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The first article that I have seen that indicates that Amanda Knox was accused of having BPD.
Tears of freedom, now the bidding war begins
Karen Kissane October 05, 2011
THE family of the murdered girl was bereft; the family of the alleged murderer jubilant.
 Amanda Knox After judges in the Italian hill town of Perugia declared convicted murderer Amanda Knox not guilty on appeal, her sister Deanna said outside court: “We’re thankful that Amanda’s nightmare is over. She has suffered four years for a crime she didn’t commit.”
Ms Knox, 24, was flying home to Seattle last night, where she is expected to receive offers for multimillion-dollar book and movie deals about her ordeal.
TV networks are already bidding for her first interview.
Ms Knox’s mother and other relatives were seen at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport, where Ms Knox joined them on a flight to London before boarding a connection to the United States.
But for the family of the woman she was accused of murdering, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, there was no joy in the legal decision that overturned Ms Knox’s conviction and 26-year jail sentence.
They said in a statement: “We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision of the first trial could be so radically overturned. We still trust the Italian justice system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge.”
The prosecutor Giuliano Mignini vowed an appeal to Italy’s highest criminal court.
“Let’s wait and we will see who was right. The first court or the appeal court,” Mr Mignini said.
“This trial was done under unacceptable media pressure. The decision was almost already announced; this is not normal.” If the highest court overturns the acquittal, prosecutors could request Ms Knox’s extradition to finish her sentence.
At an earlier media conference Ms Kercher’s sister Stephanie said the “brutal murder” was being overlooked: “Meredith has been hugely forgotten.” Her brother Lyle said: “It is very hard to find forgiveness at this time. Four years is a very long time but on the other hand it is still raw.”
Judges also acquitted Ms Knox’s alleged partner in crime, her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The two had been convicted of raping and murdering Ms Kercher, an English exchange student, in the bedroom of a cottage the two women shared in Perugia in 2007.
The case sparked lurid language and an almost lascivious fascination inside and outside Italy’s justice system.
Judges have yet to give their reasoning but it is thought they relied on experts who testified the original investigation had been botched, with more than 50 errors in the handling of DNA evidence. The two judges, sitting with a six-person jury, were not swayed by the venomous language of the lawyer who had painted Ms Knox as a she-devil for initially falsely blaming her employer, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, for killing Ms Kercher. Mr Lumumba was arrested and jailed for two weeks after Ms Knox claimed she had heard him enter Ms Kercher’s room and then clapped her hands over her ears to muffle screams.
Mr Lumumba’s lawyer told the court: “The woman you see before you today is charming [and] angel faced … [but] she was a diabolical, demonic she-devil. She was muddy on the outside and dirty on the inside. She has two souls, the clean one you see before you, and the other.” He also claimed: “She is borderline. She likes alcohol, drugs and she likes wild, hot sex.” Continue reading Amanda Knox was accused of being Borderline in trial →
An article from ABC News about Casey Anthony’s pathological lying and the disorder from which it may arise. Before I supply the text here, I want to discuss this quote:
Two of the potential issues Anthony could suffer from are border personality disorder and psychopathology, the experts said. The main thing these issues have in common is a total lack of empathy, according to LeslieBeth Wish, a psychologist and licensed social worker in Sarasota, Fla.
“They can turn a person into a non-person,” Wish said. “Borderline personalities have more emotional regulation problem and often use lying to get away from something and not ever feeling like they’re responsible.”
Those two potential issues were the ones that I identified and opined on the other day. The second paragraph above is why I believe that Casey Anthony probably doesn’t have BPD. The reasons for the lies are not impulsive and reactive, as they seem to be most often in BPD. People with BPD are much more likely to “bullshit” (as a term of art not vulgarity) than to actually lie with proactive intent. They can make up some elaborate stories about themselves, typically to make their world a safer and more livable place when others think better of them. Still, most often BPD lies are to get through a painful moment. Very often as the lies collapse, they will admit everything and ask forgiveness. Casey did NOT do this. She maintained her lies even after the police were aware they were lies. In fact, she started lying to her parents LONG BEFORE Caylee went missing. She lied (by omission) about her pregnancy. She lied about having a job at Universal Studios BEFORE the cops got involved.
