1.) I still don't agree with all that guess, EL was in a psychotic break of some kind in the elevator video. Therefore, I can't argue, it's common for people in psychotic breaks to remove their clothes. Which by the way, in my experience isn't.
2.) LAPD is under fire because not many people believe their idea, this was no foul play. The pivot points in this are the clothes, the glasses and the cell phone. If they found anything of it, they would either release it (to show, they are right not to treat this as homicide) or keep it a secret if they think themselves, this was a homicide.
So I still go with homicide.
BBM. Please see below:
Signs and Symptoms
A psychotic patient is out of touch with reality and the illness will be manifested by one or more of the following: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behaviour and negative symptoms. These symptoms are generally obvious. As they often represent a dramatic change from a person's normal behaviour, they are relatively easy to identify by friends and family and work colleagues. It is helpful to provide a more detailed explanation of these symptoms. We rely upon the excellent material prepared by Dr. James Morrison, a leading Psychiatrist and Author of DSM-IV Made Easy ~ The Clinician's Guide to Diagnosis, which provides the following helpful definitions.
SNIPPED FOR SPACE
Disorganized Behaviour
Disorganized behaviour, or physical actions that do not appear to be goal directed can include things like taking one's clothes off in public, repeatedly making the sign of the cross or assuming and maintaining postures. These may all indicate psychosis.http://www.lpac.ca/main/main/mentalillnessmanual_chapter5.aspx
Embarrassing behaviour
Sometimes people who are experiencing the symptoms of psychosis behave in a way that is embarrassing to you –
they may shout, laugh inappropriately, talk loudly to themselves, take their clothes off, or speak in a threatening way.
http://www.mentalhealthcare.org.uk/living_with_psychosis
Clinical Manifestations and Definition of Terms
Disorganized behavior refers to the patient difficulty to complete most goal oriented activities. A range of behaviors have been described: actively responding to inner stimuli (e.g., talking to oneself or shouting for no apparent reason), aimless, repetitive movements and activities, poor ability to maintain one’s basic hygiene and perform routine actives of daily living (which often results in a disheveled appearance, and poor grooming and hygiene), or uncensored public sexual activity
(being naked, or masturbating in public).http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Textbook_of_Psychiatry/Psychotic_Disorders
Why do psychotic people go naked?
A naked man now identified as 31-year-old Rudy Eugene was shot dead Saturday after he refused to stop eating another man's face. Police have speculated that the man may have suffered from psychosis, perhaps induced by cocaine or LSD. In March, during what was also deemed a psychotic episode, "Kony 2012" director Jason Russell ran around San Diego naked.
Why do psychotic people strip naked?
Many times it's because the voices in their head told them to. Public nudity by the mentally ill seems to occur most often as part of other hallucinations and distortions of reality. Some feel that God or some other powerful entity has commanded them to reveal the radiance of their whole body, or they suddenly believe themselves to be an exotic dancer.
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120531/NEWS/120539947
An example of symptoms falling in the region
between brain release phenomena and
psychological responses is the set of
symptoms characterizing fight (attack, selfattack)
or flight
(walking, running, with other
automatisms such as nudity and spitting).
Many of these may be elicited through the
stimulation of a number of regions, including
the posterior hypothalamus and the amydala;
many may be also construed as panic
responses to the very strange perceptions
persons are experiencing as their psychosis
progresses[...]
Some seemingly bizarre behaviors of persons
in psychosis, when considered in the context
of the full sequence, may be seen as efforts
toward homeostasis. For example, the arousal
that precedes fight, flight and compulsive
posturing includes delivery of supplies of
blood to the head that may
cause headaches, and temperature changes.
The attraction of psychotic patients for cold in
the early part of the disorder may be seen as an
effort to change this.
Attempts to change one's
temperature are quite striking: Vonnegut
(1975), after running through the woods
hearing wings beating about his head, reaches
down into the snow and presses handfuls of it
to his face. Similarly Schreber (1902) places
his feet in the snow, or out a cold window,
saying[...]
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEcQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Forthomolecular.org%2Flibrary%2Fjom%2F1980%2Fpdf%2F1980-v09n02-p121.pdf&ei=W25CUZunJ4uAygGu8IHwCw&usg=AFQjCNFEZxV3Am5SqqzCnzdlmTVLm6AgnQ&bvm=bv.43287494,d.aWc&cad=rja
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: The Disorganized Dimension and Negative Symptoms
Rashmi Nemade, Ph.D. & Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. Updated: Aug 7th 2009
Positive Symptoms: The Disorganized Dimension
Disorganized thinking becomes apparent in patients' speech patterns as schizophrenia progresses. Affected people lose their train of thought during conversations, make loose associations of topics (tangentially jumping from one topic to another apparently at random, or on the barest of associations), and give answers to unrelated questions. Speech may be highly circumstantial, meaning that affected people may speak continuously, providing numerous irrelevant details and never getting to the point. Occasionally, speech is so disorganized that it becomes a completely jumbled "word salad" devoid of discernible meaning despite being full of words.
