Poll for the Armchair Psychologists

[Gecko100]

I'm sorry I am laughing my head off right now, because I always try to think in terms of the big picture, which is what I feel so many of you are getting at here...and then all of a sudden I could hear ALV saying "... context Mr. Martinez... you have to look at the entire context"!

I wonder what she thinks about Jodi now, honestly. I wonder if ALV having much more 'context' has changed her perception in any way. (that is of course if she has chosen to look at what is out there)

I'm not too sure she needs to look out there, the context has been glaring from the beginning.:seeya:

 

[Emmi]

What I am stressing is that disordered people - and I would count myself in with them, in my past - are not free in the sense that non-disordered people are.

"Being of sound mind and body" to me precludes NPD and BPD in many instances.

I think in some cases violence does indeed come from mental illness. In fact, in my family there is a member who becomes dangerous when she is manic.... I have never been violent but I had been irresponsible to a marked degree in the past, when I was on a wrong medication.....I agree it sucks, the idea that humans are not always free and reasonable persons....

My bold. Of course it does. Directly, in some cases. There was a horrifying crime committed here a few years ago, on a Greyhound bus. A very sick man heard a god-like voice command him to kill the young man sitting next to him. He did kill him, in a way I don't even want to describe. It was all over quite quickly, from what I remember. The killer had no idea what he did was wrong; in fact, he seemed to believe he had done the right thing, according to the voices he was hearing. That's just one example. This doesn't happen often, thank goodness, and though it's still true that most violence occurs between intimates, people we know, the image of the knife-wielding mad-man is not pure myth. It happens.

This sick man is now locked-up in hospital, where he belongs.

 

[Tulessa]

I'm not too sure she needs to look out there, the context has been glaring from the beginning.:seeya:

Gecko, when you get the chance, watch this and share your thoughts with me. This happened in Tenn, but the families were from my area. Jason Bryant's aunt is my next door neighbor. We need a Psychologist thread to discuss cases like these, and to share insight. Pm me if you want to keep this thread on topic.

Six - the Movie - YouTube

 

[SMK]

Awesome job you did with your son! I think your example is a good one in comparison with the genetic components of mental illness. I think more research needs to be done. I don't know for sure, but I got the impression Jodi's parents try to handle her in the home and did not vigorously pursue services for her.

Yes, as though they were hoping her problems would somehow "go away" : To seek services would have been to admit that they couldn't handle it. Some people see seeking help as failure. Now look what they have to live with. I do not envy them at all.

 

[SMK]

My bold. Of course it does. Directly, in some cases. There was a horrifying crime committed here a few years ago, on a Greyhound bus. A very sick man heard a god-like voice command him to kill the young man sitting next to him. He did kill him, in a way I don't even want to describe. It was all over quite quickly, from what I remember. The killer had no idea what he did was wrong; in fact, he seemed to believe he had done the right thing, according to the voices he was hearing. That's just one example. This doesn't happen often, thank goodness, and though it's still true that most violence occurs between intimates, people we know, the image of the knife-wielding mad-man is not pure myth. It happens.

This sick man is now locked-up in hospital, where he belongs.

Yes, it happens more often than people admit. There is and will always be a stigma to being mentally ill, precisely BECAUSE of such cases. As I said before, how many would hire a nanny whom admitted to struggling with mental illness? ---

Add to your case above the cases of Andrea Yates who was schizophrenic and drowned all her children in the bathtub, and many mothers who in a post-partum psychosis have murdered their own infants and childrens; paranoid men who have killed their own child because they thought the child was mocking them; rapists who thought they were on a mission from God; bipolars who went unmedicated or who stopped taking their medication and committed unlawful sexual acts (Mary Kay LeTourneau); the business man who becomes manic and skims hundreds of thousands illegally, only to repent when medicated, etc. : I could go on and on with accounts of extortion, theft, rape, and murder which could be attributed to mental illness.

I am extremely puzzled by those who say, "There are no mental illnesses which cause one to murder or rape " because this just flies in the face of facts.

 

[Emmi]

Well, I hope you are not implying that my perspective and purview come from being disordered: (as I have a history with you in posting and arguing): I was speaking of the past, and past problems with wrong medication combinations. Ask any bipolar person if they have had free volition when on a very seriously wrong medication. But what I am setting forth here and now certainly stems from NO disordered thinking.:furious:

You sound lucid to me, SMK!

