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Having spent many years dealing with severely mentally ill people, I can say that the above statement rings untrue to me. It makes it sound like 1.) They are making up stuff 2.) They make a choice not to 'use their brains'.
One fellow I knew said to his doctor, 'But why can't I spot when I'm becoming sicker? Why do I need someone else's help to do that?'
The doctor replied, 'Because the part of your brain that would do that for you - that part of your brain is gone'.
The doctor is right. In severe mental illness, brain tissue is actually lost. On autopsy, you can pick up the brain and visually see the changes in it - with your eye. You don't need a microscope or a fancy scanner. You can pick the brain up in your hand and feel that it is lighter. Brain tissue is actually destroyed.
Actually, what happens is that their brains are damaged by the disease they have, so that they aren't choosing to 'not use their brains', but instead, their brains are profoundly damaged. Their brains don't work properly any more. They aren't making a choice, they are being sick.
The other thing is that the voices don't 'make' people do things. What happens is that there is an essential instability in the brain. Emotions boil up for no reason, impulses jump up out of the brain and people simply DO things. The 'voices' and 'visions' simply ACCOMPANY that unstable behavior. They don't cause it, though to the person themselves, it certainly seems that they are being 'told' to do something. In fact, what is happening is that the brain is so disordered that people just DO things without thinking it over and deciding in the normal way. My friend's brother was happily chatting with him one day, and then he walked over to the edge of their second floor porch and jumped off it and died. He wasn't unhappy, nothing bad had happened, his brain simply misfired, and he simply walked off the 2nd floor porch. People have lept out of windows and run a mile on two broken legs, too.
They just do not 'choose'. Their brain is so disordered that behavior just appears out of nowhere. For absolutely no reason.
I know many people don't like that idea. I think the idea of a person being sick, makes them think of people who CLAIM to be sick to try and avoid responsibility for their actions. And criminals often try to do that - to avoid responsibility for their acts. They don't limit themselves to claims of mental illness, though, they'll try any tactic.
But the problem is, that since their brains are more intact, they are simply unable to reproduce the speech and behavior patterns of a severely mentally ill person. The person who really is mentally ill is so disordered that even the way he composes sentences is affected.
But most of these criminals have a very 'TV Movie' kind of idea of what severe mental illness looks like. Their attempts to mimic severe mental illness are laughable.
What most of the criminals don't realize, is that these severe mental illnesses are accompanied by what's called 'Soft Signs'. These are actual PHYSICAL, neurological symptoms, that an unaffected person simply can't imitate. For schizophrenia there are up to 75 different 'Soft Signs' they may have.
Their eye gaze isn't even normal. THere is am extremely high speed, intermittent jerking of the eye that not even the cleverest person is physically able to imitate.
As long as the person is interviewed by a psychiatrist (rather than a psychologist or counselor), the criminal is extremely unlikely to successfully fool the authorities.
But what these 'Soft Signs' prove, is very important. That brain is very, very damaged. Severely mentally ill people who are violent, are generally going to continue to behave in the same way unless they are kept on medication. The medication does its best to 'balance' the chemical activity in the brain.
However, the severely mentally ill person is not the only type of violent criminal there is.
There are other possibilities.
I don't have enough information yet to understand what this guy is like. However, a SEVERE mental illness is not the only possibility.
In fact, horrible crimes, especially those with loudly stated political motives, can actually be the act of a person with a rather MILD mental disorder. Some of these people look very normal to people. They usually do not have successful close relationships, but they hold down a job, dress neatly and live at least what looks like a fairly normal life.
Their issue is that they have ONE AREA in which their brain does not work normally. No one has proven that this kind of thinking is a 'choice', either. These thinking patterns tend to be extremely persistent and remain there very long term.
They MIGHT eventually progress to more serious mental disease. But quite often, when they commit their crimes, they are in this very strange state where they are not obviously ill, but have one area of their thinking that is extremely irrational.
These people are almost never diagnosed as 'mentally ill'. They MIGHT have periods when they are more ill, and less functional. In that case it may take years for them to act out their plans.
Or, they may always look very 'normal' to others. They may NEVER actually really become severely ill. They may state in this state for all their lives.
For example, some of have met successful businessmen who seem obsessed by one bizarre idea. Such as that their wife is unfaithful. 'Evidence' will be things like, their food tastes too salty, or that when the neighbor drove by their house, he slowed down. That means his wife is having an affair with him, not that he slowed down to plug in his cell phone to the charger, or turn on his CD player.
