I didn't feel much like writing this week...life has been busy, and the slowly darkening days have exhausted my brain quite a bit. But, instead of not posting anything, I wanted to share this video from John Oliver tangentially-related to the shooting at Umqua Community College. I'm sure many of you have already seen it but, for those who haven't, it's a concise and informative look at the mental health care system in our country. Of course, since it's from HBO, there is some adult content mentioned, so consider yourself warned and whatnot. It also contains humor.

The most important take-away to me:

“The aftermath of a mass shooting might actually be the worst time to talk about mental health, because for the record, the vast majority of mentally ill people are nonviolent, and the vast majority of gun violence is committed by non-mentally ill people. In fact, mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators, so the fact that we tend to only discuss mental health in a mass shooting context is deeply misleading.”

I don't have anything to add right now (see above about brain exhaustion), except for some additional articles on the subject that may be of interest:

Everyone blames mental illness for mass shootings. But what if that's wrong? - German Lopez, Vox
It’s not about mental illness: The big lie that always follows mass shootings by white males - Arthur Chu, Salon

Next week I'll return with writing from my own brain. Until then, be sure to love and take care of each other out there.