 

[SMK]

You sound lucid to me, SMK!

Thank you and one would hope experience speaks loudly of these types of overlappings of disorder and free will.

 

[OEJ]

Jodi is responsible for her own actions. Not even her own mental health witnesses said she was so impaired by mental illness that she was unable to understand right from wrong or unable to conform her actions to the law. She didn't even try for an insanity defense.

 

[TorisMom003]

Yes, it happens more often than people admit. There is and will always be a stigma to being mentally ill, precisely BECAUSE of such cases. As I said before, how many would hire a nanny whom admitted to struggling with mental illness? ---

Add to your case above the cases of Andrea Yates who was schizophrenic and drowned all her children in the bathtub, and many mothers who in a post-partum psychosis have murdered their own infants and childrens; paranoid men who have killed their own child because they thought the child was mocking them; rapists who thought they were on a mission from God; bipolars who went unmedicated or who stopped taking their medication and committed unlawful sexual acts (Mary Kay LeTourneau); the business man who becomes manic and skims hundreds of thousands illegally, only to repent when medicated, etc. : I could go on and on with accounts of extortion, theft, rape, and murder which could be attributed to mental illness.

I am extremely puzzled by those who say, "There are no mental illnesses which cause one to murder or rape " because this just flies in the face of facts.

Let's bring this back to Jodi. Is there a "mental illness" that Jodi has that would allow her to brutally kill Travis in the way that she did and then allow her to lie repeatedly about her crime in order to get away with it? Or does it make more sense to say that Jodi simply knew right from wrong and decided that what she wanted was more important than what was against the law?

 

[lil_buddy]

Let's bring this back to Jodi. Is there a "mental illness" that Jodi has that would allow her to brutally kill Travis in the way that she did and then allow her to lie repeatedly about her crime in order to get away with it? Or does it make more sense to say that Jodi simply knew right from wrong and decided that what she wanted was more important than what was against the law?

nope.
yep. makes sense to me.
She sure seems glad he's dead to me in spite of everything.

 

[Veritas_Vita]

"Being of sound mind and body" to me precludes NPD and BPD in many instances.

BBM

I found this quote upstream and I found it disturbing.

When dealing with PD's, there is personal responsibility that needs to be addressed in this post. There are many famous & high functioning people with NPD & BPD.

In my own experience, I have been diagnosed with PTSD & BPD. By taking personal responsibility for my own mental health, I worked extremely hard to find psychiatrists & psychologists who were trained with DBT & EMDR therapy. At the beginning, I took medications. If the medications were not working for me, I was quick to self-report that the medications were not right for me.

Through hard work and diligence, shopping around for the best fitting psychiatrists & psychologists - and working at home on Marsha Linehan's DBT workbooks (which are available for free online by the way - or for a nominal fee at Amazon) I improved my life, my health, my happiness.

To make an erroneous, irresponsible and sweeping generalization that NPD & BPD precludes some from being of "sound mind and body" is not only wreckless, it is dangerous to engage is this type of judgement - particularly when taking personal responsibilty and hard work can make great changes.

To those who have or suspect they may have NPD or BPD, there is help. Do your own research on the internet and please do not believe judgemental, sweeping accusations.

Moo.

 

[OEJ]

"Being of sound mind and body" to me precludes NPD and BPD in many instances.

BBM

I found this quote upstream and I found it disturbing.

When dealing with PD's, there is personal responsibility that needs to be addressed in this post. There are many famous & high functioning people with NPD & BPD.

In my own experience, I have been diagnosed with PTSD & BPD. By taking personal responsibility for my own mental health, I worked extremely hard to find psychiatrists & psychologists who were trained with DBT & EMDR therapy. At the beginning, I took medications. If the medications were not working for me, I was quick to self-report that the medications were not right for me.

Through hard work and diligence, shopping around for the best fitting psychiatrists & psychologists - and working at home on Marsha Linehan's DBT workbooks (which are available for free online by the way - or for a nominal fee at Amazon) I improved my life, my health, my happiness.

