Why Are Republicans Cheaters In Politics?

From Georgia to Arizona, Nevada to Michigan, Republicans are mounting an all-out assault on the election process that journalist Ari Berman refers to as a “five-alarm fire for democracy.”

Why are Republicans turning to CHEATING in an effort to ensure their presidential nominee, Donald Trump, wins the presidential election? Come on. Let's not play dumb. Haven't you cheated at something at least once in your life? If you answered yes, then you know why the Republicans have gone to tactics which are definitely in the category of cheating. But, in case you don't know why people cheat, continue reading.

When we think of cheating, we first think of infidelity in relationships. We think about men and women cheating on each other because it is done so much it has become the NORM, expected, and really no big deal in society. Married men: 20–25% of married men cheat, according to Professor Nicholas Wolfinger. A 2024 study found that 20% of men admitted to having sex with someone outside their marriage. Married women: 10–15% of married women cheat, according to Professor Nicholas Wolfinger. A 2024 study found that 13% of married women admitted to having sex with someone outside their marriage.

We are not talking about relationships though. We are talking about one political party trying to CHEAT the American people out of their VOTE and their desired choice for PRESIDENT. This has not been occurring forever, it is not the norm. But Republicans have been cheating so much and for so long that it has become EXPECTED of them by society, hopefully not ACCEPTED by society. So, what are our Republican friends up to now? 

Georgia Republicans altered how counties count and certify votes. The Georgia state election board passed a new rule that empowers board members—whose traditional role has been to ministerially certify the number of votes cast for each candidate—to condition certification on a “reasonable inquiry that the tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate and that the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election.” Broken down, the election board can question ballots and delay state certification of votes if their man doesn't win. 

In Texas, the Republican-controlled state government has for years tried to restrict voting in districts where Democratic candidates do well. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week that he has purged over 1 million voters from Texas voter rolls. This increasingly common tactic inevitably removes legally registered voters, often through faulty data screens that target likely Democratic voters. As the old church singers sung, 'Your name is removed from up yonder when the roll is called,' or something like that.

Also in Texas, last week, under Paxton’s orders, the homes of a dozen members of LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, were raided and searched by Texas authorities, including SWAT teams. LULAC said in a statement, “Attorney General Paxton’s actions clearly aim to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and any means necessary to tilt the electoral process in favor of his political allies.” These are fear and intimidation tactics long employed by cheaters.

Lindsey Graham, in an effort to ensure Trump wins all of Nebraska's electoral votes, went to Nebraska to try and get them to change their electoral count rules within 50 days of an election so that they just happen to disenfranchise a bunch of voters. Nebraska splits its five votes, granting two of them to the winner of the state’s popular vote, while the other three are given to the winner of the three congressional districts. 

The South Carolina Republican, Graham, met with Governor Jim Pillen and more than a dozen Republican lawmakers Wednesday with the hopes of shoring up support for a bill that would make all five of Nebraska’s electoral votes go to whoever wins the state, Nebraska’s Republican congressional delegation wrote a letter to Pillen Wednesday urging the state to return to a model where all the votes would be granted to the winner of the whole state. Such a bill would transform Nebraska’s presidential election into a winner-take-all system—at the very last minute. They wanted ALL of Nebraska's votes to go to who they believed would win the state, Donald Trump ensuring Kamala Harris could not receive ANY votes from the state.

Republicans are doing some BOLD in your face CHEATING and do not care who knows it. But why do they continue to cheat even when they know people HATE CHEATERS? Because the reward for them is worth it. 

Cheating can be a shortcut to money, fame, and success. It promises all the reward without the work. It's the path of least resistance—as long as you can avoid being caught. Republicans are so desperate to win, they don't care if they get caught cheating. Their NEED to win has left the realm of what a healthy mature person will and will not do. There are no deterrents such as shame, guilt, and/or ostracization by society that can rein in their need to win. Many would say they have crossed over to sociopathic, psychotic behavior. Everyone agree and know they are prone to CRIMINAL behavior. Their top man Donald Trump is a convicted FELON. Isn't that a criminal?

