Society tends to believe that the mentally ill are a set of people who are permanently ready to become violent, striking out at random times for reasons that the rest of us simply can not fathom.  Unfortunately, this belief is a salacious exaggeration by the media, who have a vested interest in only providing the “interesting” part of any story.  While it is definitely newsworthy when a psychotic or a bipolar person commits a crime, the saddest part of all (besides the crime itself) is that there is rarely any balance given to the story.  If there were more explanation of why a person with a mental illness would commit a heinous act, the public might understand better.

The unfortunate truth is, only people who have a family member or a close family friend who has a mental illness generally have a balanced understanding of what this disability means in practical terms.  While Hollywood has long known that it makes for a great story to have a mad scientist or a psychotic killer tormenting the protagonists, these images are terribly misleading to those who are not in the know about the issues themselves.  And for those of us who have neither a clinical background nor a personal history with such a mentally challenged individual, there may be no understanding of what really goes through the mind of a mentally or emotionally disturbed person.

Consider that according to the statistics of violent crime, people with mental illnesses commit no more per capita than any other members of the population do.  While the motivations of a person whose perception of the world may be completely different (such as a psychotic) may not be readily understood by a person of more typical neurology, the fact is that the person may have believed that they were under threat, and thus needed to defend themselves.