To make an erroneous, irresponsible and sweeping generalization that NPD & BPD precludes some from being of "sound mind and body" is not only wreckless, it is dangerous to engage is this type of judgement - particularly when taking personal responsibilty and hard work can make great changes.

To those who have or suspect they may have NPD or BPD, there is help. Do your own research on the internet and please do not believe judgemental, sweeping accusations.

Moo.

Thank you!!! The only thing standing between Jodi and help was a doorway.

 

[human]

When I heard Jodi's parents explanations of life with her as a younger person , it was obvious that they had issues of child raising,

They saw their child's acting out as a threat against them. Very immature response and a response I saw often with parents who have children with issues.

The parents did not look at their own behavior. It was always the bratty child's fault

Often, in dysfunctional families, rather than looking at the family, a child is labelled as the one who has made all of the problems and that is why things are not going smoothly.

It is the job of the parents to be parents. To be the adults. But , we are not taught to take this job seriously. Anyone can be a parent.

I witnessed a mother turn all three of her darling children mentally ill because she got attention having problem children. A form of Munchausen's by proxy that sure is hard to prove.

We do not know what interactions Jodi had with her parents, but from the comments, I bet that she was not parented in a mature and loving manner. Some people really believe that their kids are out to get them.

 

[OneLostGrl]

Yes, it happens more often than people admit. There is and will always be a stigma to being mentally ill, precisely BECAUSE of such cases. As I said before, how many would hire a nanny whom admitted to struggling with mental illness? ---

Add to your case above the cases of Andrea Yates who was schizophrenic and drowned all her children in the bathtub, and many mothers who in a post-partum psychosis have murdered their own infants and childrens; paranoid men who have killed their own child because they thought the child was mocking them; rapists who thought they were on a mission from God; bipolars who went unmedicated or who stopped taking their medication and committed unlawful sexual acts (Mary Kay LeTourneau); the business man who becomes manic and skims hundreds of thousands illegally, only to repent when medicated, etc. : I could go on and on with accounts of extortion, theft, rape, and murder which could be attributed to mental illness.

I am extremely puzzled by those who say, "There are no mental illnesses which cause one to murder or rape " because this just flies in the face of facts.

However, the vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent. The stigma in this thread sickens me

 

[Linn]

I think it's two separate issues.

Jodi wasn't abused. I do believe she thinks she was ...as soon as anyone attempted to hold her accountable, put limits or expectations on her and told her "no". ... I also believe the children born after her took attention away from her... And she felt that was abusive too. All IMO


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I agree whole-heartedly with you :seeya:

After being a victim you just 'sense' when someone's wings have been broken as kids. Abused kids aren't arrogant as adults and they often attract abusers when they grow up, only because they don't have any abuser-detectors like others have.

Nothing in JA gives any vibes of her ever being abused. Also abused kids usually feel empathy due to what they suffered themself.

I don't want to bother you with any details, but I survived only because of the kindness of strangers who smiled at me, strangers who didn't even have to be kind to me.

I don't have any hatred towards my parents, only gratitude. I grew up to be a better person when knowing what it feels like to be abused. You don't want to pass on abuse if you are a victim.

It's unrealistic to think that JA never got kindness from anyone, because children can cope if they see even one adult who is kind to them.

JA again... my sensors don't activate when it comes to her. And just because she says she was a victim doesn't mean that she was one. It takes one to know one.

Had she been paralyzed and shaking after the kill and waited there for the police to come, then she would have acted like a true victim.

I hope people with different mental disorders don't compare themself to JA, it takes much more than a mental disorder to commit a crime like she did.

IMO

 

[Horace Finklestein]

Yes, and it a soft determinism/compatabilism is the only empirical conclusion to be drawn about the Arias or any other case: NOT the hard determinism of brain science, NOR the soft free will of idealism: The facts lead us to the fusion of creating ourselves/being created by forces outside of us. No man is an island, was the old wisdom about this.

So you believe...I don't think Jodi would have turned out any different with any other possible family situation, no matter how exemplary, attentive or privileged. Regarding how the self is created, I believe it is by our beliefs about situations, not the situations themselves or the external forces, etc.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

So you believe...I don't think Jodi would have turned out any different with any other possible family situation, no matter how exemplary, attentive or privileged. Regarding how the self is created, I believe it is by our beliefs about situations, not the situations themselves or the external forces, etc.