As for psychopathy…. I presented the guidelines of Hare’s PCL-R on the other page. Let’s look at them again and see which of these seem to match Casey Anthony, based on what we know from the press:
PCL-R items
The following findings are for research purposes only, and are not used in clinical diagnosis. These items cover the affective, interpersonal, and behavioral features. Each item is rated on a score from zero to two. The sum total determines the extent of a person’s psychopathy.
Factor 1
Aggressive narcissism – Hard to say for Casey Anthony. We don’t really know enough. We do know that, when in jail, she got angry about what this situation was doing to HER!
Glibness/superficial charm – Yes.
Grandiose sense of self-worth – Again hard to say. This is one factor that really separates BPD from the narcissism spectrum. People with BPD have a lot of shame and generally hate themselves.
Pathological lying – YES, YES, YES.
Cunning/manipulative – I’d have to say yes.
Lack of remorse or guilt – Again, I think we need to say yes here.
Emotionally shallow – Hard to say.
Callous/lack of empathy – Could be. Hard to say.
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions – Yes. It’s never her fault.
Factor 2
Socially deviant lifestyle – Party girl. One night stands.
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom – Probably, but who knows.
Parasitic lifestyle – Yes. She was living off her parents and then off friends while pretending to have a job. Actually, it is interesting to note that she was telling her mother she had a job long before Caylee disappeared.
Poor behavioral control – Probably. Again, one night stands.
Promiscuous sexual behavior – Yes.
Lack of realistic, long-term goals – Yes.
Impulsiveness – Yes.
Irresponsibility – Yes.
Juvenile delinquency – well, some form of delinquency. She stole checks from her friend and passed them.
Early behavioral problems – unknown.
Revocation of conditional release – we’ll see.
Traits not correlated with either factor
Many short-term marital relationships – no, but many short-term boyfriends
Criminal versatility – it depends. She stole and possibly caused the death of her daughter. They couldn’t prove it in court to the satisfaction of the jury, but we may never know.
Ok, onto the article:
‘Dr. Judy’ Doubts Casey Anthony’s Penchant for Lying Can Be Cured
By CHRISTINA NG
July 19, 2011
Casey Anthony’s lawyers have said that Anthony has suffered “trauma” and will need counseling now that she is a free woman, but experts aren’t sure Anthony can be helped.
“It would be exceptionally difficult for anybody to treat her. There is no magic pill that’s a truth serum for a person who’s a pathological liar,” said Dr. Judy Kuriansky a psychologist from Columbia University, but better known from her radio show as Dr. Judy.
Kuriansky believes that Anthony likely feels that she has been rewarded for her lying with her acquittal and release from jail.
“Why would she want to go to therapy when she basically got what she wanted? There’s no motivation for her to seek help,” Kuriansky said. “If she had been sent to jail, maybe she would want to see somebody because her style didn’t work, but it did.”
Anthony, 25, is in hiding after being released from a Florida jail following her acquittal on murder charges for the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. She has received death threats and as she left jail protesters changed “Caylee, Caylee.”
Casey Anthony Therapy Will Be ‘Challenge’
Anthony’s criminal lawyer Jose Baez has said, “It is my hope that Casey Anthony can receive the counselling and treatment she needs to move forward with the rest of her life.”
Her civil attorney Charles Greene was quoted as saying Anthony was “emotionally unstable” following the trauma of her daughter’s death and the grueling trial.
Psychologists interviewed by ABCNews.com agree that the desire to change is the key to successful treatment for pathological liars, which some believe Anthony may be.
While acquitted of murder, she was convicted on four counts of lying to police. One of her lies was that Caylee was kidnapped by a fictional nanny named Zanny. Zanny was one of a dozen bogus characters that Casey had created. She also lied about working at Universal Studios.
None of the psychologists who spoke with ABCNews.com have treated Casey Anthony, but spoke from observations and personal experience.
Two of the potential issues Anthony could suffer from are border personality disorder and psychopathology, the experts said. The main thing these issues have in common is a total lack of empathy, according to LeslieBeth Wish, a psychologist and licensed social worker in Sarasota, Fla.
“They can turn a person into a non-person,” Wish said. “Borderline personalities have more emotional regulation problem and often use lying to get away from something and not ever feeling like they’re responsible.”
Continue reading ABC News Experts talk about Casey Anthony’s potential disorder →
 Casey Anthony Acquitted A few weeks ago I posted an article entitled Casey Anthony: Borderline Personality Disorder, a Psychopath or What? This “analysis” garnered a lot of attention (or at least a lot of traffic) for me. I found that yesterday was the busiest day on my blog ever with over 400 views of that article alone (usually I get about 600 daily views of my blog so this was unusual). Of course anyone that has followed the Casey Anthony trial knows why – she was acquitted of first degree murder and aggravated child abuse, but was convicted of four misdemeanor charges of making false statements to the police.