Research across different fields, from academics to sports, suggests that people with lower self-esteem are more likely to cheat. They might cheat to achieve goals, boost their image, or avoid failure because they don't believe in their abilities. People may also cheat to obtain money or prestige, a desire to prove they're smart, or because they are impulsive. Winning elections such as the presidency, allows for all of the aforementioned REWARDS.

In sports, success often involves comparing oneself to others, which can lead to a sense of entitlement and the belief that one is better than others. Politics is the highest of competitions. It is seen by an audience of millions of voters. The voters are rooting and cheering for their TEAM to win. Just like in sports, the candidates vying for political offices will cheat to win to avoid embarrassment or awkwardness, to attain a certain rank or status, to see if they can get away with it and/or to prove they're smart.

Okay. We know people cheat. You may be one of the cheaters, past or present. But WHAT type of person cheats? WHAT are the different types of personalities that are most likely to cheat? There are several types of personalities that have been found to be more prone to cheating, including narcissists, psychopaths, and those with an avoidant attachment style.

There you have it! A narcissist and/or psychopath are known to be cheaters. Narcissism can present as a mental health disorder along with psychopathic behavior. A narcissist is a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves. Narcissists think the world revolves around them. President elect Donald Trump checks that box. A psychopath typically is a person who is callous, manifests antisocial behaviors, does not see other people as human beings, manipulates them, betrays them, uses them and has total disregard for the law. We have a winner! Donald Trump gets a check for this box also. He uses people, gives them marching orders and then publicly deny he has ever seen or known them. Enter Laura Loomer.

When people succeed in competition against others, it seems to compromise their ethics. It makes them more likely to cheat afterwards. On the flip side, when someone fails too many times, they look for other ways to win such as cheating. Donald Trump has won a presidential election (2015) and lost a presidential election (2020). This makes his chances of cheating even greater because he is operating from both sides of the coin. 

When trying to find an answer or strategy to stop people, Republicans, from cheating, the solution becomes problematic because they are not operating as 'normal' people. Remember, many of the actions of some of the Republican party have crossed over the line of acceptable behavior for a rational person. If they are not affected by symptoms of mental illness than they are operating under peer pressure or even coercion. Lindsey Graham went to Nebraska after public suggestions by a close Trump supporter, Laura Loomer he was 'gay' which he denied. Research suggests that patients with mental illness may be more prone to VIOLENCE if they do not receive adequate treatment. Violence is not always just physical. Everyone knows Trump is not afraid of stirring the pot (or to get others to do the stirring for him) of violence to get people to do his bidding or in retaliation.

Lindsey Graham was one of many Republicans asking Donald Trump to distance himself from the baseless conspiracy theory spreader (Laura Loomer), who also makes racist and degrading posts on her social media platform with a large number of followers. Her response to Graham's request, “Lindsey Graham has never been loyal to President Trump,” Loomer wrote on X (formerly Twitter), adding, “When is Lindsey coming out of the closet? We all know you’re gay, Lindsey… and that’s ok.” If she was used as a WEAPON, she hit EVERY TARGET.

Over the course of the past seven years, Loomer has posted an unending stream of racist and Islamophobic content online, while pushing conspiracy theories about school shootings, election fraud, and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Loomer posted a racist attack against Vice President Kamala Harris. “The White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center,” Loomer wrote in a post on X.

Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia congresswoman who has pushedschool shooting conspiracies, boosted QAnon, and even questioned if Nancy Pelosi should be tried for treason and executed, called Loomer’s recent social media posts “extremely racist.”

The only way to combat evil is to continue to do good. Edmund Burke said it best, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," Voting for people who put the welfare of country and citizens first, without seeking glory, status, or power is how we combat Republicans who have crossed over the SANITY line, either by mental illness, coercion, threat and/or intimidation. Voting, running for political offices, and continuing to resist is what will show there is no room for cheaters in politics just like in sports and relationships.

Even if you, yourself have cheated in life, let us not allow cheating to become the 'norm' in our lives and society when it comes to our political process. Republicans, as I said earlier are BOLD and in your face cheating. With our focused engagement in politics and wise voting, eventually, the GOOD will conquer the BAD. 

