What is Reddit's opinion of I Am Not Sick I Don't Need Help: How to Help Someone with Mental Illness Accept Treatment?

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Not a doctor nor a psychiatrist, but I've had to deal with mental illness in my family. The inability to recognize clinically evident symptoms is called anosognosia and treating for it is difficult and unintuitive.

I want to mention a book for OP and any others dealing with potential anosognosia in their life:

I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help by Xavier Amador--written by a psychiatrist whose brother developed schizophrenia. He gives excellent advice to those wanting to advocate on behalf of family with no insight into their illness.

If your wife ends up getting diagnosed with a mental disorder, especially anything psychosis related, I HIGHLY recommend the book I Am Not Sick I Don’t Need Help. I know this is jumping guns to suggest this book but I work at a State Mental institution as a therapist and the signs are leaning towards psychosis, which is more common than you think. A symptom of psychosis is lacking insight into mental illness and this is a great book for you, your wife, whole family really. Let me know if you have any questions. The longer a person with psychosis diagnosis’s goes without medication, not only do the get more severe, but it gets harder to treat.

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Sick-Dont-Need-Help/dp/0967718929

I have a book suggestion for you called "I'm Not Sick, I Don't Need Help" It's written for families of loved ones suffering from mental health issues and it's about how to convince them to eventually seek help. Good luck!

My wife has a severe form of OCD. I hear what you're saying, and can relate.

A book that has helped me understand what I can do as a family member is I'm Not Sick, I Don't Need Help. Largely, the book reveals how to be a supporting family member, and build a relationship that leads to trust and partnership in dealing with the mental health issues. I have many friends and family in the mental health profession, and even with their constant support, I found that this book gave me new perspectives and tools that I use daily.

It sounds like you're a very supportive wife, but feeling conflicted and defeated. I've been in similar emotions, and I found the book to be valuable part of a mental health regimen for myself. In addition, I've found that a relationship with a therapist is key to sorting out my thoughts about myself, my relationship, and my wife :)

I'm sorry to hear that. If he does have it, it can be a very long road to recovery. One more thing that's very important, if you're brother doesn't have insurance I would get that for him first. If he is diagnosed before that you may have to pay for his medical expenses out of pocket. And believe me, these bills can be astronomical. If he's had relatively good health so far, he should be able to get a cheap enough plan for him no problem. You can even do this for him online or over the phone and answer the questions for him. You will just need him to sign the final contract submitting over his health history to insurance. Once he's approved then its convincing him to see a psychiatrist. This usually happens unfortunately if he has a terrifying episode for him to go willingly. My brother was diagnosed in 2008. If your brother does have this illness, you and any loved ones who will be his advocate should get the book I'm Not Sick and I Don't Need Help by Xavier Amadour. Feel free to PM me if you need further assistance. Good luck!

Here’s the book version. https://www.amazon.com/Not-Sick-Dont-Need-Help/dp/0967718929

> I am focusing on these cases because the calls for improving mental health is cited as some kind of fix to this situation.

You're picking out specific cases and asking to solve those, when it's being cited as a way to improve the situation as a whole. If you're looking for a solution that prevents 100% of all spree killings ever, I think you're right, no practical solution exists -- very few problems of this scale are ever truly fixed, such that they can never happen again. Smallpox is the only example that comes to mind.

> How could an overhaul of mental health identify spree killers who are not already identified as having mental health issues?

Even if it didn't, I think my comment above applies -- some spree killers were identified as having mental health issues.

Increased awareness and decreased stigma could help identify people who have mental issues before they become killers.

> If you do find someone at risk for violence what then? What can you do with that information?

Depends on the level of risk, of course, but consider one of your examples: James Holmes was almost involuntarily committed. Had he been committed, he would've been held for treatment until he was much less likely to be a danger to himself or others. If he never met the criteria for release, that's sad, but that means he'd be held in an environment where he physically can't commit a spree killing.

But there are plenty of other scenarios -- you could have someone who isn't yet a danger, but may become so if they don't get help. Right now, people often don't seek help, because of the stigma -- even after the fact, Ted Kaczynski refused to make an insanity plea. There's a very good book about how difficult it can be to convince a loved one that there's even something wrong. (I can tell you from personal experience that it can be incredibly difficult -- often the illness itself will interfere with the very kind of insight the person would need to realize they're sick. We don't need to be piling societal judgement on top of that!)

And even when people seek help, therapy is expensive. And even when they can afford the therapy, even if they can afford the drugs, and even if they'll cooperate with all these things, and even if it then works perfectly and they end up graduating from the medication to being truly normal, they often won't tell anyone for fear of being seen as weird, despite how surprisingly common this is.

Fix that, and you might prevent more people from becoming dangers in the first place, or at least ensure that more people end up being detected and committed before they can kill anyone.

You could accuse me of picking out specific examples with Holmes and Kaczynski, but I only need an existence proof -- maybe this only works for Holmes, and wouldn't have helped Lanza, I don't know. My only claim here is that a) this would probably reduce the number of spree killings (but not eliminate it), and b) even if it didn't, it would improve things for the better, so we should do it anyway.