I watched about half of the trial. I followed it as closely as possible and read about Ms. Anthony’s lies, watched the jail videos, read about her partying, watched her interviews, etc. The issue I see here is two-fold. Firstly, it is not a crime to lie (except to officials, which she did and was convicted of; or to the court, which she did not, since she didn’t testify), nor is it a crime to party with your friends. While the behavior is odd and curious (why would one do that if your child is missing?), it is not criminal. What the state was attempting to prove in this case was first-degree capital murder, without physical evidence, DNA, witnesses or a cause of death. A very high standard and hard hill to climb. Not too surprising that she was acquitted. I think (as do many others) that the state of Florida should have charged her with lesser crimes (homicide or manslaughter for example). It seemed to me from the beginning that Caylee’s death was probably a horrible accident or an impulsive action (like doping the child too much) that Casey thought she could distance herself from by lying and avoiding. Unfortunately, she has now learned that lies (even if she didn’t do it or it was an accident, we’ll probably never know unless someone with knowledge of what happens starts to talk) have paid off. In fact, if it WAS an accident and she had come forward at the beginning and said “I messed up, I’m sorry” she would have probably received a more severe punishment than she will now receive. (Of course I have trouble believing the George Anthony angle because Casey has a history of telling lies to get herself off the hook.) She is not a felon at this point. All that being said, I believe that this case is one in which our justice system was shown to work, but justice was not done for the child.
Which brings me to my second point about this case… It is not a crime to be mentally ill, no matter if you have Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD from abuse or you’re a psychopath. You can’t be thrown in jail or executed just because you’re sick in the head. You can only be thrown in jail or executed based on what you do and what evidence shows you’ve done and what a jury of your peers (or a judge in some cases) believes, beyond a reasonable doubt, you have done. Criminal behavior and mental illness are not synonymous. Actions and feelings are not the same. Someone who has aggressive feelings towards others and never acts upon them, they’re innocent of any crime. As for Casey Anthony, even her defense team said that her lies were an indication that she needed help. Those lies were reflective of a deeper psychological disturbance. What it may be, we’ll probably never know, nor should we.
Still, I believe that Casey Anthony will be unable to stay on the right side of the law for long. She’ll not likely kill anyone but, based on her pattern of behavior, she is impulsive and believes that she can talk her way out of just about anything. Unfortunately, this time she was able to talk her way out of any involvement in her daughter’s death – murder or accident.
 When Hope is Not EnoughGet the Non-BPD book that is designed for staying and working on the relationship  Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us  The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry  The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain  Handbook of Psychopathy  The Mask of Sanity (Mosby medical library)
You may or may not remember this story from 2009. Diane Schuler, a mother and aunt with her children and her sister’s children in a min-van, goes the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway in Westchester county and plows into an SUV head-on killing three in the SUV and 4 children and herself in the mini-van. Toxicology reports showed she had a blood alcohol level of .19 over twice the legal limit of .08. She also reportedly smoked marijuana and had several ounces of undigested alcohol in her stomach. Here’s an article that analyses the NY Magazine article about her husband Daniel Schuler. This analysis from Jezebel.com, points out the problems, isolation, secrets and tragedy that can exist when a spouse is unable to communicate his/her emotional pains.
Diane Schuler’s Story Is One Of Isolation, Denial, And Rage
Anna North
One of the saddest news stories of the summer just got sadder — the husband of Diane Schuler, whose wrong-way drunk-driving crash killed her and seven others, tells New York Magazine he still believes his wife was essentially perfect.
New York’s Steve Fishman tells a depressing tale of denial and rage. On one side is the bereaved Schuler, struggling to go on after the death of his wife and daughter, and on the other is the Bastardi family, two of whose members were killed when Diane Schuler’s Winstar struck their TrailBlazer. Mike Bastardi lost his father, Michael Sr., and his brother Guy, and is angry at the whole Schuler family for what he sees as their role in the accident. He says, “They make like it was not even their fault. I think they knew she was drunk and stoned.” Bastardi’s wife Jeanne is even harsher. She says, “Not even a second have I felt sorry for Danny. This becomes a man you can’t hate enough.”
