This Is Why We Need to Educate People on Mental Disorders!
The story
Golda Barton called the police to get help with her thirteen year old son, Linden Cameron who has Asperger’s syndrome, which is a high functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and was having what is known as a meltdown due to “bad separation anxiety” as his mother was returning to work for the first time in over a year. All she wanted was for her son to be taken to the hospital and taken into care.
Instead what happened is officers entered the home and within five minutes were screaming “Get down on the ground.” Cameron tried to flee and officers shot him repeatedly, putting him in serious condition with injuries to his intestines, bladder, shoulder and ankles. He was unarmed.
His mother said to KUTV on Sunday, “He’s a small child. Why didn’t you just tackle him?” She was in tears. “He’s a baby. He has mental issues.”
Neurodiverse Utah put out a statement saying: “Police were called because help was needed but instead more harm was done when officers from the SLPD expected a 13-year-old experiencing a mental health episode to act calmer and collected than adult trained officers.”
My View
As a person with Asperger’s syndrome I find this devastating and it brings me complete fear for my own personal safety. One of the biggest mistakes of psychiatric care for people with mental disorders is the focus is only on the person with the mental disorder by sticking them on psychiatric drugs and NOT on educating people how to cope and be able to manage people who are mentally disabled.
A great example is with my best friend in the UK who was misled by people because of their ignorance on the subject. As someone with an Autistic disorder, like some people with Autism I tend to form an emotional attachment bond to someone I grow to care for deeply. That person because important and special, almost like a security blanket in a way. For me to know he’s there for me, to talk to him and just having someone to turn to when I just want to vent and understands, that brings great comfort to me and makes me able to function in daily life. While it is harder cause he’s in the UK and I’m in the US, the compensation has to happen over text than in person. And losing such a person you grow that close with can be devastating on a massive scale to a person with such a bond and can do a lot of emotional and mental damage.
The problem is when you try and explain this to a person cause a person with a mental disorder has to learn about themselves and has to cope with living with the disorder, people make it out as using your mental disorder as an excuse when that’s not the case, they are trying to help you understand things so you are able to cope with it and not unintentionally hurt them. Or take the incident with the emotional attachment bond and people make the person out as obsessed when it’s not the case cause the bond gets formed and not finding a good balance that works for both people so a person like me can feel safe or secure and the other person can go about their lives.
That’s the biggest issue with a lot of mental disorders and not educating people on these things and allowing ignorance. People don’t understand the damage they do to people with mental disorders or how they tend to make things worse.
We need to start educating people and not allowing this ignorance of mental disorders to continue. God knows how many times people have hurt me over their ignorance of my disorder when if they just took the time to try and understand there are things I can’t help, like growing attached to someone and just wanting to feel safe and secure with that one person.
One thing someone like me you won’t ever hear say is “I need a lot of friends.” That’s cause we try to be content with just having a small handful of friends and that one person who means the world to them.
But in a world that prefers to change the disabled person and live in ignorance we end up with situations like this where a small child with something they didn’t ever ask to be born with is now in serious condition because of ignorance. We need to change this and start educating people on mental disorders.
