What we know for the moment about the drama of Rosemont in which three people died stabbed, we owe it to the journalists who managed to glean here and there a few crumbs of information from devastated relatives.
The suspect, Arthur Galarneau, had mental problems, the nature of which is unknown. He was taking medication. His problems dated back to a young age. As a teenager, he was prone to seizures.
A social worker visited him from time to time at his apartment, in the basement of the family duplex.
The family was mobilized and loving, surrounding and supporting the young man.
A friend testified to the isolation of the suspect lately.
In a video available on his Instagram account, Arthur Galarneau said five weeks ago that he had started changes in his life. He aspired to do more sport, said he had stopped “weed”, jar. He said he had lived “bullshit” for two years.
I quote him: “Like, to feel happy is like stepping into the void. I don’t know, it’s still scary to be happy again. »
Five weeks after the publication of this video, Arthur Galarneau was accused of having committed a carnage.
Of course, more mental health care services are needed. This is the mantra, after each of these tragedies: Need more services.
The investigation will tell us (or not) if the young man from Rosemont had enough mental health care.
But I would also like to say that what we call “mental health care” is a very, very broad spectrum. It means everything and it means nothing, sometimes.
Mental health is going to see a psychologist because heartbreak puts us in front of our failures in life.
It is to be weighed down by an anxiety disorder and sometimes paralyzing.
It is suffering from depression with suicidal thoughts.
It is a borderline personality disorder that often prevents us from functioning in society.
It is also living with schizophrenia and risks of psychoses that put you at risk.
In short, mental health is a very broad spectrum that requires very different diagnoses and treatments, depending on the individual.
I would like to show a blind spot in the discussion, which goes beyond “we need more mental health care services”.
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I’ve been thinking about mental health for a few years. I have written a thousand times and said that the system is full of holes.
Over the years, I have looked at three types of situations, roughly speaking.
One, the difficult access to the care of psychologists. It’s expensive, therapy, if you don’t have access to a private insurance plan. And it’s hard to find a shrink, given the shortage.
Two, the difficult hospital care when a person has suicidal behavior and thoughts. Classic case: a person threatens to commit suicide, his panicked family convinces him to go to the emergency room…
Where she is given a pill and pamphlets to contact a community organization.
And a few days later, the person kills himself.
Three, a person suffering from schizophrenia who refuses treatment, who multiplies disturbing and violent behavior. One name: Frédérick Gingras. In 2016, after being arrested five times by the police in different cities, this man killed two people in addition to injuring others in a murderous psychotic escape in Montreal.
His mother will say, after the carnage: “My son is sick. He should have been in an institution for a long time. It’s not normal to have left him outside. »
This third scenario is a nightmare that keeps loved ones in a kind of perpetual terror. Imagine: you love your son and you want to help him…
But he refuses to take care of himself… As he has the right to.
He doesn’t believe in drugs, thinks everyone is sick… Except him.
I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to families tell me about this nightmare. A nightmare that of course does not always end in murder. But a nightmare all the same, which can be punctuated with violence.
And if the patient is threatening, if he makes disturbing remarks, the police cannot always intervene before a dangerous act is committed.
It’s called a “judicial authorization of care”: it’s when you force a person to receive care.
It’s hard to get. Families who want to use it must arm themselves with patience and willpower. Psychiatrists who engage in the process often find it frustrating: it’s long, arduous, and once before the judge, he has a “competence” to assess the dangerousness of the patient…
And, very often, the judges will lean in favor of the right of the patient not to receive care. There is a balance to be struck between dangerousness (which is not an exact science) and the freedom of individuals (which is guaranteed by the charters).
No one wants to go back to the days when the sick were locked up, regardless of their condition. But I am pointing out here a blind spot in the whole mental health debate: there are people who refuse treatment and who are dangerous.
What do we do with them?
In some cases, the answer is not in the mental health care net, it is not in “more services are needed”.
It is found in laws and in the interpretation of those laws by judges.