Part of the reason the Bastardis are so angry with Schuler is that he won’t own up to his wife’s guilt. After the crash, he said at a press conference, “She did not drink. She is not an alcoholic. My heart is rested every night. Something medically had to have happened.” He’s stuck to this story ever since, hiring a private investigator and a lawyer who speculated that a small stroke or abscess might have caused her to suddenly lose judgment and down ten shots of vodka before getting behind the wheel. Not only was his wife not an addict, he says, she was nearly flawless. Though he spoke to the investigator about “ups and downs” in his marriage,” he told Fishman, “There were never any downs. Up for twelve years.” He says they were “perfect” for each other, she was an “outstanding” mom, and, tellingly, “She never complained. I do; she doesn’t.”
Diane Schuler’s friends also portray her as keeping her feelings — especially negative ones — to herself. One says, “I’ve never seen her mad or angry,” another, “she infrequently talked about personal feelings.” She never talked about her parents’ divorce, and refused to speak to her mother — some friends even thought her mother was dead. When Fishman asked Danny “how well he really knew” his wife, Danny answered, “She’d talk to me if things came up.” His examples: “The house needs painting, the gutters need to be cleaned.”
To hear Fishman tell it, the Schulers’ story seemed like a long, drawn-out, and bloody example of the consequences of secrets in a marriage. Did Diane Schuler feel pressured to be the perfect mom — Danny mentions her expertise with birthday cards and holiday decorations — and thus keep her substance problems to herself? Did she feel she couldn’t confide in her husband because their work schedules meant they were rarely home at the same time? Did her parents’ divorce make her feel she couldn’t rock the boat in her own marriage? Why didn’t her friends know more about her troubles? Probably these questions will never be answered, but if there’s a tragic flaw in the whole Schuler saga, it’s isolation.
Despite her supposedly close-knit family, Diane Schuler apparently kept herself hidden from everyone. This led not only to her death and the deaths of seven others — it also plunged her husband into denial and the surviving Bastardi’s into fruitless anger. They won’t be satisfied until he admits guilt; he won’t be satisfied until he proves his wife was blameless. It’s hard to know how much of this cycle of despair was caused by Diane Schuler’s own particular pathology, and how much by an American idea of marriage that often positions the spouse as sole confidant even when, as was the case with the Schulers, that spouse may be physically unavailable. Only one thing is clear: if Schuler had felt able to open up about her own life, she might have avoided destroying countless others.
 Casey Anthony BPD or Psychopath or What? A few days ago I got an email from a member of the ATSTP list asking me what I thought about the possibility of Casey Anthony, who is currently on trial for the murder of her 2 year old daughter (Caylee Anthony), having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In 2008, I was following the case with interest. I have followed it a bit during the trial. I am not a doctor or a mental health professional, yet I have met a LOT of people with BPD (both men and women) and members of their families. I’ve looked at Casey Anthony’s behavior and compared it with the behavior of people that I know with BPD. I pretty much come to the conclusion that Casey Anthony doesn’t have borderline personality disorder. It seems to be more likely that she’s a psychopath. It seems that some criminal profilers agree…
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36551199/ns/today-today_people/t/do-letters-show-casey-anthony-psychopath/
Pat Brown, a criminal profiler, told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira that in her opinion, Anthony is a psychopath who is trying to get potential jurors to feel sorry for her. The letters are the way she does it, Brown said.
“This will prove she’s a new woman. After all, she’s found God,” Brown said, adding that juries will frequently sympathize with a woman who claims she was abused and mistreated but now has found the light.
“A lot of time women go to court, juries start feeling sorry for them,” Brown said. “It’s manipulation.”
Brown called the letters “a wonderful window into how a psychopath thinks.”
Here is some information about psychopathy:
In his 1941 book, Mask of Sanity, Hervey M. Cleckley introduced 16 behavioral characteristics of a psychopath:
- Superficial charm and good “intelligence”
- Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
- Absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations
- Unreliability
- Untruthfulness and insincerity
- Lack of remorse and shame
- Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
- Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
- Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
- General poverty in major affective reactions
- Specific loss of insight
- Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
- Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
- Suicide threats rarely carried out
- Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
- Failure to follow any life plan.
Continue reading Casey Anthony: Borderline Personality Disorder, a Psychopath or What? →
Lindsay Lohan’s judge makes a statement about Lilo:
Sautner disagreed with the recommendation Wednesday, saying she didn’t think Lohan had a substance abuse problem.