Donald Trump's Lies

Kamala Harris said in the 2024 Presidential Debate of her opponent Donald Trump, (paraphrasing) "He is going to tell lies. It is what he does." She was proven correct. CNN reports former President Donald Trump delivered more than 30 false claims during Tuesday's presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Even though the majority of commentators, news outlets, and major Republicans said he did horribly in the debate, Donald Trump proclaimed he won the debate. WHY! And why does many of his voting followers believe him and repeat he did well in the debate?

His lies are dangerous and vicious at times. Even when millions of people laugh at his OUTRAGEOUS lies such as, "People (Haitians) are eating dogs", he doubles down and continue to PUSH his lie. As with this lie, his followers spring into action, resulting in this case with bomb a threat to government facility. Why does he continue to LIE?

Mark Twain said that a LIE travels halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on. Actually, that itself is a lie – Twain probably said no such thing and the true origins of the quote remain murky. 

In a study published in early 2018 in the journal Science, three researchers at MIT analyzed around 126,000 stories tweeted by around three million people between 2006 and 2017. Researchers found that the lies travelled faster and farther than the truth. For instance, true tweets rarely reached more than 1,000 people, whereas the most widely shared false tweets reached as many as 100,000 people. Falsehoods were 70% more likely to be retweeted than the truth, and it took true tweets six times as long as lies, on average, to reach 1,500 people. 

Why would people lie for likes, retweets, shares, and comments whether good or bad? A ‘like,’ ‘comment,’ or ‘share’ on social media triggers the same dopamine-driven reward pathways in the brain that are activated by eating food, winning money, or even taking some drugs. Can Donald Trump get high from lying? Do other people on social media get high from likes? Many believe the number of followers you have on social media is what is most important. But if a post gets a lot of likes but the overall follower count is low, it's often a sign that the influencer has a highly engaged audience. I CRAVE more likes on my posts and blogs but I'm not willing to lie for them.

MIT team found that lies tended to be more novel and exciting than the truth. The lies were also better at triggering an emotional response – tweets that users sent in reply to a lie often contained words conveying their surprise or disgust. Radical ideas: We like being lied to - BBC Science Focus Magazine. This may be one reason Donald Trump is popular with his political base. Trump definitely surprises people with his comments as well as disgusts them.

This astonishing jump in falsehoods (lies) is the story of Trump’s tumultuous reign. By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency. Averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day. What is especially striking is how the tsunami of untruths kept rising the longer he served as president and became increasingly unmoored from the truth. Trump averaged about six claims a day in his first year as president, 16 claims a day in his second year, 22 claims a day in this third year—and 39 claims a day in his final year. Put another way, it took him 27 months to reach 10,000 claims and an additional 14 months to reach 20,000. He then exceeded the 30,000 mark less than five months later.

On average, people tell 1-2 lies per day. This may seem like a small number, but it adds up quickly over time. If you do the math, that's between 365 and 730 lies per year. Donald Trump exceeds this yearly average. Research indicates pathological lying can occur because of low self-esteem and a false sense of self. People who lie pathologically may want others to view them positively, making things up to make them look better. Their desire to create a false sense of self could indicate that they are unhappy with themselves. Many have asserted Trump must have low self-esteem or a mental illness based on how often he lies.

You may be thinking everyone hates a liar. Donald Trump proves that is not always true. There are times and people who don't mind being lied to and sometimes want to be lied to. Here are a few instances when people don't mind lies.

• Novelty: Lies can be more exciting than the truth.
• Emotional response: Lies can trigger an emotional response.
• Sharing: Sharing lies can make people feel good.
• Social harmony: Minor lies, like saying "Of course, I'm not angry you were 40 minutes late," can be acceptable in moderation to prevent conflict or hurting someone's feelings.
• Vulnerability: People may believe lies when they feel too vulnerable to face the truth and its consequences.
• Appearance: People may lie to appear honest when telling the truth might make them look dishonest.

