Thank you for your inclusion of Jennifer Stuber’s guest column “Focus on suicide prevention to reduce gun deaths” [Opinion, Oct. 1]. Stuber’s column invites us to question the ways in which widespread stigmas about mental illness and its relationship to violence have powerful personal, social and political impacts.
The current debate about firearm background checks focuses on homicide — not suicide — prevention and often construes people with mental illnesses as likely perpetrators of violent crimes. Such underlying stigmas reinforce the perception that people with mental illnesses are disproportionately violent and dangerous. Research, however, tells us that a diagnosis of mental illness alone does not predict violence. Given this disconnect, we must question whether our social assumptions and political actions regarding mental illness are informed by stigma or fact.
In our society, where one in four of us lives with a mental illness of some kind, it is critical that we disrupt such misinformed and discriminatory portrayals. Currently, only one-third of those with a mental illness receive treatment. If we could counter our negative and inaccurate social perceptions, perhaps more individuals would be enabled to seek and receive mental-health services.
Mollie Gabrys-Lake, Seattle