“She has other problems, which she self-medicates,” the judge said.
I wonder what those “other problems” are? Perhaps you can check here for more information on the behavior of Lindsay Lohan.
Here’s the full text of the article:
Lindsay Lohan says she’s glad theft case resolved
LOS ANGELES – A lawyer entered a no contest plea Wednesday for Lindsay Lohan in the theft of a necklace, setting the stage for a summer of confinement, counseling and community service.
Defense attorney Shawn Holley made the plea for the actress, who did not appear in court in the misdemeanor case involving a $2,500 necklace taken from an upscale shop in the Venice area of Los Angeles.
Lohan, 24, did not acknowledge guilt through the plea, but the court will log the case as a conviction.
She said later in the day in a written statement that she was glad to put the case behind her and has already started her 300 hours of community service at a shelter for women.
“I hope to be able to fulfill my obligation without any press attention,” Lohan said. “I think the media spotlight should be on issues such as homelessness and domestic violence instead of on me.”
Lohan did not have to attend the hearing because she was facing a misdemeanor charge.
Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner ordered Lohan to serve a 120-day jail sentence and remain on probation in a 2007 drunken driving case while she completes a total of 480 hours of community service and undergoes psychological counseling.
Along with the women’s shelter, she will do 120 hours of community service at the coroner’s office, with the remainder to be decided.
The judge ordered the additional counseling after reviewing a probation report that showed Lohan tested positive for alcohol in February, a little more than a month after she was released from rehab.
The report also said authorities found evidence the actress had been drinking in December while receiving treatment at the Betty Ford Center.
Lohan had been sent to Betty Ford for three months of treatment last year after failing a drug screen. The report indicated she had tested positive for cocaine and amphetamines during the court-mandated drug test in September. Continue reading Interesting Statement from Judge in Lindsay Lohan Case →
Well, obviously her shoplifting is alleged at this point. There is a TMZ article about things (other than the necklace) that she allegedly took. And another one regarding a fur coat that she wore and about which she had to settle a complaint against her for that. On these pages, I have analyzed the behavior of Lindsay and made the suggestion that she has borderline personality disorder. I am not a doctor, a diagnostic expert or have I ever actually met with Ms. Lohan. I am a person who is familiar with BPD and I have met numerous individuals with BPD and their families. Shoplifting can be a feature of borderline personality disorder. A question answered by Dr. Leland Heller about shoplifting and BPD says this:
Q. Dear Dr. Heller
Do a large percentage of BPD individuals have difficulty with impulsiveness which involves shoplifting? Can you comment on this form of self-injurious behavior.
Also I understand Klonopin is not to be given to individuals who have difficulty with impulsiveness, Please advise on this medication.
Someone in deep legal trouble that has just learned there is a name for the cause of all this pain.
A. Shoplifting has long been known to be one of the self-destructive, impulsive behaviors borderlines do to make dysphoria – anxiety, rage, depression, despair – go away. It’s similar to reckless driving, binge eating, binge shopping, etc. It’s not common, but it does happen.
Xanax – alprazolam – has been shown to worsen behavioral dyscontrol, which means there may be an increased risk of self-destructive behaviors. Klonopin is a very similar medication, and while I haven’t seen studies on it in this regard, it is logical to assume it will make BPD self destructive symptoms worse.
As you can see, Dr. Heller does indicate that shoplifting is an impulsive behavior and can be used to make the dysphoria of BPD go away. In addition, he goes on to indicate that benzos (particularly Xanax) can worsen self-destructive and impulsive behaviors. I have seen that effect with my own eyes. Xanax definitely decreases impulse control and increases behavioral dyscontrol. When mixed with alcohol, the effects can be even more dramatic. So, I thought I’d go out and try to discern if Lindsay Lohan is taking Xanax or other medications that would have these effects. Sure enough, there have been reports that Ms. Lohan is taking Xanax (along with Paxil and Adderall). The combination of poor impulse control (which is a feature of BPD, although it is also a feature of other disorders) and the Xanax could indeed lead to a self-control issue such as shoplifting. Here is a CNN report about Lindsay’s latest legal troubles regarding the alleged shoplifting of a $2,500 necklace. The question that immediately arises (at least for most people) is why? Why would she shoplift when she can afford to buy the product? Again, see above for possible explanation (Xanax + poor impulse control = try to make dysphoria go away). This whole incident reminded me of Winoa Ryder’s shoplifting case. In addition to her shoplifting, she also has apparently been taking Xanax.