Often, people want to be lied to because they can't accept the truth. Lies give validation when they need it when the truth eventually emerges, to have 101 ways to justify their beliefs and to cast the other party as the villain. Supporters of Trump use the many falsehoods of Trump to justify voting for a convicted felon. Employers don't higher convicted felons because they doubt their character. The Right does not question Donald Trump's character but feed on his lies which gives validation to their fears and anger. Some may feel a kinship with a known liar.

60% of people lie at least once in a 10-minute conversation.

Men lie 6 times a day on average, while women lie 3 times a day on average.

40% of people lie on their resumes.

90% of people lie on their online dating profiles.

80% of women admit to lying to their partner about their spending habits.

50% of teenagers admit to lying to their parents about their whereabouts.

People are more likely to lie over the phone than face to face.

81% of people lie about their height, weight or age online.

Politicians lie on average once every five minutes during a debate. 27+ Lying Statistics: The Truth About Lying (2023) brightfuturesyn,com.

It seems lying is a part of the HUMAN experience. People lie. It is when people PREFER a lie instead of the truth is when we begin to lose our HUMANITY. If anything, Donald Trump proves he has lost his humanity. It is evident every time he speaks before a microphone or crowd. 

Why Trumps "Truths" Always Win

What does a society do when everyone has their own version of TRUTH? 

At any given time and with any leaning of personal understanding, a person can find data to support their belief. If you believe the world is flat; you can find information on the internet to support your belief. Believe aliens built the pyramids, there is information on the internet to support that belief. NOTHING is off limits on the internet to being a truth no matter how farfetched. Everyone seems to believe their own PROOF of truth and there are large numbers of people believing the opposite of the another and ready to argue their RIGHTNESS with their proof.

Having a scientific background, I have relied on provable facts for my beliefs (except when it comes to my religion). Humans need a stable frame of reference. Religion fills this need. In effect, humans crave answers to questions that no other source of knowledge has an answer to, which only religion may seem to answer. Religion attracts followers because it satisfies all of the 16 basic desires that humans share: acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honor, idealism, independence, order, physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquility, and vengeance.

In high school, I can remember being taught about the Scientific Method for knowing if something was a fact.

The scientific method is a systematic way of conducting experiments or studies so that you can explore the world around you and answer questions using reason and evidence. The scientific method is the process of objectively establishing facts through testing and experimentation. The basic process involves making an observation, forming a hypothesis, making a prediction, conducting an experiment and finally analyzing the results. What your DATA shows from this method to be considered a fact, the conclusion of a research project has to be able to be replicated by OTHERS to make it a valid premise. Facts must be able to be proven.

In science, a scientific fact has to have the exact same outcome using the same information every time, no matter who is doing it.  EXAMPLE: to make Kool-Aid you will need to mix water, sugar, and Kool-Aid. Each and every time you follow this, no matter who does it, you will end up with Kool-Aid. The flavor can vary but it will always be Kool-Aid. Change or add another ingredient, then the outcome will be different and no longer TRUE Kool-Aid.

After learning the Scientific Method at a young age, it became my standard for evaluating TRUTH. I applied this chain of thought when formulating my beliefs on many things in life. Even in relationships it helped me when my self-esteem was bruised.

Say I dated a man who was handsome and charismatic. But he did not interact with me well and was dancing on the line of being emotionally abusive. When the relationship, which I wanted ended, I would reflect on whether his interactions with others, past and present resembled his interaction with me. My hypothesis that he probably treated others, not just me badly, usually could be seen and the next relationship he would enter would more than likely be the same unless he changed or added something to the ingredients that made him up. I could believe this as true if I could find information about his relationships showing the same factors. Then I knew it was HIM and not ME as the cause for the bad relationship. Just calling him a dog or bad person would not be quite factual. But gathering information from several of his relationships (family, friends, co-workers, ex-girlfriends), demonstrated his relationship style which was not what I wanted in a relationship. His past actions proved his present actions and more than likely predict his future actions. 

So why don't people apply the Scientific Method, in theory, to politics or life in general? 