Disorganized behavior may range from simple problems sustaining goal-directed self-care behaviors such as personal hygiene to unpredictable and bizarre socially inappropriate outbursts. For example, people may not dress according to the weather, (i.e., they may wear a heavy coat in the middle of summer), they may wear odd or inappropriate makeup, they may shout at people for no apparent reason, or they may mutter to themselves continuously, etc.
They may even strip off their clothing and run naked through the streets, while chewing on road kill. http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=8810
The nudity connection to psychosis is pretty well known.
As to the release of info, we have seen here on websleuths in case after case after case, how much information is held back in such investigations. So we just don;t know if Elisa's clothes were found and it is simply not true that the police would release such info to the public before their investigation is concluded. That defies logic.
Finally, every mental health professional who has weighed in here has had the very same opinion: That Elisa was experiencing a mental break in the elevator.
<modsnip>
The thing about psychotic breaks is that if you're at the point where you've ripped your clothes off, you're no longer being sneaky.
If she was suffering a psychotic break then there are even more things that I have a problem with:
No one and no camera saw her naked (as far as we know)
She somehow was clear-headed enough to make it to the roof via a ladder, but she wasn't clear-headed enough to keep her clothing on
Her clothing still hasn't been found (As far as we know)
People in a psychotic state may have disorganized behavior or thinking but that doesn't mean they can;t accomplish things. My sister in law is a psychologist and has worked with dual and triple diagnosis patients/clients for years at various facilities in the Bay Area. I had a conversation about a year ago with her about full blown schizophrenics and how they are able to survive on the streets - get food, shelter, etc., - while in the midst of psychosis. They can do it. Sometimes they also eat their own fingers. But they can also wander around and get what they need to live, most of the time.
P.S., we simply do not know if Elisa's clothes were found. Nothing has been reported either way.
I can see the interpretation of Elisa experiencing psychosis as a possibility. What seems less likely is that she would go through all the difficulties of getting into that tank while still in a psychotic state. I would think differently if I believed she was often frequenting the roof, was familiar with the water tanks and their lids, etc. If the psychotic episodes come and go quickly, wouldn't she head back to her room after finding herself on the roof? If they are long lasting, wouldn't she be too disoriented to make the efforts of getting into that tank? It's not impossible, but does strike me as far fetched. But that is just my opinion and might change as I learn more.
Not according to actual mental health experts who have weighed in here. She could have gotten onto the roof and into the tanks while psychotic.
I mean, don;t you guys see mentally ill people wandering the street all the time, talking and stalking around? They can go places and do things. I don;t know. I have been around them all my life and have been friends with many. We have several in my neighborhood (by Disneyland) and also several up the road in Fullerton by the train tracks. One lady in particular steals people's dogs. Once she was rolling around on my neighbor's porch after trying to steal her dog. But she usually just walks around talking to herself and yelling. However, when I pass by and say hi, she often just smiles like she's totally sane and says hi right back.
Lets for a moment assume, you rea right. I don't say you are, but lets assume it, just for the sake of the argument ...
Even a psychotic person would have to find those tanks first to jump in it. Thus, your theory would make only sense, if, while in a psychotic break, EL went to look for a tank of which she may or may not knew it existed in the first place, to get herself drowned in it ... without any sign of drowning of course, that could show up during the autopsy.
The point is, even if you declare, she was psychotic in the elevator movie, it explains in fact nothing. It doesn't explain, how she came on the roof, how she came in the tank, why nobody saw her in between. The only thing, the "psychotic" theory does is making clear, that she would have drawn even more attention from anyone who crossed her path. But nobody came forward. As of yet, this whole psychotic break theory is kind of an arbitrary idea that sill doesn't explain any of the facts, merely a motivation born from her state of mind.
<modsnip> Why would it be impossible for Elisa to have wandered onto the roof and then climbed into a water tank unless she knew the tank was there to begin with?
I have seen some of Elisa's tumblr posts. She had several surreal drawings of people sitting on roof tops, ledges and climbing vertically up the sides of buildings. In a psychotic state, Elisa could have felt the need to go onto a roof or to be high up. She could have felt the need to hide on the roof. She could have seen a way up via the fire escape and once up there, found the water tanks and decided that would be an even better place to hide.
Now I don't say that this is what
must have happened. It's just one possibility. I think a person experiencing psychosis is very vulnerable to victimization by a perp. She just as easily could have fallen prey to a predator.
