Free To Be As Crazy As We Want To Be

I recently mentioned to an Australian friend that I'd only seen two homeless people since I've been here. He was quite surprised. He didn't think Australia had any homeless people!

A sizable portion of the homeless population in the US are people living with some form of mental illness. In the US, you have to be a danger to someone else or in imminent danger of hurting yourself (and I'm not entirely sure about that second point) before you can be institionalized against your will.

And we define "a threat to yourself" pretty tightly I think. Effectively, you have to be right at the edge of killing yourself -- not through something passive like "exposure" but through something more aggressive and overt.

In Australia, apparently, they would define a refusal to seek shelter, not bathing or eating regularly, not taking meds as being a "threat to yourself". Hence, virtually no mental-illness-based homelessness.

Australia also has a much broader social services net. It seems like it's pretty darned tough to be truly down and out here. The government just isn't going to let that happen, whether you like it or not.

A few years ago I was talking to a group of English travellers (this was during the Brittney Spears shaved-head-meltdown phase) and they were appalled that someone didn't "do something". Since it was so apparent that she was having a mental health crisis, they expected official-dom to intervene.

I tried to explain that in America we are, basically, free to be as stupid as we want to be. They just couldn't believe it.

It's a fundamental difference in our relationship to our governments, our definition of "personal freedom", even our understanding of mental health.

I've known families that would prefer the Australian way. When you're dealing with an adult child with mental health issues who refuses to be consistent with necessary meds, it's a nightmare. You, as the parent, can do very very little to protect your child from themselves if they are adult. There are families that would be able to sleep a whole lot better at night if their adult child with a mental illness could be institionalized. Then, at least, their kids would be safe.

But not in America.

So Americans are free, in theory, to make as many foolish decisions as we want to right up to the point of death. Yet we also have one of the most lawsuit-intensive cultures around.

So law enforcement may consider you free but the legal profession may have a different take on that. :)

Ah. America.