Many of the decisions we make as individuals and as a society depend on accurate information: however, our psychological bias and predisposition make us vulnerable to falsehoods. As a result, misinformation is more likely to be believed, remembered, and later recalled even after we learn that it was false. Here is where 2 Peter 2:12-14 resonates, "But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast on you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the UNSTABLE; they are experts in greed - an accursed brood!" 

Take the relationship example. If I desperately wanted to be in a relationship, I would have ignored RED FLAGS, Family and friends, no matter what they said about my love interest, would not be able to get me to believe I was in a bad relationship. My brain would be WANTING him. My brain would be predisposed to listen to his lies and rationales for how he treated me even if it was causing me pain. My brain and predisposition would be overriding truth. Even if others were calling me crazy for staying with the man I desired, my brain would reject facts or what was clearly the truth. Even after the relationship ended, I would probably only remember what I considered the good times and his positive characteristics.

MAGA has everyone wondering how they can support Donald Trump for president. People have no problem calling MAGA a bunch of crazies who refuse to see the facts about Trump. And they are facts. Trump has a long list of nefarious dealings in the finance world, with women, and during his presidency. His character is equivalent to a school yard bully and a mafia boss man. There are FACTS testifying to his less than stellar character. These facts are readily available to be checked and scrutinized.

The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker team has finished its final catalog of the extent of the former president’s efforts to mislead and misinform us. According to its tally, Trump made more than 30,000 “false or misleading” claims during his presidency. Half of those lies were told during his last year in office, according to the Post‘s database.

Trump's take on Covid. “Just stay calm. It will go away.” - President Donald Trump, March 10, 2020. Dozens of times since the start of the outbreak that has killed 1.7 million people around the world, Trump publicly downplayed the severity of the novel coronavirus, suggesting it would go away on its own, while comparing Covid-19, the disease it caused, to the seasonal flu. “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear. And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows,” Trump said Feb. 28, with dozens of cases but no known fatalities in the U.S.

“VOTER FRAUD IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY; IT IS A FACT!!!” — President Donald Trump, Dec. 24, 2020. When Trump lost the general election, he blamed voter fraud and sent his lawyers to court to try and reverse the results. In a free-wheeling news conference that lacked even a shred of evidence, his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, alleged everything from a “centralized” fraud scheme to election interference by foreign communists. Just a handful of fraud cases have been uncovered in key states: in Pennsylvania, three Republicans have been charged with illegally voting.

“This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” Trump said May 11, 2018. From Day One, Trump has disputed what the U.S. intelligence community has concluded as a fact: Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election with the goal of boosting his bid while working to tear down his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“Republicans will always protect people with pre-existing conditions,” Trump said Oct. 20, 2018. Trump argued for years Republicans were defenders of people with pre-existing conditions, all the while his administration and several red states sued to overturn the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era health care law that guaranteed those protections, without proposing a plan with comparable protections.

Some mental health professionals have publicly stated their view that Trump's behavior aligns with the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder, according to the DSM-5.

Trump’s manifest grandiosity and disregard for facts, beginning with failure to accept clear evidence about the size of the crowd attending his inauguration, has put mental health professionals in the spotlight from Day One of his presidency.

Psychologists and commentators from all ideological camps early converged on a label of narcissistic personality disorder as the condition that “explains” Trump’s behavior. Among those making this assertion are more than 70,000 mental health professionals who signed a petition warning of Trump's potential dangerousness, despite longstanding professional injunctions against "diagnosing" public figures whom experts have not personally examined. President Donald Trump | Psychology Today

In the eyes of his supporters, Trump possesses extraordinary powers that are wielded for good and against evil. Who cares if he is flawed? So, what if he lacks certain distinctively human qualities? What does it matter that he is rude.

In a 2019 Fox News poll, 1 in 4 Americans reported that they believed “God wanted Donald Trump to become president.” Even in the first months of his administration, evangelical leaders began to see a higher purpose in the Trump presidency. In a public forum in 2017, the Christian televangelist James Robison told Trump: “You are, in fact, an answer to prayer. … I think you have been designed and gifted by God.” Jonathan Cahn, a charismatic New Jersey preacher and the author of best-selling prophetic books, likens Trump to Jehu, the Old Testament king who led ancient Israel away from idolatry. Cahn argues that Trump, like Jehu, is a “flawed vessel” who is being used by God for purposes that go well beyond Trump’s own comprehension.

