this is sad really sad

Ah Mental Illness its so hard to define. Maybe we can begin testing people for genetic predisposition to mental illness and watch out for it.

I have a question though- Say I'm like an existentialist (more like a nihilist in my case) and I don't really believe in morality, right versus is wrong etc. If I showed no remorses could that be considered a mental illness because it is an aberration because I can't understand morality?

I think mental illness is such a fluid thing that it troubles me.

 Mental illness is not nearly as fluid as you think. Schizophrenia in particular is not. It is known to have a strong genetic component, and essentially impossible to treat without medication. The understanding of mental illness is hardly fluid quite honestly. The understanding of what causes it is, admittedly, limited but that is more due to the lack of understanding how the brain really works.

 as to your second comment, absolutely not. Just because yuo do not care that a person lives or dies is not enough to get off. Most serial killers have no compassion for human ife, and I can only think of a couple that actually got away with the insanity defense (and it was clearly called for in those cases). You have to show a complete lack of regard for the fact that society also holds it to be bad. The insanity defense contends the person had no way of understanding they were doing anything wrong at all. Any attempt to hide the fact that you have killed someone will instantly exclude any possibility of this defense working.

I see. I didn't know schizophrenia was so pinned down as I thought that it could 'onset' at any period. I'm surprised they know so much about that mental illness and mental illnesses in general. I think too often that causations are drawn, when they are probably correlations and confounding factors are ignored. I don't know though because I'm not a psych grad i student, my girlfriend is I should ask her -although she is behavioral/developmental.

I guess I'm assuming that there is greater complexity to the mind and human nature than there actually is. I guess I just assumed that psychologists go into studies from a normative standpoint. Oh well. Too bad I'm not better versed.

 It is a lot of correlational studies, but you can get some very powerful information from that. For example there is a 30% (or possibly 50% I forget off-hand) that if one twin develops schizophrenia that the other will as well. Less than half of a percent of the normal population has the disorder so that clearly shows a strong connection to heredity. This also shows a strong connection to the environment, but that is nearly impossible to pin down as a variable.

 Check out the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) if you want a better idea of where the field in general is at with mental disorders. There are a lot of issues with the DSM but it is still an extremely useful tool when used by a well trained psychologist. Not so useful for diagnosing people without the training admittedly, but it does show how far we have come in understanding mental illness as a whole.