When I think about it, one book probably influenced my perception of mental illness and especially schizophrenia (is the ability to hear voices a curse or a gift) That is Oliver Sachs' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.
The book describes neurological "problems" that Sachs has encountered but often he finds "the cure" is worse than the illness. And it also got me thinking, how much of mental illness is neurological? Should we seek cures or is treatment enough? At what point do we seek treatment? I think I began accepting mental illness as a condition like diabetes or arthritis after reading this book. As with other neurologically diverse people, do we treat them, confine them just because they are different or do we wait until they can no longer function safely in society?
Will we evolve to be more accepting as many are now with people with Down's syndrome, trans/gay and with autism?
My fear with the conservative view that gun violence is the result of mental illness, is that we will go backwards and start committing people who are "different" to a life time of confinement.
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