As I stated earlier, when it comes to my religious beliefs, I'm willing to forego the Scientific Method as a guideline for proof and that's where Trump has found his "in" with millions of people. Through religion.

Donald Trump professes no religious faith. He knows almost nothing about Christianity or any other religion for that matter. He virtually never attends church. He has dedicated his professional life to amassing material wealth and burnishing his fame, bereft of any charitable instincts or sense of the transcendent. Demarcated by three marriages, his personal life reads like a sordid soap opera, filled with sexual scandal and multiple affairs. Nobody has ever mistaken Donald Trump for a choirboy or a righteous man of God.

Yet the man who is arguably the least religious president in American history continues to command supreme support from white evangelical Christians, 84% of whom voted for Trump in the 2020 election. They are his most devoted followers. To the delight of evangelicals, Trump appointed conservative judges who support religious freedom and oppose abortion, and he welcomed evangelical leaders to the table as president, paying them respect and soliciting their views. Trump also shares their worldview — up to a point. He agrees that we live in a fallen world, a dangerous and sinful world full of vicious people. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” evangelicals believe, quoting Romans 3:23. Trump gave expression to the same sentiment in a People magazine interview back in 1981: “Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles, ending in victory or defeat.” The Mass Psychology of Trumpism - New Lines Magazine

There you have it, partially. The brain wants what it wants, and truth can be suspended in the realm of religion and faith. To lump Trump supporters into one category such as CRAZY is too simple. There is so much more at play. But it's true, we gravitate to the familiar and reject what is unfamiliar. If this statement is true, then we should apply the Scientific Method to determine if Trump supporters are LIKE Trump. Is he FAMILIAR to them in his behavior? 

Data suggests our drive to select like-minded others may be far stronger than previously assumed. “We’re arguing that selecting similar others as relationship partners is extremely common — so common and so widespread on so many dimensions that it could be described as a psychological default,” according to Angela Bahns, assistant professor of psychology at Wellesley College. Researchers say the quest for similarity in friends could result in a lack of exposure to other ideas, values, and perspectives. Bahns noted the drive toward similarity presents the drawback of “limited exposure to different ideas and beliefs” along with rewards like “stability of identity, value systems, and ideology.” Her research shows not only do ‘birds of a feather flock together’ but goes one step further to show that ‘birds of a feather find each other before flocking. Study finds our desire for 'like-minded others' is hard-wired | KU News.

When it comes to what one believes as TRUTH several variables come into play. Mathew 6:21, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." What a person treasures, they will accept facts which support it. Who WE are determine what we believe and what we accept as truth. 

We believe there is no one comparable to the audacious Donald Trump. WRONG. Facts support those who support his antics are like minded, like character, like morals, like minded, like hearted. 

This is not a fact many want to face. I ask you to apply the "Scientific Method" to this idea and see if the evidence will support my statement. If nothing else, it is good practice in objectively looking at facts about Donald Trump and his supporters. Like magnets, opposites repel each other.

What is Your Mental Health Quotient?

 

     

    May is Mental Health Awareness Month first established in 1949. This month is dedicated to educate the public about mental illness, raise awareness surrounding research and treatments, reduce the stigma associated with mental illness, and celebrate recovery from mental illness. More than 43.8 million people are affected by mental health disorders each year. Less than half of those will seek a mental health professional's help.  

 In the ongoing controversy over gun control, many site mental illness as the cause for mass shooting while those in the mental health community don't want mental illness associated with gun vilonce. In this area alone, education regarding mental health is important.

    Violence is not a symptom of psychotic illness. The relationship between mental illness and violence is complex. Research suggests there is little relationship between mental illness and violence when substance use is not involved.

    Psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia can sometimes be associated with aggressive or violent behavior. People living with schizophrenia are no more violent or dangerous than the rest of the population, if they are:

• receiving effective treatment
• not misusing alcohol or drugs.

