Actually, back when asylums were a bigger thing, it wasn't uncommon for men-fathers and husbands-to have the "troublesome" or "disobedient" women in their lives committed for things like dating someone the dad didn't like, or getting pregnant out of wedlock, or even wanting to have a job. Incest victims were often committed more to shut them up and render them "crazy" in the public eye to discredit them than to help them.
In other words, it has never been a great thing for women.
SSRIs have been shown to do very little for mild to moderate depression. They make some people aggressive; this has been described in detail by heretic psychiatrist David Healy, but used to be talked about more openly a few decades ago.
According to Matt Walsh, these drugs have been implicated in every mass shooting (and I suspect many family killings by irate husbands also). Of course we never hear about this, at most we might hear that the killer was “depressed”. Given the penetration of the market with antidepressants, it’s not unreasonable to assume that most people diagnosed with depression are on these meds and thus most depressed mass killers also.
In some people, they can cause severe, even permanent emotional numbing and “anhedonia” (inability to enjoy anything) but also, in my experience looking after people with depression, can reduce empathy for others. On top or instead of this, they can cause severe agitation. Some people find being numb extremely distressing and this distress in itself can manifest as aggression towards self or others.
Nobody really knows exactly what they do to the brain but UK Dr Joanna Moncrief (another heretic psychiatrist) has shown that rather than healing a chemical imbalance (which has always been a myth, and just a marketing slogan) antidepressants actually create a chemical imbalance in the brain.
They’re very hard to come off for many people. Withdrawal should be attempted only with supervision. People are at particular risk of erratic behaviour when withdrawing from, starting, changing doses or changing type of antidepressant.
The anti-anxiety drug she was on (Buspirone) isn’t one I’m familiar with but I suspect it wouldn’t have helped much as these type of drugs can disinhibit people, just like alcohol, and someone like Audrey definitely didn’t need to become disinhibited in relation to her impulses.
What could Audrey’s clinicians have done instead? It sounds like psychotherapy didn’t help, assuming that’s what she got in the hospital, but who knows if that was true therapy or just “change your thinking” style psychoeducation.
Individual “depth” psychotherapy aimed at figuring out what was actually happening for her, how she’d gotten to this point and how she could build a better life, could have made a huge difference if started early enough.
A change of scene like a year working on a farm with other troubled young people may also have made a difference, but would anyone want her around animals?
Anti-psychotic drugs may have slowed her down and reduced her motivation to act on her feelings but on the other hand they can also cause paradoxical agitation (akathisia) that can make people behave very unpredictability. That kind of treatment, if it worked as expected, would be more about behaviour control than addressing the problem, but it might have been worth a try, if started under hospital supervision to ensure it worked, and to keep everyone in her life who was on her hit list safe.
The question remains: was she mad or bad? No medication or treatment can change a person’s evil intent if it’s born of malice, rather than being a symptom of a treatable mental or physical condition.
I agree with you, Karen. People with homicidal impulses need humane asylum care. Society shouldn’t be put at risk because psychiatry is singularly ineffective at treating homicidal ideation. We must bring back asylums; they just need to be smaller and much better run than the old “Cuckoo’s Nest” model. The original asylums run by the Quakers were excellent in this regard and had great outcomes, but were eventually taken over by the medical profession with dire results (this is well-described in Robert Whittaker’s excellent book “Mad In America”.
It’s a sad fact that some people need to be sequestered from society and it sounds like Audrey was one of them. Instead of this, she encountered a paranoid, grandiose ideology (the trans madness) that made her feel entitled to her rage and eventually, her murderous rampage. If she was on testosterone, this would of course have fueled her destructive hatred exponentially.
Just looked up Buspirone more thoroughly and indeed it does increase serotonin (as Karen suggested), so would have amplified the adverse effects of the Lexapro--not a good thing in the case of someone with aggressive impulses like Audrey Hale.
The way these docs mess around with multiple, potent, mind-altering drugs without proper consideration of the synergistic effects of them is truly alarming. I'm not blaming the docs necessarily--most of them are decent, well-meaning people but they're educated about drugs by the drug companies, so what else can we expect? And most of them (psychiatrists) gave up providing psychotherapy decades ago, when the "drugs, drugs and more drugs" model took over to a very large degree. Even the ones that want to provide talking therapy find the system (if they work in a hospital) basically precludes such expenditures of time. Which is of course all good news for the drug companies.
Never forget the anti-psychotics that caused all sorts of dystonic disorders in patients that they refused to take into consideration years later. They will not acknowledge the harms they do
WTF? Karen, the psychos who run those places are at least as mentally ill as anyone their industry claims exist. The more these f-ckers have proliferated, the crazier society has become. My sister has been a political prisoner in California for twenty years now, last November. I will never call 9-1-1 again for anyone after what’s been done to her. They’re psycho f-cking parasites that refuse to take any responsibility for their incompetence and the harm they cause. Why should they, when they can just go on billing the taxpayers indefinitely for a piss poor job, and sadistic treatments? They con the public into thinking they’re actually helping others, when they’re just helping their goddamned selves. If there ever was a case of failing upward, psychiatry is an entire industry that has done so.
Insomnia is a relatively common side-effect of taking too high a dose of SSRIs (and even some SNRIs)such as Lexapro. It does sound as if Hale was suffering from what are known as the extrapyramidal side-effects of these drugs. This can quickly escalate to a medical emergency known colloquially as Serotonin Syndrome.
Serotonin Syndrome is extremely unpleasant. Once upon a time, I had a doctor put me on a few of these drugs concurrently in the hope that it would control some pain that I had been suffering from for some time. It didn't work on said pain and I ended up in Accident and Emergency with Serotonin Syndrome. I wouldn't personally touch any of those drugs with a barge pole now.
Serotonin syndrome is awful, but thankfully is becoming more rare the longer it has become common for people to be on psych meds. It's on more providers' radar now, which helps prevent medication errors like the one you experienced. Serotonin syndrome from antidepressants alone (assuming the patient is taking the prescribed dose, as opposed to taking too much) is thankfully quite rare, though it does happen occasionally. Typically such cases are more mild, as it sounds like you experienced (that's not to say it's not uncomfortable-but severe cases require intensive care and can lead to death).
However, extra-pyramidal symptoms (at least as we refer to them in the US, and given your reference to A&E I'm assuming you're in another country) do not occur from SSRIs alone. That description refers to what happens to a significant percentage of people taking antipsychotics and other meds acting on the dopamine system, and typically includes either severe stiffness and Parkinson's-like symptoms, and/or to the repetitive involuntary movements, often of the mouth and tongue, known as tardive dyskinesia. These movements are typically quite distinctive and would likely be noticed by anyone who is around the patient for any length of time. Sadly, they can persist even after the meds are stopped, sometimes permanently. More sadly, they can be off-putting to people who aren't familiar with what they are and lead to social isolation and ostracization, which doesn't help anyone get better!
The doctor concerned deliberately prescribed me a SNRI and an SSRI concurrently, and was also aware that I was also on an antiemetic that probably exacerbated the adverse side-effects from the other two drugs.
I had to stay in accident and emergency for 12 hours as the hospital I was taken to didn't have any beds spare. IDK though, perhaps starting to develop lockjaw can be classified as "mild"? 🤷🏼♀️
I didn't mean to diminish your suffering in any way. No matter the severity, the symptoms of serotonin syndrome are awful to experience, frightening, and can progress quickly without treatment (which requires immediately stopping all serotonergic meds as a first step). In the vast majority of cases, the meds you described can in fact be safely used in the same patient WITH responsible prescribing-meaning, "start low and go slow" with doses and add one med at a time-and close monitoring. Ideally, patients would also be advised of the initial symptoms of serotonin syndrome before the second (or more) med is started. It sounds like that didn't happen in your case, and I'm sorry.
With all that said, to be blunt, if you were conscious, breathing without a ventilator, not seizing repeatedly, and still alive, then yes, what you've described is on the mild end of the spectrum of symptoms of this condition. Perhaps because you noticed the symptoms and sought help for them early, and because you were apparently taken seriously at the ED and someone flagged the meds you were on as a cause. Those are all good things. Again, serotonin syndrome is a really serious condition. Always. I wasn't trying to insult you. However, again, given the possible outcomes of the condition, yours was indeed a milder case medically speaking. Doesn't mean it's okay, or that it was no big deal. Just that it could have been much, much worse.
I was prescribed a substantial PRN dose of a benzodiazapine the afternoon that the symptoms came to a head, which I think helped to mitigate against having seizures, etc.
I had already once had the very unpleasant experience of having a seizure due to a build up of neurotoxic metabolites from yet another relatively obscure form of post-surgical pain relief, so I take your point. Had I not recognised those sensations, I would probably have failed to recognise the significance of the side-effects of the particular SSRI/SNRI cocktail I had been started on until the situation was much worse. I'm most grateful that it was on the milder end of the spectrum.
I don’t understand what you mean by covering bases, but did I calculate correctly, that she was six when these ghouls got a hold of her? I was examined once by an internist for the Social Security Administration for the purpose of being evaluated for disability. While taking my (natal) family history, he said, “Stay away from psychiatrists.” A little while later he reiterated, “In my opinion, stay the HELL away from psychiatrists. Only one in a hundred are worth their salt.” They damn well are morally liable for her behavior. How could they not be?
It's sad to hear about the mental issues these people have, after a school shooting. It's at the point now, if they talk about shooting others, they should be committed in-house. Why can't we catch any of these people before they commit a crime,?
It would be great, but it's not that simple. You'd probably be pretty shocked at the sheer numbers of people who talk about violence in a psych setting. Most never do it. Some do. And we're not good at all at figuring out which is which, until afterwards, when it all looks so simple in hindsight. In most states, in order to involuntarily hospitalize or medicate someone at all, the threat must be imminent and specific, and the patient must be judged to have the ability and resources to carry it out.
The other issue, though, is that even if someone is felt to be enough of a risk to admit against their will, state laws make it quite difficult to hold people long enough for any significant recovery. Along with that, after they are discharged, it is quite difficult to ensure follow-up AND ensure the threat remains low.
Not to mention, the "treatment"available in inpatient settings in the US generally consist of...meds. period. No actual therapy (after all, when lengths of stay average 2-5 days, what kind of therapy can be accomplished?) or anything else. People are treated in dehumanizing ways that can make them more violent and agitated-and more likely to avoid treatment like the plague-in the long term. In fact, inpatient stays often end up actually increasing suicide risk shortly after discharge, and i wouldn't be at all surprised if this was true of homicide risk as well.
Changing this would require significant investment of financial and other resources that thus far has been elusive. I mean, we haven't even managed to get all states to expand Medicaid to even ensure people like this have insurance at all. The current trend nationwide is for hospitals to close or reduce size of their inpatient psych units, because they are almost universal money-losers, and more and more hospitals are becoming all about profit. Those that aren't really struggle to survive. Psych patients are more likely than other inpatients to be uninsured or on public insurance, so fixing this would require state and federal legislators to substantially increase medical spending in order to raise compensation enough to allow inpatient units to at least break even
Adequate, effective inpatient hospitalization, with effective outpatient follow-up, would require much more money and political will, and many more good therapists and other mental health workers. It will also require significant changes to state laws, which will almost certainly then face years or decades of legal challenges.
Not to mention, even our very minimal involuntary treatment laws now can be and are abused or applied to the wrong cases. This causes real harm to the patients wrongly held essentially prisoner. Not to mention, given that inpatient care is so ineffective, even if patients are held for good reason, the stay STILL is at least as likely to harm as help.
Improving care is an important goal. But we have a long way to do, and in the meantime, even the best providers have very limited options with which to help.
A good resource for information on this issue is the Treatment Advocacy Center.
I think letting mentally ill persons wander around soiling themselves garnering disdain from all of society is cruel. Housing them in facilities were they can be treated is helpful and probably more fruitful than throwing tons money at homeless crisis only to let them wander off and soil themselves because it’s cruel to house them. Just thinking out loud here. Little off topic I know., but was reacting to asylum issue.
You're right. Unfortunately, the issue becomes much thornier when you realize that 1) involuntary treatment is often far less effective than voluntary treatment and 2) much mental health treatment in our current system, and especially nearly all inpatient care, is ineffective at best and often harmful. For example, one of the biggest risk factors for completed suicide is recent discharge from psych admission. Of course, psych patients are at higher risk anyway. But one would hope inpatient treatment would reduce the risk, and instead it actually increases it in many patients. Before we start committing large numbers of people, we need to overhaul our system so it's actually helpful. And so far, we don't seem willing, as a country, to cough up the (significant) quantities of money needed to do this right.
Given how pill-happy American shrinks tend to be, I wonder how much of that time she was drugged. They put developing brains on drugs then wonder why the kid grows up confused as hell about who they are inside
First, I hope all the families who lost a family member sues Vanderbilt. This is awful. Second, the therapists/doctors should have notified law enforcement to put her on the mental list, so she couldn't purchase a firearm legally. Lastly, I believe the therapists/doctors never thought a woman would carry out a mass shooting, because girls don't do that! On top of that, I also believe the trans discussion was introduced, so them buried that to protect the "trans" patient, because we can't shine a light on mental illness and trans, that's bad! I do believe we need to overhaul the psychiatric community, they have become utterly useless the past several years and it isn't getting any better. I always believe asylums need to be brought back. As a society, we have a huge mental health crisis and drugs alone can't solve all evils.
Despite Tennessee being a deeply red state, our medical institutions are "all in" on the gender ideology. Matt Walsh (whether you like him or not), uploaded a video of some VUMC administrator telling a room full of doctors and surgeons that if they were not on board with "trans" surgeries, they could lose their jobs. People started flooding comments to the Vanderbilt Childrens' Gender Clinic, and then everthing disappeared. Even Matt is not talking about this issue anymore.
Asylums would be great if men couldn't claim to be women and be put in women's wards to rape, impregnate and beat them.
Actually, back when asylums were a bigger thing, it wasn't uncommon for men-fathers and husbands-to have the "troublesome" or "disobedient" women in their lives committed for things like dating someone the dad didn't like, or getting pregnant out of wedlock, or even wanting to have a job. Incest victims were often committed more to shut them up and render them "crazy" in the public eye to discredit them than to help them.
In other words, it has never been a great thing for women.
Isn't *that* the very definition of institutionalised insanity? 🙄
SSRIs have been shown to do very little for mild to moderate depression. They make some people aggressive; this has been described in detail by heretic psychiatrist David Healy, but used to be talked about more openly a few decades ago.
According to Matt Walsh, these drugs have been implicated in every mass shooting (and I suspect many family killings by irate husbands also). Of course we never hear about this, at most we might hear that the killer was “depressed”. Given the penetration of the market with antidepressants, it’s not unreasonable to assume that most people diagnosed with depression are on these meds and thus most depressed mass killers also.
In some people, they can cause severe, even permanent emotional numbing and “anhedonia” (inability to enjoy anything) but also, in my experience looking after people with depression, can reduce empathy for others. On top or instead of this, they can cause severe agitation. Some people find being numb extremely distressing and this distress in itself can manifest as aggression towards self or others.
Nobody really knows exactly what they do to the brain but UK Dr Joanna Moncrief (another heretic psychiatrist) has shown that rather than healing a chemical imbalance (which has always been a myth, and just a marketing slogan) antidepressants actually create a chemical imbalance in the brain.
They’re very hard to come off for many people. Withdrawal should be attempted only with supervision. People are at particular risk of erratic behaviour when withdrawing from, starting, changing doses or changing type of antidepressant.
The anti-anxiety drug she was on (Buspirone) isn’t one I’m familiar with but I suspect it wouldn’t have helped much as these type of drugs can disinhibit people, just like alcohol, and someone like Audrey definitely didn’t need to become disinhibited in relation to her impulses.
What could Audrey’s clinicians have done instead? It sounds like psychotherapy didn’t help, assuming that’s what she got in the hospital, but who knows if that was true therapy or just “change your thinking” style psychoeducation.
Individual “depth” psychotherapy aimed at figuring out what was actually happening for her, how she’d gotten to this point and how she could build a better life, could have made a huge difference if started early enough.
A change of scene like a year working on a farm with other troubled young people may also have made a difference, but would anyone want her around animals?
Anti-psychotic drugs may have slowed her down and reduced her motivation to act on her feelings but on the other hand they can also cause paradoxical agitation (akathisia) that can make people behave very unpredictability. That kind of treatment, if it worked as expected, would be more about behaviour control than addressing the problem, but it might have been worth a try, if started under hospital supervision to ensure it worked, and to keep everyone in her life who was on her hit list safe.
The question remains: was she mad or bad? No medication or treatment can change a person’s evil intent if it’s born of malice, rather than being a symptom of a treatable mental or physical condition.
I agree with you, Karen. People with homicidal impulses need humane asylum care. Society shouldn’t be put at risk because psychiatry is singularly ineffective at treating homicidal ideation. We must bring back asylums; they just need to be smaller and much better run than the old “Cuckoo’s Nest” model. The original asylums run by the Quakers were excellent in this regard and had great outcomes, but were eventually taken over by the medical profession with dire results (this is well-described in Robert Whittaker’s excellent book “Mad In America”.
It’s a sad fact that some people need to be sequestered from society and it sounds like Audrey was one of them. Instead of this, she encountered a paranoid, grandiose ideology (the trans madness) that made her feel entitled to her rage and eventually, her murderous rampage. If she was on testosterone, this would of course have fueled her destructive hatred exponentially.
yep
Just looked up Buspirone more thoroughly and indeed it does increase serotonin (as Karen suggested), so would have amplified the adverse effects of the Lexapro--not a good thing in the case of someone with aggressive impulses like Audrey Hale.
The way these docs mess around with multiple, potent, mind-altering drugs without proper consideration of the synergistic effects of them is truly alarming. I'm not blaming the docs necessarily--most of them are decent, well-meaning people but they're educated about drugs by the drug companies, so what else can we expect? And most of them (psychiatrists) gave up providing psychotherapy decades ago, when the "drugs, drugs and more drugs" model took over to a very large degree. Even the ones that want to provide talking therapy find the system (if they work in a hospital) basically precludes such expenditures of time. Which is of course all good news for the drug companies.
yes
Never forget the anti-psychotics that caused all sorts of dystonic disorders in patients that they refused to take into consideration years later. They will not acknowledge the harms they do
WTF? