Mentally Ill Killer in the News and Yahoo Users' Responses

Reading comments on yahoo is an act of masochism on my part, yet it is the only way to gauge how the general public feels about issues.

Tonight I read a story about a guy with a lot of 5150's who murdered a random psychiatrist with a meat cleaver. The comments were basically either making a joke out of the situation ("ban knives"), to making seriously anti-constitutional threats against people with a mental illness ("hospitalize or euthanize"--one man's ignorant reply concerning not just this killer, but ALL people with mental illnesses).

Again, to reiterate, killing bad. Peace good. That being said, I am a schizo-affective person who has heard voices. Don't worry---peace good, I  have no intention of committing felonies or running around naked.

It infuriates me that death threats are allowed, that discrimination and active persecution is tolerated in our society. Give the killer the injection. Next, hunt down these yahoo haters and charge them with terrorist threats against a group of people---the mentally disabled. Last time I checked, the average job of a mentally ill person was---wait---no one will hire them because employers tend to violate the constitution and actively discriminate against the mentally ill. So, in general, if you are really mentally ill, you'll either be one of two things: homeless or living with family but unemployed OR functional, employed, and keeping your illness a secret from everyone who is supposed to treat you equally. Why? Why would we keep secrets? Because society harbors ugly, ignorant, hateful, anti-constitutional, wannabe-vigilantes who tend to encourage ancient treatments not found since the Middle Ages when leeching, hanging, and brain-drilling were the norm.

I am so infuriated right now. If these yahoo users made the same statements about African-Americans that they do with the mentally ill, they'd all look like racist monsters. The same statement against a bipolar/schizophrenic group is A-OK in this country. Just because ONE freak kills someone doesn't mean that all 10,000 schizophrenics are going to go on killing sprees as well. 1% of the population is schizophrenic and most of us don't have so much as a speeding ticket, let alone felonies.

You confuse us with the other kind of disorder---the guy with sociopathic personality disorder.  

Comment on BBC Asylum documentary

youtube link for bbc documentary on the history of the asylum

Things were much worse for us skitzes. Not that things right now are peachy. I know a lot of people likely hold on to misconceptions, stereotypes, and irrational fears of schizophrenics and the mentally ill. That's okay, I do not hold this against them too much, it could be worse...they could lobby to re-institutionalize us, or to take away our constitutional rights. They have not done that, most likely, and I am infinitely grateful.

The thing I hated the most, aside from the strange power dynamic between patients and omnipresent staff, or the one sociopath faking symptoms and trying to mess with the women, or the horrible suffocation that comes with imprisonment, yes, the thing I hated the most was the decaf coffee. I am not belittling the horrible things that go on in psychiatric facilities....but it was the littlest, most trivial form of punishment that hurt the most. Even incarcerated felons get real coffee. I, with a clean record, am denied the one thing that made me want to get out of bed in the morning: real coffee. Instead I get a tiny little dixie cup filled with weakened decaffeinated coffee. The cup of decaf coffee was like a symbol of some larger injustice.

Another way to look at asylums is this way: it is an internment camp, a detention center, a coed jail of innocents (mostly innocents). 2.2 million American schizophrenics must all suffer for the crimes of a lone gunman, and that does not even include the number of bipolar mental patients, or others.

The end of this BBC documentary made me hopeful at first, until the last 3 minutes where the narrator stated that a random act of violence resulted in people condemning the lack of asylums and condemning all mentally ill people and demanding their anti-constitutional captivity. Up until that point it was all looking so peachy.

I do not want to go back into the hospital. This hospital does not come with kind nurses and little get well cards or teddy bear presents. I want my coffee. I want my freedom.

I am now going to walk along the canal bank listening to pop music and feeling grateful that I can walk more than 8 feet without hitting a locked door.

I will have my bachelor's degree from University by next August. I am just this semester and 2 summer classes away from my goal of achieving a higher degree, something my illness and poverty made me think I could never accomplish. I am graduating thanks to the free rent my family provides, kindly donated scholarship and grant money, federal pell grant financing, the acceptance of my fumbling, nervous manners by my professors, and the County, who provided me with medicine and a counselor, or my handler, as I think of him, as though I were some kind of asset! ;)

Anyways, I am not bragging, I just wanted to end this entry on a positive note!

Not just anecdotal evidence: Schizophrenics as Mostly Non-Violent

With recent news about the killer who committed the atrocities in Norway now diagnosed as an alleged paranoid schizophrenic by 2 psychiatrists, I am afraid you will think all the stories I have about being a functioning, non-violent skitz to be purely anecdotal. By this I mean, I am afraid you are thinking that maybe, if I am non-violent, then it is just a fluke, and that most schizophrenics have violent tendencies. If you are to believe the media, every shooter is a schizophrenic and schizophrenia is synonymous with violence.

