at the sales of Ritalin and its equivalents. We've gone from 'boys will be boys' to an attitude that all male behavior must be pharmacologically suppressed.

[lonestarnot]

9. And those HR people making medical diagnosis and prescribing brain fry drugs next up.