There tends to be a very bizarre quality to their thinking, but it is strangely limited to only one subject or area of thinking.
In other words, there are outwardly normal looking people who have one area of their thinking that is extremely bizarre and irrational.
THESE people are extremely liable to develop a 'belief system' that can be very, very dangerous.
And the trouble with them, is that the rest of their thinking is sufficiently intact that they can plan very elaborate acts over a long period of time.
They ALSO can recruit others. The intensity of their personality and drive can be so strong that they recruit others to help them. These are generally weak willed people who seem to have virtually no resistance to the person. When they recruit others, or when they get the financial backing of an extremist organization, people often miss that the underlying root of the problem is an area of extremely disordered, irrational thinking.
They get ALLL wrapped up in the beliefs of the organization and totally miss what is really going on.
They often will appear to align themselves with some extreme group, and at least on the surface, they appear to be 'just another one of those guys in that weird group'.
But because they have this flaw in their thinking, this sort of person winds up putting the group's beliefs into action to incredible, unimaginable extremes.
Most extremist organizations LOVE these kinds of people.
Most extremists organization avoid like the plague, anyone who is obviously disfunctional. Those obviously sick, really disorganized people are called 'Loose Cannons' and these organizations work very hard to keep them OUT of their group.
But they LOVE these mildly ill people. These mildly ill guys tend to be somewhat isolated, suspicious of others, and have a single minded purpose that is unbelievable. In other words, they are perfect for the job.
You would think that because they are only dysfunctional in one area of thinking, that the rest of their normal thinking would some how allow them to see that they are crazy in this one area and they would think it through and pull back. But the fact of the matter is that somehow that one area of irrational thinking is so powerful that it shuts out anything else.
They can be relied upon to publicize the beliefs of the organization, but keep any of the chief leaders of the group from taking any risks of harm or criminal convictions.
Ummm, have you read his 1500 page manifesto? The guy knew exactly what he wanted, & trained to do what he did...he wasn't mentally ill, but idelogically ignorant...ignorant to the turths...that god doesn't exisit, & that he was "called" to do what he did..."called" by that same god that he said talked to him...many people will fawn all over the place, tryin' to distance themselves from him, but he's in the same "extreme group" called religious wackos...be they Muslim, Mormon, Mennonite, or Pentacostals...etc. etc.
Having spent many years dealing with severely mentally ill people, I can say that the above statement rings untrue to me. It makes it sound like 1.) They are making up stuff 2.) They make a choice not to 'use their brains'.
One fellow I knew said to his doctor, 'But why can't I spot when I'm becoming sicker? Why do I need someone else's help to do that?'
The doctor replied, 'Because the part of your brain that would do that for you - that part of your brain is gone'.
The doctor is right. In severe mental illness, brain tissue is actually lost. On autopsy, you can pick up the brain and visually see the changes in it - with your eye. You don't need a microscope or a fancy scanner. You can pick the brain up in your hand and feel that it is lighter. Brain tissue is actually destroyed.
Actually, what happens is that their brains are damaged by the disease they have, so that they aren't choosing to 'not use their brains', but instead, their brains are profoundly damaged. Their brains don't work properly any more. They aren't making a choice, they are being sick.
The other thing is that the voices don't 'make' people do things. What happens is that there is an essential instability in the brain. Emotions boil up for no reason, impulses jump up out of the brain and people simply DO things. The 'voices' and 'visions' simply ACCOMPANY that unstable behavior. They don't cause it, though to the person themselves, it certainly seems that they are being 'told' to do something. In fact, what is happening is that the brain is so disordered that people just DO things without thinking it over and deciding in the normal way. My friend's brother was happily chatting with him one day, and then he walked over to the edge of their second floor porch and jumped off it and died. He wasn't unhappy, nothing bad had happened, his brain simply misfired, and he simply walked off the 2nd floor porch. People have lept out of windows and run a mile on two broken legs, too.
They just do not 'choose'. Their brain is so disordered that behavior just appears out of nowhere. For absolutely no reason.
I know many people don't like that idea. I think the idea of a person being sick, makes them think of people who CLAIM to be sick to try and avoid responsibility for their actions. And criminals often try to do that - to avoid responsibility for their acts. They don't limit themselves to claims of mental illness, though, they'll try any tactic.
But the problem is, that since their brains are more intact, they are simply unable to reproduce the speech and behavior patterns of a severely mentally ill person. The person who really is mentally ill is so disordered that even the way he composes sentences is affected.
But most of these criminals have a very 'TV Movie' kind of idea of what severe mental illness looks like. Their attempts to mimic severe mental illness are laughable.
