Myth Busting: Mental Health and Violence from a Parent's Perspective

I was at a meeting a few weeks ago where we were discussing facilities safety and violence prevention programs for our office building, which has conference space available to the public. One of the meeting activities was to review proposed scenarios where someone who might be exhibiting concerning behavior was on or adjacent to our property and then to select what we thought the best option might be to assess and address how to respond. For example, should we notify a behavioral health services/street response team, contact the police if there is a visible weapon, or do nothing and let them be?

I appreciated the thoughtfulness of our team in those discussions about how to assess and address with compassion, but I also realized that there was a general sense of fear about approaching someone who might be doing nothing other than sitting on one of our benches in the sun while talking to themselves. Even though discussing mental health is much more normalized now, observing someone experiencing psychosis or hallucinations still makes people nervous, often because the media tends to highlight stories of violence that involve mental illness which creates unnecessary fear. The facts are that only 3-5% of violent crimes in the U.S. are committed by people with serious mental illness. More importantly, individuals with mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of crimes themselves. Those facts are very real to me, as I cared for my daughter several times after she was violently assaulted during periods when she was experiencing active symptoms of her mental health disorder and vulnerable.

While I always encourage everyone to use their best judgment regarding their safety in a specific situation, please take some time to learn the facts and myths, and the next time you see someone experiencing psychosis, maybe instead of immediately being frightened or nervous, you might just say smile and say hello.