    They are more likely to harm themselves than others.

    There is a slightly increased possibility that someone living with a psychotic illness may be violent if they:

• are not receiving effective treatment
• have a previous history of violence
• misuse alcohol or other drugs
• are experiencing active psychotic symptoms (and are responding to hallucinations or delusions)
• are triggered by fear (for example, if they think they are in danger)
• are experiencing psychotic symptoms for the first time, or the experiences are unfamiliar.

    People living with schizophrenia are more likely to express their aggression, agitation or frustration towards themselves, or to family and friends – rarely to strangers.

    When it comes to knowing whether we are mentally healthy, we seem to choose to ignore this part of or physical wellbeing. More time is given to our intellect and recently or emotional state of being over our Mental Health Quotient.

    IQ is short for Intelligence Quotient. IQ tests are tools to measure intellectual abilities and potential. They're designed to reflect a wide range of cognitive skills such as reasoning, logic, and problem-solving. Intelligence is something you are largely born with. IQ tests are not a test of knowledge, which represents what you learn through education or life experience. A score of 116 or more is considered above average. A score of  130 or higher signals a high IQ. Average IQ is 100. An IQ of 70 or below may indicate limited intellectual fuctioning. Remember, the score represents how you compare to your PEER group in: language, reasoning abilities, processing speed, visual-spatial processing, memory, and math. IQ tests cannot predict how your life will turn out. Character, opportunity, ambition, and sometimes luck, affect how your life will turn out. People love to brag about their intelligence.

     EQ is your Emotional Intelligence or Emotional Quotient. EQ is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. Five components of Emotional intelligence are:

SELF-AWARENESS: the ability to recognize and understand your moods and how they affect others.

SELF-REGULATION: This involves being able to control your impulses and moods and to think before acting.

INTERNAL(intrinsic) MOTIVATION: As the opposite of external motivation, this means being driven to pursue goals for personal reasons, rather than for some kind of reward.

EMPATHY: Essential for building and leading teams. Empathy is the ability to recognize and understand other's motivations and to put yourself in their shoes.

SOCIAL SKILLS: The ability to manage relationships, build networks, and connect with people.

    People with a high EQ have greater mental health, job performance, and leadership skills. The EQ test score average is around 100 with a maximum score of 160, unlike an IQ test score which is limitless. 115 is a great EQ score while a score of 85 or less indicates a need for improvement. To be aware of your EQ score is trendy.

    The MHQ, Mental Health Quotient, provides a fast, easy, and comprehensive way to assess population mental health and well-being; identify at-risk individuals and subgroups; and provide diagnosis-relevant information across 10 disorders and was developed by Sapien Labs. According to the World Health Organization, WHO, mental health is "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community." Mental Health Quotient scores range from -100-+200. Negative scores reflect clinical or clinically at-risk populations with a score of 100 being centralized.

    Most affective ways to combact the stigma and shame surrounding mental health issues is to:

TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES OPENLY

EDUCATE YOURSELF AND OTHERS ON THE WARNING SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF MENTAL ILLNESSES

PRACTICE KINDNESS AND COMPASSION

TAKE AND SHARE A FREE MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING

PARTICIPATE OR VOLUNTEER IN MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS EVENTS

TAKE A HOLLISTIC APPROACH TO HELP IMPROVE THE MENTAL WELLBEING OF YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND YOURSELF: Self care or even focusing on physical health through exercise and healthy eating habits.

MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT

    It is important to note:

• 48 million have an anxiety disorder
• 21 million have major depression
• 9 million have post-traumatic stress disorder
• 7 million have bipolar disorder
• 3.5 million have borderline personality disorder
• 3 million have obsessive compulsive disorder
• 1.5 million have schizophrenia
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• You are someone you know may have a low Mental Health Quotient. Improvement in this score is possible if you are aware of the problem. During this month, take a free mental health screening test, readily and easily assessable online Take a Mental Health Test - MHA Screening (mhanational.org) and according to the results follow up with resources within your community. Please SHARE this bblog post with friends and family.