To people calling Shirley "mentally ill"


Shirley and other murderers like her are one of the reasons that the stigma of mental illness exists. People calling her "schizophrenic" or "bipolar" clearly know nothing about either of those conditions. My mother suffered from bipolar disorder, and trust me, she was absolutely NOTHING like Shirley and never hurt anyone. Violent behavior is one of the misconceptions of mental illness. People who suffer from conditions like that are much more likely to harm themselves than others, and are even more likely to become a victim of a crime. Shirley was a narcissistic, manipulative sociopath. No medication ever helped her. What she needed was prison time (or at the very least, time in a ward for the criminally insane).

That being said, I'm a 29-year-old male, and I have literally never cried so much watching any movie. What she did to that poor family is beyond disgusting, and I hope she burns in hell. As if taking their son wasn't painful enough for them, she had to take their infant grandson too! I felt physically ill when it was revealed what happened to Zachary. I was hoping that it would end with the worst case scenario being that she somehow won custody of him and avoided prison time. I never thought that what they feared most would end up happening. So sad.

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But sociopath(y) is a mental illness?

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True, but it's being abused. Sociopaths know what they're doing, what the ramifications are, and that it's not so good. They're fully accountable for their actions. Schizophrenics, for comparison, are genuinely out of touch with reality and don't understand heir actions or their ramifications. There's also many other mental illnesses that wouldn't leave a person as particularly dangerous to those around them

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That's not necessarily true. My aunt knows the difference between right and wrong but she feels compelled to do certain things because her voices tell her to.

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You don't know as much as you think you do. I have 3 schizophrenic aunts and all 3 of them have taken a gun, knife, or poisoned someone. All of these people they went after we're family members.

I also have a bipolar cousin that abandoned her suicidal 14 year old daughter because her husband didn't make enough money for her.

Just because that was your experience doesn't mean it's everyone's experience.

I didn't think she seemed schizophrenic or bipolar but there was clearly something wrong with her. The courts never seem to catch it until after someone's dead and this time, 3 people had to die in order for the legal system to take notice.

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Some people just cope differently or have other disorders along with them

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