An article from the NY Times about getting mental health care for others:
Getting Someone to Psychiatric Treatment Can Be Difficult and Inconclusive
By A. G. SULZBERGER and BENEDICT CAREY
TUCSON —What are you supposed to do with someone like Jared L. Loughner?
That question is as difficult to answer today as it was in the years and months and days leading up to the shooting here that left 6 dead and 13 wounded.
Millions of Americans have wondered about a troubled loved one, friend or co-worker, fearing not so much an act of violence, but — far more likely — self-inflicted harm, landing in the streets, in jail or on suicide watch. But those in a position to help often struggle with how to distinguish ominous behavior from the merely odd, the red flags from the red herrings.
In Mr. Loughner’s case there is no evidence that he ever received a formal diagnosis of mental illness, let alone treatment. Yet many psychiatrists say that the warning sings of a descent into psychosis were there for months, and perhaps far longer.
Moving a person who is resistant into treatment is an emotional, sometimes exhausting process that in the end may not lead to real changes in behavior. Mental health resources are scarce in most states, laws make it difficult to commit an adult involuntarily, and even after receiving treatment, patients frequently stop taking their medication or seeing a therapist, believing that they are no longer ill.
The Virginia Tech gunman was committed involuntarily before killing 32 people in a 2007 rampage.
With Mr. Loughner, dozens of people apparently saw warning signs: the classmates who listened as his dogmatic language grew more detached from reality. The police officers who nervously advised that he could not return to college without a medical note stating that he was not dangerous. His father, who chased him into the desert hours before the attack as Mr. Loughner carried a black bag full of ammunition.
“This isn’t an isolated incident,” said Daniel J. Ranieri, president of La Frontera Center, a nonprofit group that provides mental health services. “There are lots of people who are operating on the fringes who I would describe as pretty combustible. And most of them aren’t known to the mental health system.”
Dr. Jack McClellan, an adult and child psychiatrist at the University of Washington, said he advises people who are worried that someone is struggling with a mental disorder to watch for three things — a sudden change in personality, in thought processes, or in daily living. “This is not about whether someone is acting bizarrely; many people, especially young people, experiment with all sorts of strange beliefs and counterculture ideas,” Dr. McLellan said. “We’re talking about a real change. Is this the same person you knew three months ago?”
Those who have watched the mental unraveling of a loved one say that recognizing the signs is only the first step in an emotional, often confusing, process. About half of people with mental illnesses do not receive treatment, experts estimate, in part because many of them do not recognize that they even have an illness.
Pushing such a person into treatment is legally difficult in most states, especially when he or she is an adult — and the attempt itself can shatter the trust between a troubled soul and the one who is most desperate to help. Others, though, later express gratitude.
“If the reason is love, don’t worry if they’ll be mad at you,” said Robbie Alvarez, 28, who received a diagnosis of schizophrenia after being involuntarily committed when his increasingly erratic behavior led to a suicide attempt. At the time, he said, he was living in Phoenix with his parents, who he was convinced were trying to kill him. In Arizona it is easier to obtain an involuntary commitment than in many states because anyone can request an evaluation if they observe behavior that suggests a person may present a danger or is severely disabled (often state laws require some evidence of imminent danger to self or others).
But there are also questions about whether the system can accommodate an influx of new patients. Arizona’s mental health system has been badly strained by recent budget cuts that left those without Medicaid stripped of most of their services, including counseling and residential treatment, though eligibility remains for emergency services like involuntary commitment. And the state is trying to change eligibility requirements for Medicaid, which would potentially reduce financing further and leave more with limited services.
Still, people who have been through the experience argue that it is better to act sooner rather than later. “It’s not easy to know when we could or should intervene but I would rather err on the side of safety than not,” said H. Clarke Romans, executive director of the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group, who had a son with schizophrenia.
The collective failure to move Mr. Loughner into treatment, either voluntarily or not, will never be fully understood, because those who knew the young man presumably wrestled separately and privately about whether to take action. But the inaction has certainly provoked second-guessing. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County told CNN last Wednesday that Mr. Loughner’s parents were as shocked as everyone else. “It’s been very, very devastating for them,” he said. “They had absolutely no way to predict this kind of behavior.”