But the idea that Elisa was experiencing psychosis and that this somehow contributed to her death is very far from arbitrary:
1. The behavior exhibited by Elisa in the video is a typical manifestation of psychosis to those who are familiar with it. I for one recognized psychotic behavior the moment I saw the video. I am not a mental health professional but I have been exposed to such behavior all my life. But much more important than my lowly observation, every mental health professional who has posted on here has been of the opinion that Elisa was experiencing psychosis in the video.
2. Elisa apparently has a significant mental health background including bi-polar depression and hypomania, insomnia (which can lead to psychosis), and was on several, potent medications, a combination that a few professionals on here felt was recipe for disaster and could precipitate mania. There is also evidence that Elisa had experienced episodes prior and wandered away and that she may have been acting inappropriately at the bookstore, the day before she disappeared.
3. Comments and actions of LE indicate to many that they are leaning heavily toward a mental health angle resulting in death.
Thus, I fail to see how such an opinion is arbitrary. :waitasec:
It does seem odd for her to be psychotic if the day before she was perfectly fine when she talked to the owner of the bookstore.
I'm not sure why you believe that a person must shows noticeable signs the day before a psychotic episode? I mean, it has to start sometime, right?
That doesn’t mean that a person who has a chronic psychotic condition never suffered from acute psychosis.
Onset of their disease may have resulted in sudden symptoms of psychosis that are hard to mistake, and those phases when a person is not significantly in touch with reality may be thought of as acute phases. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-acute-psychosis.htm
Brief psychotic disorder is a short-term break from reality, or an acute episode of psychotic symptoms lasting more than a day but less than 1 month. The symptoms may or may not affect daily functioning, and may include fixed but false beliefs (delusions), hearing voices or seeing things that aren't there (hallucinations), disorganized speech, or seriously disorganized behavior. Associated symptoms may include a learning problem, decreased activity (hypoactivity), elated (euphoric) or depressed mood, sexual dysfunction, or hyperactivity. The person may be screaming or silent, behavior or dress may be outlandish, and memory of recent events may be impaired. However, there is complete recovery after the episode to the pre-existing mental state.
The essential feature of brief psychotic disorder is the sudden onset of psychotic symptoms, sometimes shortly after one or more events that would cause marked distress for most individuals. Examples of these events include wartime combat, an auto accident, or death of a loved one, which was previously termed a "brief reactive psychosis." Individuals who experience mental illness following
pregnancy and delivery (postpartum psychosis) may also be given this diagnosis.
http://www.mdguidelines.com/psychotic-disorder-brief
However, there may be changes, in what is called a "prodomal phase", that occur right before psychosis, but those may be very hard for a stranger to notice or even for a person who knows the patient to realize are significant, unless the patient has already had diagnosed, psychotic episodes:
Arrow 1 indicates the point when the patient first noticed some change in himself, but not symptoms that would be called psychotic. For example, he may have noticed that he was not coping with stress as well as he usually would or may have noticed vague depressive feelings or uneasiness; he may remember feeling more disinhibited and saying what he was thinking more often. Changes may have been subtle, so that only the person and not his acquaintances noticed.
Arrow 2 indicates the point when the patient's family or friends noticed some change in the person, but not changes indicative of frank psychosis. For example, they may have found him more moody or irritable, anxious, or doing some things out of character, such as spending a lot of money. They may have put it down to "a phase he was going through" (particularly in the case of adolescents) or thought it was worries at work.
Arrow 3 indicates the point when the patient first noticed changes that would be described as psychotic. For example, he might describe having heard voices or having had the belief that external agencies were controlling his mind.
http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/scz/sb-prod.html
But in any event, there is evidence that Elisa may have been behaving strangely, the day before she disappeared:
I know the book store owner said that, but there was a person in this forum who said that they knew someone in the bookstore who saw her acting strange:
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CA/Canada - Elisa Lam - 21 years old - Los Angeles/Vancouver - 31-Jan-2013 - #3
Besides the witnesses seeing her acting weird in the link above, she also was taking multiple drugs that she blogged about and also said she suffered from things like depression, bipolar disorder, insomnia, and maybe more. The video also shows her inexplicably pressing all the same buttons in a pattern, including the hold button, which I still have found no convincing explanation for if she wasn't in some kind of disoriented state.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Point of what I am saying:
1 the frame of reference we have is extremely limited.
2 psychiatry is an interpretive science and is not based on concrete facts but an opinion, an educated one but an opinion nonetheless. One shrink may not come to the same diagnosis as another as what is said during a session cam be interpreted differently by different professionals and the diagnosis may differ based on what is said in two separate analyses of the same subject.
True. But interestingly, every mental health professional who has posted on here believes Elisa was manifesting signs of psychosis in the elevator.
