A significant number of pro se litigants who weaponize our current permissive court system can exhibit clear, observable signs of having dangerous, severe and persistent pathological or psychotic conditions. There have been situations in which predatory, stalking pro se litigants use the court system to force their victims to be in their presence at a given place and time so they can either murder their victims or further threaten them. As stated elsewhere in this website, judges, court clerks and court staff have expressed that some pro se litigants intimidate them because of those litigants’ observed alarming speech and mannerisms, and the rambling, inflammatory, nonsensical contents of their court filings.
Since our mental health system is at best broken and at worst virtually non-existent, our state and federal legislators need to enact good sense mental health reform laws that are preventative not reactionary. Some severe mental health conditions, whether severe psychopathy, sociopathy, or severe psychotic conditions (e.g., schizophrenia) are genetic and/or organic and as such are persistent, degenerative, and terminal, just like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and dementia are terminal conditions. The sad reality is that, as yet, there is no recovery possible for severely mentally disturbed individuals. Consistent, monitored treatment can at best lessen the symptoms in some cases. A significant part of any mental health reform law must create easier long-term and permanent commitment processes for severely, persistently mentally disturbed individuals – dangerous psychopaths, sociopaths and psychotics – to be placed into competent and compassionate private mental health treatment facilities overseen by the state in which they operate (just as private nursing homes currently operate under state oversight).
As a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights I just as strongly support the enactment of sane gun laws to prohibit anyone diagnosed with dangerous, severe and persistent mental health conditions from obtaining guns.
The following resources offer more information on mental health issues and provide viable solutions that legislators can use to propose bills and get good sense, compassionate mental health reform laws enacted:
- Insane Consequences, How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill, D. J. Jaffe, Prometheus Books, 2017.
- “Involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment laws: basis in law and history,” D.J. Jaffe, https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/ivc/involuntary-commitment-concepts.html
- “Toward rational commitment laws: Committed to help,” Rael Jean Isaac and D.J. Jaffe, https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/media/bestmedia/rational-commitment.html
- Madness in the Streets, How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill, Rael Jean Isaac and Virginia Armat, Treatment Advocacy Center, 1990.
- American Psychosis, How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System, E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., 2014.
- “Recovering from a Narcissist,” Shahida Arabi, M.A.,
“They can even infiltrate fields like counseling or religious and spiritual leadership in order to access a greater supply of victims, disguising themselves as competent professionals or “gurus” all while hunting for prey.”
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/recovering-narcissist/2018/10/covert-sociopaths-and-narcissists/