While I am all for the punishment and imprisonment of so-called schizophrenics who attack and murder, I want to be clear that they are not the norm in the skitzy community. The only thing I can tell you is what I know first hand and provide you with more links to books on the schizophrenic community. While some say this is pure anecdotal evidence (by that they mean that one instance does not prove anything), I urge you to stop yourself from jumping to conclusions about the personality traits of schizophrenics.

Imagine listening to the radio 12 hours a day, with no ability to turn off the radio. Sometimes the radio plays soothing music, other times it plays horrible messages about people coming to hurt you, or saying that you are a bad, evil person. Imagine that unstoppable radio playing for 12 hours a day for months on end. According to http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm, 2.2 million Americans suffer from schizophrenia. Yet, despite this imaginary radio playing hostile messages 12 hours a day for months on end, 2.2 million Americans do not hurt or kill another human being. This is not anecdotal evidence, this is statistics.

So what do 2.2 million Americans do? Different things. All people react to stress differently, so one coping mechanism might not work for the next person. I know a man who would keep journals of everything the voices said. He had boxes and boxes of journals with all the statements made by his illness' voices. He had no history of assault (drug use, yes, but not assault). I know another man who would make bracelets out of beads to calm himself when the voices were being particularly mean. Also, no history of violence. I know another woman who would sit and giggle to herself in response to what she heard. No history of violence. I know that I would write down rebuttals to the voices when I was having auditory hallucinations. I would also paint pictures. I would also read as many books on schizophrenia as I could, so that I would understand what was happening with my brain chemistry.

Some people need to hide from the world, while others feel that they need to be highly scrutinized by family or colleagues so that their paranoia doesn't seem so ill-based. Personally, I believe the latter statement is the underlying reason why I keep an online diary/blog. I believe that somewhere in my subconscious there is this little piece of logic that says if people are really listening into my thoughts (albeit, via a blog entry that I myself post) then I won't be so paranoid after all, and this helps me cope with my illness. Also, in some backwards logic, I feel that if I am under surveillance, as my illness would have me believe, then it is best to get the entire story out there. So, if you are reading this, welcome, reader. Thank you for taking the time out to read my little diatribe.

Skizzy Lizzie

I always wanted to write a book, but agents are expensive and the market is primarily for mystery or romance, so I guess my manuscript "Skizzy Lizzie: Autobiography of a Paranoid Schizophrenic" will never be.....how sad (sad face).

I guess I'll make due with this blog and the few folks who stop by to play the voyeur. Thanks for stopping in to read this, by the way! I like to see that people are interested in learning what it is like to be a person with a mental illness. I only hope I am worthy of your attention!

I told my psychologist about the Stanford lecturer and his tales of goat killing, maniacal schizophrenics. She told me this would be something I would likely encounter again in the future, and this made me very sad. Sometimes I feel like a pioneer, being in college after receiving a grim prognosis, but other times I feel very small and pathetic, like maybe I can complete my degree, but only after years of struggling, and even then the big question looms: what will I do for money?

I'm 28 years old and I still don't have my degree. I am slated to graduate after taking 2 summer courses in early June. I'm 28 and I don't have any relevant work experience, unless you count delivering pizzas as relevant, and most companies would just scoff. I'm 28 and I'm not married, I don't have offspring, I live with my family, and I go to school with kids who think 23 years is really, really old.

It could be worse, though. Memories of being in a hospital are much worse. You'd think the security would be good, but it's not. The nurses all hide in their rooms and I've had several instances of perverted older men sneak into my room and try things....mental institutions are not day spas. They are not safe. They are remnants of some barbaric practice of subjugation and horror from the Middle Ages. I get restrained onto gurneys every time they ship me from one hospital to another by EMT's with no thought as to the fear that comes with being tied up. They don't even look into my eyes, they just grab me as though my body were state property, push me back into a flat, lying position, and handcuff me to a stretcher. No reason, no justification, not even a little, "this is for your own good" speech, just instant and unnecessary force. I can honestly say I have never hit or attacked anybody in my years of being actively psychotic----so what legal justification is there for tying me to a bed during the ambulance ride?

