#proper CARE is possible. a safe social environment with well trained caretakers on a regular rotation to help prevent burnout

[androphagy]

also, i can't remember where i first saw this fall-through-the-ice take, but i've been watching it be echoed in youtube comments/twitter/some parts of tumblr, and when people say "we need to hold people with mental illness and developmental disabilities accountable, they can't just get away with it because of their disabilities!!!" i am baffled because. they are. do they know how disparaged, abused, ignored, and erased from society these people are.

when someone with severe autism or schizophrenia or any manner of severe debilitating issue has an outburst, lashes out, hurts someone, and/or does something "bad", the amount of times it's excused is rare. the people who use it as an excuse are those able to understand why they need to use it as an excuse. severe issues can cause severe actions and subsequent consequences — if you actually look at the (estimated!) statistics of mentally ill and developmentally disabled people in jail, prison, and indefinite psychiatric holds as a result of violent or "uncontrollable" behavior, they ARE being punished. and if they're not being punished with imprisonment, they're being punished with abusive "therapy", state/federal programs relying on people who need their services to not understand the process — then make them jump through hoops and wait for half a year at least to make any progress (which can and regularly leaves people homeless and starving), societal ostracization and abandonment, and abusive people who come and go in the form of caretakers, friends, and those who take advantage of their loneliness for benefit payments, if they ever receive them.

the people in these comments are talking specifically about people who don't understand or weren't able to understand at the time what was happening, for the record. the idea that we lost a valuable resource when crowded, abusive, and dangerous asylums could hide these people away from "good and proper" society (of which still happens, see my point of imprisonment via jails and psych wards) and often end in their deaths is such a heartless and nasty belief.