Neither do I .. actually I think if she was coddled she may have actually turned out worse .. dunno about you, but I wouldn't be too keen on having a kid around that was known to act out violently against the two younger ones, no wonder they let her move out with her BF as a teen .. *sighs of relief all round no doubt.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Yes, and it a soft determinism/compatabilism is the only empirical conclusion to be drawn about the Arias or any other case: NOT the hard determinism of brain science, NOR the soft free will of idealism: The facts lead us to the fusion of creating ourselves/being created by forces outside of us. No man is an island, was the old wisdom about this.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean here ..

 

[Horace Finklestein]

Yes, it happens more often than people admit. There is and will always be a stigma to being mentally ill, precisely BECAUSE of such cases. As I said before, how many would hire a nanny whom admitted to struggling with mental illness? ---

Add to your case above the cases of Andrea Yates who was schizophrenic and drowned all her children in the bathtub, and many mothers who in a post-partum psychosis have murdered their own infants and childrens; paranoid men who have killed their own child because they thought the child was mocking them; rapists who thought they were on a mission from God; bipolars who went unmedicated or who stopped taking their medication and committed unlawful sexual acts (Mary Kay LeTourneau); the business man who becomes manic and skims hundreds of thousands illegally, only to repent when medicated, etc. : I could go on and on with accounts of extortion, theft, rape, and murder which could be attributed to mental illness.

I am extremely puzzled by those who say, "There are no mental illnesses which cause one to murder or rape " because this just flies in the face of facts.

I challenge you to show evidence for any mental illness that causes rape, murder, etc. Unvbelievably misinformed post. But that's why there is stigma. Misinformation and fear mongering. These crimes are committed by all kinds of people. There is no illness one develops which causes them to happen.

For example, a person with an addiction may steal to support it, but the addiction does not cause them to steal. Theft is not a symptom of addiction. Critical thinking is key here.

 

[Emmi]

"Being of sound mind and body" to me precludes NPD and BPD in many instances.

BBM

I found this quote upstream and I found it disturbing.

When dealing with PD's, there is personal responsibility that needs to be addressed in this post. There are many famous & high functioning people with NPD & BPD.

In my own experience, I have been diagnosed with PTSD & BPD. By taking personal responsibility for my own mental health, I worked extremely hard to find psychiatrists & psychologists who were trained with DBT & EMDR therapy. At the beginning, I took medications. If the medications were not working for me, I was quick to self-report that the medications were not right for me.

Through hard work and diligence, shopping around for the best fitting psychiatrists & psychologists - and working at home on Marsha Linehan's DBT workbooks (which are available for free online by the way - or for a nominal fee at Amazon) I improved my life, my health, my happiness.

To make an erroneous, irresponsible and sweeping generalization that NPD & BPD precludes some from being of "sound mind and body" is not only wreckless, it is dangerous to engage is this type of judgement - particularly when taking personal responsibilty and hard work can make great changes.

To those who have or suspect they may have NPD or BPD, there is help. Do your own research on the internet and please do not believe judgemental, sweeping accusations.

Moo.

I think that the communication threads are becoming mixed-up and maybe even hopelessly tangled. Because, there is more than one thread of conversation happening here, with many points and counterpoints, and a single post has been built upon many other posts over a couple of days or more.

And some posts are addressing mental health and its relationship to someone like Jodi, or to someone who is bonafide psychotic, or just to crime/violence in general, while others are more generally addressing if, in some instances, a person with a personality disorder truly possesses free will. Opinions were offered, some of them backed up by the opinions of intellectuals and clinicians and links to literature.

There have been some who have said, here, that certain PDs can be in-born, and completely resistant to treatment, and that such people are, and always have been, permanently defective. Many of us launched arguments against that kind of framework, saying that environment/nurture is of greater import than predisposition or "wiring." That's been going back and forth.

The quotation you find offensive and stigmatizing was actually a part of a thread of conversation that was questioning the one-dimensional, limited view of "personal responsibility" as the end-all-and-be-all of addressing mental illness and violence. It was part of a wider dialogue about the problem with locating (most, not all) pathologies solely in the individual, and ignoring family and social pathologies in the process.