Link to Article on Mental Illness and Violence

http://news.yahoo.com/mass-murder-and-mental-illness--the-interplay-of-stigma--culture-and-disease.html

Above is a link to an article I just read. It debates whether people with schizophrenia are more violent than others. I feel that it is a balanced article. I have, however, read contrary evidence that suggests there is no link between schizophrenia and violence. Despite this, the author points out a vital insight: why do people in other countries who have schizophrenia never commit the crimes that our schizophrenics do? Indeed, schizophrenics in other countries have a much better life-time outcome than American schizophrenics. Why? I believe that it is due to stigma and discrimination against the schizophrenics that is a uniquely American phenomenon. If you persecute any group they are more likely to become angry and volatile. It is undeniable that in American society, schizophrenics are viewed and treated as unpredictable, malignant genetic freaks that need to be removed from the general population. Imagine how that must feel to be told you can never have a job, a family, a normal life, happiness in general; imagine that plus the added burden of being treated like a criminal without even having committed a crime!

It is hard knowing that I am hated without cause. It is hard knowing that I am persecuted (and no, that is not a delusion I hold, I really AM persecuted due to my illness). It is hard knowing that I will never be trusted, respected, or loved as I am; genetic abnormality and all. I would not commit a crime, and this is not a justification for those who commit crimes, but it is something to think about the next time you see a schizophrenic walking in the street and talking to himself.

It is difficult in times of crisis to think clearly about problems. Emotions and the need for vengeance get in the way. Yet, in these times, we must still adhere to the U.S. constitution. I do. I do not discriminate due to race, religion, age, class, sexual orientation, gender, or mental/physical disability. I sincerely hope you will follow the teaching of the constitution as well.

Thank you for reading.

Comment on Stanford University lecture on Schizophrenia

I had to stop watching this youtube lecture posted by Stanford University entitled "Schizophrenia." It was like listening to some horrible spiel describing the 1% totally demented, violent, antagonistic schizophrenics as though these profiles were common place.

I would be offended if somebody told me a racist remark. Why is nobody offended by these prejudiced remarks about the mentally ill? Listening to this lecturer give his speech was like sitting in on horror story after horror story about worse-case scenarios. First he starts talking about a male with a history of psychiatric hospitalizations who was attending a prestigious medical University ("Should he even have been there," laments the lecturer) who then goes on to castrate himself because of delusions. The next story involved a woman in another country who killed a goat with her bare hands and was running around naked.

Why didn't he tell stories about more common place schizophrenics: Roy refused to get out of bed for 2 weeks because he was hearing voices. Roy eventually went on medication. Roy then recovered.

Or, Maria believed she was about to be killed so she ran away from home and was brought back by police after her family called in a missing person. Maria went in and out of hospitals. Doctors all listened to Stanford lecturers and convinced Maria and her family that she was fated to be a goat-killing lunatic with no chance of a future. Maria now lives on the street and talks to herself while feeding pigeons.

To quote the Stanford Lecturer to audience of easily influenced undergrads: (about the male schizophrenic med student) "should he even have been there?"

It depends how much you value your constitution sir. Equality can be a bitch, sometimes, can't it? I would like you to know that out there somewhere is a graduate of medical school with paranoid schizophrenia---and he still has his testicles. No self-castration there.

As for his claim that stressors turn all schizophrenics into self-harming threats: there are anti-anxiety drugs out there for sale pretty cheap nowadays. No stressful anxiety=small chance of total psychotic break.

To recap the contents of this blog, I've been at the University for a year now. Gee, maybe it's not Stanford, but hell, after that, you can bet I wouldn't apply there or look up to somebody who got their psych degree at Stanford. Anyways, each term I've had a loved one die. Is that not a major stressor? According to the lecturer's logic I'd be cutting on myself or on a goat and running around naked right about now.  First semester, my aunt dies in a tragic car accident and leaves my young cousins orphans (my uncle died years ago). Summer session my cousin commits suicide. I was very fond of that cousin and we had lived in the same house for several years. I got a 4.0 and no goats were harmed. When the regular semester began I was still in mourning yet I managed to make the Dean's list. Then, I managed to get a 3.2 taking 16 units after watching my beloved grandfather get taken off his respirator. Then, this semester, my close friend, classmate, and secret crush dies of a heart attack. I am not psychotic at the moment, despite forgetting to take my medication for weeks at a time.

I am sad, yes. I am struggling, yes. But I monitor my behavior, my emails, and my moods. I am not unique. I am one of many schizophrenics struggling to be accepted, respected, and advanced in society, despite naysayers, haters, and prejudiced people condemning us; be it on religious or pseudo-scientific grounds.

I am glad I live in California where the recovery and reintegration model is accepted and adhered to. My psychiatrist knows damn well that I, and other schizophrenics, do not tend to kill goats while psychotic, or castrate ourselves. I hope one day, the rest of you well know that as well.

On Schizophrenia and the Recovery Model of Treatment

My mother is a member of NAMI. NAMI stands for national alliance for the mentally ill. They promote mental health, recovery, reintegration into society, and they also battle stigma and discrimination against the mentally diagnosed. 

I found an article on yahoo's news page about NAMI's current battle to fight stigma. There was an accompanying tale of a man's struggle to find work as a person with schizo-affective disorder. He was told repeatedly that he couldn't work due to his illness. What a shame. Imagine if we had told John Nash he couldn't go to college because of his condition. The world would never have known game theory!

http://news.yahoo.com/virginia-man-wont-let-mental-illness-define-him-170410339.html

The outlook for mentally ill people used to be bleak. It kind of still is, but there is a movement towards a recovery model that can change the common fate of the current model (current model = disability paychecks and lots of bed rest). The recovery model promotes maintenance of mental health. By educating the mentally ill and their families about their illnesses, there is a greater chance that a relapse can be prevented from happening.

For example, if I start thinking paranoid thoughts (like my friend is really an agent sent to gather intel on me), I can stop this process from becoming a full blown delusion by asking myself what evidence I have of this thought, how can I counter this thought, and whether or not it is logical or cost-effective for the agency to do this against an ordinary citizen like myself. The answer is no, it is not logical or cost-effective and there is no evidence to support this. Now, instead of having a minor relapse, I have isolated a defective cognitive thought and quarantined it. Then I can relay this information to my out-patient care provider and they can assist me in further ways, such as providing verbal reinforcement about this thought being defective, or by upping my dose of psychotropic medication. 

Prior to very recently, this would not have been feasible. A therapist would give up, throw the towel in and possibly even send me to a hospital for in-patient treatment. The common thought was that therapy can't help psychotics, only medication and restraints help psychotics. However, those days are gradually dissolving. We now know there are positive symptoms of schizophrenia (delusions, auditory hallucinations, etc.) and NEGATIVE symptoms (apathy, loss of happy feelings, introverted personality tendencies, inability to socialize, scattered speech, etc.). Medications generally only provide relief from POSITIVE symptoms, though the new drugs on trial may be paving the way to change this. Therapy, coping skills, family interventions, friends, and self-maintenance are the ways to reboot the schizophrenic's cognitive state by treating the NEGATIVE symptoms as well.

What I hate the most about being schizophrenic is that the only media portrayal we have is of first-time psychotics going sociopathic and shooting people. Just because a couple of psychiatrists found 2 mass murderers to be paranoid schizophrenics does not justify labeling all of us as potential killers. First of all, there is no mass murderer gene. Schizophrenia is a complicated disorder that affects the genetic structure of a person's DNA. Some research even suggests it may be a misfire of how our DNA is activated.

science daily article on new findings about schizophrenia

Nowhere in the scientific literature does it state that schizophrenia is a killing disease. Even sociopathy isn't defined as a killing disease! Just in case you don't know, sociopathy is the personality disorder (as opposed to genetic disorder that is schizophrenia) that causes people to be narcissistic and apathetic about the feelings of others---extreme sociopaths include Ted Bundy, and lesser sociopaths include that control freak ex-manager of mine who followed me around with a nasty temper. I am not making this up, I took a class from a respected criminal profiler last January and he stated that sociopaths pose much more of a risk than schizophrenics ever will. He then held out his arms at his sides and said "my right hand is a sociopath, my left hand is a schizophrenic, two different hands, get it? They're far apart. There's probably a schizophrenic here in the room and you don't even know it! Raise your hand, where are you?" I pretended to look around for the schizophrenic while refusing to raise my hand (I'm the paranoid sub-type and I was too paranoid to expose myself in a room with 150 strangers. ; /  )But it was good to hear somebody finally dispel the myth that schizophrenics are violent, agitated people who need to be chained to trees and left for the elements. 

We need love! With that thought, I'd like to add that I found an opportunity to establish a NAMI affiliated club within my University. I just need 5 people and the okay from NAMI. I'd like to be part of the solution towards a recovery model for mental health. Cross your fingers and hope for the best for my idea of a NAMI campus club! I sent them an email yesterday, hopefully they'll reply before the new semester starts!

PS I am still reading "The Center Cannot Hold", I'm on page 100-something, and it gets better and better! I strongly recommend Elyn R. Saks as the book to read this month! :)