sweetschizo:

sweetschizo:

Don’t armchair diagnose mass shooters and other killers. The misconception that all violent people must be mentally ill (and the following conclusion that all mentally ill people must be dangerous) has horrible real life consequences for visibly mentally ill people.

Schizophrenic people are 14 times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime than committing one because people assume that we’re homicidal and dangerous and may react very negatively to visibly mentally ill behavior, partly due to all the media portrayals of schizophrenics as violent killers.

50% of people killed by police are disabled or mentally ill (and the victims are disproportionately black or other people of color) because the unusual behavior of visibly disabled and visibly mentally ill people is read as inherently threathening and dangerous.

Please consider the real life consequences of reinforcing the association between mental illness and violence – people are dying because y’all want to blame all evil in the world on severe mental illness so that you can clearly separate yourself from it. You’re harming an already extremely vulnerable and marginalized group of people and it’s time to stop!

I encourage people who aren’t schizophrenic to reblog this. These stereotypes are literally getting people killed and I’ve seen no awareness around this on this website.