Linda Rosenberg, president of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, said, “The failure here is that we ignored someone for a long time who was clearly in tremendous distress.” Ms. Rosenberg, whose group is a nonprofit agency leading a campaign to teach people how to recognize and respond to signs of mental illness, added, “He wasn’t someone who could ask for help because his thinking was affected, and as a community no one said, let’s stop and make sure he gets help.”
At the University of Arizona, where a nursing student killed three instructors on campus eight years ago before killing himself, feelings of sadness and anger initially mixed with some guilt as the university examined the missed warning signs.
The overhauled process for addressing concerns is now more responsive, even if there are sometimes false alarms, said Melissa M. Vito, vice president for student affairs. “I guess I’d rather explain why I called someone’s parents than why I didn’t do something,” she said.
Many others feel the same way.
Four years ago Susan Junck watched her 18-year-old son return from community college to their Phoenix home one afternoon and, after preparing a snack, repeatedly call the police to accuse his mother of poisoning him. She assumed it was an isolated outburst, maybe connected to his marijuana use. In the coming months, though, her son’s behavior grew more alarming, culminating in an arrest for assaulting his girlfriend, who was at the center of a number of his conspiracy theories.
“I knew something was wrong but I literally just did not understand what,” Ms. Junck, 49, said in a recent interview. “It probably took a year before I realized my son has a mental illness. This isn’t drug related, this isn’t bad behavior, this isn’t teenage stuff. This is a serious mental illness.”
Fearful and desperate, she brought her son to an urgent psychiatric center and — after a five-hour wait — agreed to sign paperwork to have him involuntarily committed as a danger to himself or others. Her son screamed for her help as he was carried off. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and remains in a residential treatment facility.
This week Erin Adams Goldman, a suicide prevention specialist with a mental health nonprofit organization in Tucson, is teaching the first local installment of a course that is being promoted around the country called mental health first aid, which instructs participants how to recognize and respond to the signs of mental illness.
A central tenet is that if a person has suspicions about mental illness it is better to open the conversation, either by approaching the individual directly, someone else who knows the person well or by asking for a professional evaluation.
“There is so much fear and mystery around mental illness that people are not even aware of how to recognize it and what to do about it,” Ms. Goldman said. “But we get a feeling when something is not right. And what we teach is to follow your gut and take some action.”
I found this article interesting… It reminded me of the book “Poisoned Love”.
 Poisoned Love I thought it was interesting that she was going to commit suicide with the pills and then impulsively used them to poison the man.
Stockton woman drugged boyfriend’s booze
Dec 14 2010 by Gareth Lightfoot, Evening Gazette
A VULNERABLE woman who spiked her older boyfriend’s drink with a potentially lethal dose of 16 sleeping tablets has been spared prison.
Lyndsey Cook poisoned her partner’s beer with 800g of amitriptylene, which is used as a sleeping tablet, at a mutual friend’s Stockton home after a day’s heavy drinking.
She later admitted slipping him the pills wanting to sever contact with him as he was “doing her head in”, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Anthony Dunne said her boyfriend Phillip Ross, 34, collapsed shortly after drinking a very fizzy can of lager on March 6.
Cook called the ambulance and Mr Ross was treated in hospital on the assumption of an opiate overdose.
The truth emerged the next day as 20-year-old Cook confessed to her church support worker then to police as she handed herself in.
Cook, of Grange Road, Stockton, said she stole the drugs from her gran to take them herself, but impulsively put them into Mr Ross’s drink.
With no previous convictions, she admitted a charge of administering poison or a noxious substance “with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy”.
A forensic scientist said the dose was “of severe toxicity”, leaving amounts of the drug in Mr Ross’s bloodstream two days later.
A lower amount had been known to kill, the court was told yesterday.
Graham Brown, defending, said Cook was vulnerable, disadvantaged, severely emotionally damaged and of low intelligence with a borderline personality disorder.
He said it was an unplanned, “spur-of-the-moment act of stupidity” when she was depressed and thinking of using the tablets to kill herself.
He talked of a background of an “abusive relationship” with Mr Ross “from a time and an age when such a relationship was not appropriate”.
Now Cook had the support of people who had given her a controlled environment and her life had moved on.
Judge George Moorhouse said the crime justified an eight-month custodial sentence, but suspended it for two years with supervision.
He told Cook: “I accept that this was not a premeditated offence and I accept that you stole these pills from your grandma with the intention of taking your own life.
“You’ve had at times a horrible life through no fault of your own,” he added, expressing the hope that she could get her life back to normal with support.