If you're schizophrenic like I am, maybe you've been through this: the brutality of the mental health system, the death threats of deranged, possibly drug using patients, the presence of felons who are likely faking mental illness to get a few weeks out of their cell, nurses that do not protect your mental well being, social workers who think all mental patients need disability money and a good, soft pillow for sleeping (because that's all they should do---sleep!), and an outpatient service system that is bordering on bankruptcy. Here are some links I found helpful. If (or when) I am hospitalized again, I am writing the number of my local ACLU branch on my arm in ink so that I can have 24/7 access to my legal rights.

San Diego Branch of the ACLU: Phone: (619) 232-2121 (American Civil Liberties Union)
website: http://www.aclusandiego.org

I input San Diego since I'm in Central California. For more information, please see the main ACLU page at : http://www.aclu.org/

Find your local NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill): NAMI locations
Your Rights as a Patient in a Psychiatric Facility: Patient Bill of Rights at healthyminds.org

Remember, every moment you step up for the rights of the mentally ill is potentially one less time somebody else in the future will have to do the same. :)

At Times Obtuse At Times Hypersensitive

Like the title says, I am at times obtuse and at other times hypersensitive. Being schizophrenic is a cognitive disorder and it affects my social awareness. It is one of the embarrassing aspects of the disease, this social clumsiness I experience. There is fear, constant fear. There is panic on occasion. There is confusion a lot of the times, but often one part of my disease is inconsistant. My social awareness is skewed in one direction or the other, sometimes shifting in a single day.

At times I miss cues from other people signaling discomfort, annoyance, or even affection. At other times, I perceive emotions, be it hatred or attraction, that are not really there. I have learned to bite down on my instincts thanks to instances where I've had my first impression proved wrong. For example, I once thought my art professor hated me deeply. I avoided eye contact and any social interaction as I felt an imaginary loathing emanating from her. Instead, I poured my anxiety into my artwork. I desperately wanted my art professor's approval but I felt that she wanted me to drop her class and disappear from the face of the planet. One night, she passed my drawing of a flower and put a hand to her heart. I thought she was going to say it looked like a very evil flower. Instead she said, "That is incredible! Absolutely beautiful. It touches me." Stunned, I realized that she felt the exact opposite of what I thought she felt. The entire semester I thought she felt my artwork was an extension of myself---thus, she would naturally hate it. After that, I questioned my perceptions entirely. Shortly thereafter, I began to spiral downwards, believing that people thought I was an evil person, that they were going to frame me for horrible crimes, and I was brought to the ER psych unit by my worried mother. I was then diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder and the series of faulty perceptions made sense; my perceptions were skewed.

Rather than slip into a deep haze of self-hatred as some schizophrenics do (as society can abhor a schizophrenic), I began to study the disease by reading everything from the library. I learned to see it not in terms of bad luck but an unfortunate triggering of certain genetically inherited properties. It was not a curse from some cruel God, but a disease of science that is still in the process of being understood by scientists.

I learned about the dopamine hypothesis that states schizophrenia is a disease that results from an excess of the neurotransmitter dopamine. What causes this excess may be genetic, or a combination of genetics and environment, but whatever it is, it is not the result of a wicked heart. Often, schizophrenics are misunderstood.

Just today I got an email from an ex-lover who said that he moved out because his roommate (who happened to be schizophrenic) got drunk, high, and threatened him with a knife. My ex-lover blamed this violent threat on the person's schizophrenia. I think this is ridiculous, as drunk and high people who are not schizophrenic often act out violently. Should I therefore assume that every alcoholic is on the verge of murdering me in cold blood because of his state of intoxication? Despite the fact that drunken rages of violence are super common, I would not. Why, then, would my ex-lover believe that violence is common among schizophrenics? It is this ignorance that is detrimental to all of us in the States. Ignorance means that there is a reluctance to admit to mental illness and this can leave a person incapacitated due to their untreated mental illness.

On one last note, all people are equal with equal rights and opportunities. Remember that next time you encounter somebody who admits to (or exhibits) a mental illness. It is an unfortunate truth that the majority of people who have been through treatment for mental illness have faced blatant discrimination, fear, hatred, blame, and the cruelty that can come from the very people who are employed to look after their well being; mental health practitioners.

I took a psychology of criminal behavior class at my University and the professor said something that resonated deeply with me: "There are two work places that attract highly controlling and domineering personality types seeking employment: prisons and mental hospitals." This was coming from a man who used to work in an asylum for the criminally insane!

In conclusion, please be kind and don't pour salt onto the psychic wounds of the mentally ill. We are all fighting our internal hell in order to smile or say hello. At some point, your life will hit an obstacle, perhaps due to a death in the family, and you will feel the same struggle we can feel on a daily basis.