What most of the criminals don't realize, is that these severe mental illnesses are accompanied by what's called 'Soft Signs'. These are actual PHYSICAL, neurological symptoms, that an unaffected person simply can't imitate. For schizophrenia there are up to 75 different 'Soft Signs' they may have.
Their eye gaze isn't even normal. THere is am extremely high speed, intermittent jerking of the eye that not even the cleverest person is physically able to imitate.
As long as the person is interviewed by a psychiatrist (rather than a psychologist or counselor), the criminal is extremely unlikely to successfully fool the authorities.
But what these 'Soft Signs' prove, is very important. That brain is very, very damaged. Severely mentally ill people who are violent, are generally going to continue to behave in the same way unless they are kept on medication. The medication does its best to 'balance' the chemical activity in the brain.
However, the severely mentally ill person is not the only type of violent criminal there is.
There are other possibilities.
I don't have enough information yet to understand what this guy is like. However, a SEVERE mental illness is not the only possibility.
In fact, horrible crimes, especially those with loudly stated political motives, can actually be the act of a person with a rather MILD mental disorder. Some of these people look very normal to people. They usually do not have successful close relationships, but they hold down a job, dress neatly and live at least what looks like a fairly normal life.
Their issue is that they have ONE AREA in which their brain does not work normally. No one has proven that this kind of thinking is a 'choice', either. These thinking patterns tend to be extremely persistent and remain there very long term.
They MIGHT eventually progress to more serious mental disease. But quite often, when they commit their crimes, they are in this very strange state where they are not obviously ill, but have one area of their thinking that is extremely irrational.
These people are almost never diagnosed as 'mentally ill'. They MIGHT have periods when they are more ill, and less functional. In that case it may take years for them to act out their plans.
Or, they may always look very 'normal' to others. They may NEVER actually really become severely ill. They may state in this state for all their lives.
For example, some of have met successful businessmen who seem obsessed by one bizarre idea. Such as that their wife is unfaithful. 'Evidence' will be things like, their food tastes too salty, or that when the neighbor drove by their house, he slowed down. That means his wife is having an affair with him, not that he slowed down to plug in his cell phone to the charger, or turn on his CD player.
There tends to be a very bizarre quality to their thinking, but it is strangely limited to only one subject or area of thinking.
In other words, there are outwardly normal looking people who have one area of their thinking that is extremely bizarre and irrational.
THESE people are extremely liable to develop a 'belief system' that can be very, very dangerous.
And the trouble with them, is that the rest of their thinking is sufficiently intact that they can plan very elaborate acts over a long period of time.
They ALSO can recruit others. The intensity of their personality and drive can be so strong that they recruit others to help them. These are generally weak willed people who seem to have virtually no resistance to the person. When they recruit others, or when they get the financial backing of an extremist organization, people often miss that the underlying root of the problem is an area of extremely disordered, irrational thinking.
They get ALLL wrapped up in the beliefs of the organization and totally miss what is really going on.
They often will appear to align themselves with some extreme group, and at least on the surface, they appear to be 'just another one of those guys in that weird group'.
But because they have this flaw in their thinking, this sort of person winds up putting the group's beliefs into action to incredible, unimaginable extremes.
Most extremist organizations LOVE these kinds of people.
Most extremists organization avoid like the plague, anyone who is obviously disfunctional. Those obviously sick, really disorganized people are called 'Loose Cannons' and these organizations work very hard to keep them OUT of their group.
But they LOVE these mildly ill people. These mildly ill guys tend to be somewhat isolated, suspicious of others, and have a single minded purpose that is unbelievable. In other words, they are perfect for the job.
You would think that because they are only dysfunctional in one area of thinking, that the rest of their normal thinking would some how allow them to see that they are crazy in this one area and they would think it through and pull back. But the fact of the matter is that somehow that one area of irrational thinking is so powerful that it shuts out anything else.
They can be relied upon to publicize the beliefs of the organization, but keep any of the chief leaders of the group from taking any risks of harm or criminal convictions.
Ummm, have you read his 1500 page manifesto? The guy knew exactly what he wanted, & trained to do what he did...he wasn't mentally ill, but idelogically ignorant...ignorant to the turths...that god doesn't exisit, & that he was "called" to do what he did..."called" by that same god that he said talked to him...many people will fawn all over the place, tryin' to distance themselves from him, but he's in the same "extreme group" called religious wackos...be they Muslim, Mormon, Mennonite, or Pentacostals...etc. etc.