Read More http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2010/12/14/woman-drugged-boyfriend-s-booze-84229-27822538/#ixzz18Ib1n2I1
When I saw this article come through the Google news alerts I thought: “Oh no, an article that’s going to say ‘she did it for attention’ because she has BPD and they are attention-seeking.” I was mightily surprised when I read the article and realized that here’s someone that actually knows what she’s talking about.
Why would Bethany Storro douse herself in acid? Experts try to explain
When news broke Thursday that a Vancouver woman admitted dousing herself with powerful acid, causing severe facial burns, one question reverberated:
Why would anyone do such a thing?
Friday, a leading researcher in the field of self-harm discounted theories that Bethany Storro, 28, was crying for attention, trying to manipulate others or attempting suicide.
“The biggest reason people do this,” said Kim L. Gratz, “is because it makes them feel better in the moment … It can really distract people from all the emotional pain that they’re feeling.”
Gratz, director of personality disorders research at University of Mississippi, is co-author of books on self-harm and borderline personality disorder. Before she was contacted by The Oregonian, Gratz hadn’t heard about Storro, 28, who told police an assailant threw acid in her face near Vancouver’sEsther Short Park on Aug. 30. Storro described the attack in detail, sending police searching for an African American woman in her 20s or 30s. A couple days later, before a crowd of reporters at Legacy Emanuel’s Oregon Burn Center, Storro said, “I have no enemies … I don’t get it.”
No one is sure how many people mutilate themselves each year; those who do typically hide it.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the number of emergency room visits for self-inflicted injury at 594,000 in 2006, the most recent data available. But the vast majority of people who intentionally hurt themselves don’t seek treatment, Gratz said, either because they don’t need medical attention or because they’ve become good at treating themselves.
“Our best estimate in adult populations,” she said, “is probably 4 percent … with much higher rates among adolescents and young adults.” Large-scale studies of college students around the world put rates of self-harm at 17 percent to 40 percent, she said. Incidence among females and males appears comparable.
The most common form of self-harm, or self-mutilation, as it’s also called, is by cutting; those who engage in the behavior frequently slice their arms, then wear long sleeves to hide the injuries.
Dr. Thomas Dodson said such patients describe a state in which they don’t feel any emotions. “They cut on themselves,” he said, “because they can’t tolerate a state of not feeling anything. It becomes habitual and relieves tension that they have.”
Dodson, a Southwest Portland psychiatrist, chairs the public information and education committee for the Oregon Psychiatric Association.
Beyond cutting, the list of self-harm behaviors is as long as it is gruesome, from burning to sticking the skin with needles, punching one’s self to banging the head or another body part repeatedly against hard surfaces. Use of acid, apparently, is rare.
The most typical diagnosis among self-harmers is borderline personality disorder, Gratz said. But the behavior also is associated with eating disorders, substance-use disorders, depression and anxiety.
If Storro has a diagnosed illness, it has not been publicly disclosed.
Self-harm is not a suicide try. Yet those who mutilate themselves are fragile, Gratz said, and are at higher risk of suicide than the general population.
Gratz has no idea what might have triggered Storro to hurt herself, but life transitions, always increase stress, she said. Storro recently divorced and moved from Idaho to Vancouver to live with her parents. She had just started a new job at Safeway.
The best treatment for self-harm, Gratz said, was developed by University of Washington’s Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology professor. Called dialectical behavior therapy, it involves a year of intensive psychotherapy, plus weekly group sessions in which patients learn to regulate emotions, tolerate distress, be more mindful of and negotiate relationships better. DBT, for short, includes telephone coaching, so therapists can help patients whenever a problem arises, and a consultation team offering peer support for the therapists themselves.
The method is the treatment of choice for borderline personality disorder.
At Portland Dialectical Behavior Therapy Program on Southwest Macadam Avenue, Tracy Jendritza, a psychologist on staff, estimated that half the clinic’s patients have engaged in self harm.
“People get so dysregulated emotionally that there’s something about self harm that actually calms people down,” Jendritza said. “Initially they feel better but in the long term it makes things worse.”
Self harm, Gratz said, frequently goes hand in hand with shame and feeling alone. She figures that Storro has landed in that deep well.
“My guess is that she’s experiencing incredible shame” since police learned the truth about the attack. “It’s so public … I’m sure she’s in a much more intense state of distress” than she was before applying the acid that burned the skin off her beautiful face.
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