I read two interesting articles in the newspaper this morning. The first was about the original mass murderer, Howard Unruh, who in 1949 walked down a street in Camden, New Jersey, and killed 13 people in 20 minutes. Psychiatrists at the time tried to find out why he did it by giving him “truth serum.”
On Oct. 20, 1949, Camden County Court Judge Bartholomew A. Sheehan signed the final order of commitment for Unruh after a team of four psychiatrists classified him as a case of “dementia praecox, mixed type, with pronounced catatonic and paranoid coloring.”
In modern parlance, he was a paranoid schizophrenic, a classification that would appear again and again in Unruh’s records.
Read Inside the mind of a killer, on Philly.com.
The other article discusses an unintended consequence of many criminals receiving life sentences—a growing population of prisoners with dementia. The California Men’s Colony is teaching some inmates to care for the elderly prisoners—and they are succeeding.
Heriberto G. Sanchez, chief psychologist of the California Men’s Colony, said prisoners “were appreciative that someone from the outside world thought they could do this.” One wrote in an evaluation, “Thank you for allowing me to feel human.”
Read Life, with dementia, on NYTimes.com.
Sky, sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday on your question. The thing about schizophrenia is that it is a very COMPLEX group of problems. Not all see things we can’t see or hear “command” voices we cant hear, but some do. My personal experience with schizophrenic patients is limited. Here is a reasonably concise definition from the mayo clinic web site
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Schizophrenia is a group of severe brain disorders in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behavior.
Contrary to some popular belief, schizophrenia isn’t split personality or multiple personality. The word “schizophrenia” does mean “split mind,” but it refers to a disruption of the usual balance of emotions and thinking.
Schizophrenia is a chronic condition, requiring lifelong treatment.
Symptoms
Most of the patients I saw that were schizophrenic were outpatients who were well managed on medication so I didn’t see many who were at least at that time experiencing hallucinations or other problems like command voices. I did briefly treat some of the ex convicts but by the time I got them they were fairly well controlled on medication….at least for a while.
In the inpatient facilities where I worked we had only 1-2 patients who were schizophrenic. So I don’t have a lot of experience with schizophrenics per se. Depending on the units I worked on we had mostly “pre-persionality disordered” adolescents who were generally as dangerous as rattle snakes, or the other units were elderly dementia patients or older adults who were depressed. We had the occasional PPD older patient.
So anyway sky, I hope that answers your question.
Oh, MiLo,
I am so sorry for you and your community and the families of those shot, and for the family of the shooter as well. These are such traumatic events and the do so much more damage to communities and families by taking away our sense of “safety” and making us paranoid. I will keep them all in my mind and my prayers. (((hugs))))
Oxy ~ Hubby had just got off duty 25 minutes before. I am thankful for that.
All three of my boys called from work, the one because of time difference, it would have been before 6:00am. Other friends and relatives have called. NOTHING from mommie dearest.
I am worried about how Grand would have handled being locked inside a classroom, etc. We are not allowed to go get him and I guess it is better that he goes through what the school does in counseling.
The link I posted names several types of schizophrenia, and one of them is normally never accompanied with hallucinations. Also a delusion is different from a hallucination… a delusion is a pervasive belief contrary to the evidence, but it does not need to come from a hallucination. But many peope assume you cannot have a delusion without hallucinating first (even if these people have held lifelong beliefs without any corroborating evidence for it). Another factor that amplifies the belief that schizophrenia is always accompanied with hallucinations, are the diagnostic rules: if someone has strong hallucination symptoms (and that for over a month), then only one negative symptom (flat affect, and such) is enough to make the diagnosis for schizophrenic.
Milo,
I’m very sorry about what has occurred near you. Very sad. I’m glad to hear that Grand’s ok though.
I just read about it on the news…it has already hit national news on the web of course. Well, I know while this kind of a thing is traumatic, we can’t protect them from everything that happens in the world so we just have to hope and pray for the best. Schools are more equipped to handle the aftermath of this kind of thing now than they used to be (unfortunately they have to be) so I hope that they will take good care of Grand while the school is in lock down. You are in my thoughts and prayers! (((hugs)))
One student has died.
MiLo,
This was just on our local news. I hope that your grandson didn’t actually witness what happened. I feel for those kids that did. Hopefully they will have specialist in grief/trauma counseling at the school for as long as needed.
((hugs)) to you and your family.
MiLo,
Oh that is so very sad. I can’t even imagine how the family must feel.
((Milo)),
what a terrible thing to experience. I’m so sorry, you must be sick with worry for Grand.
witsend ~ Grand is in the school district next to the one where the shooting happened. All surrounding school districts were put into lock down because students are often bused to neighboring schools.
Grand is in 5th grade, 11 years old. He has neurological diagnosis of ADHD, High Functioning Autism. Because of past trauma, he has emotional problems. We just had a meeting with school officials last week, which became quite heated on our part, because he is picked on at school. The school views him as behavior problem and refuses to look at evidence that he is constantly picked on. I think we got through to them.
Everytime I hear the common thread of these violent kids, I get so scared. He has been in some sort of therapy since age 3, plus we are constantly here for him and encourage him to talk about things here at home. I pray that is enough.
Sky ~ I am so scared, I don’t want him ever to think there aren’t options. I also try to make his home life, community life loving and structured, showing him school is not everything.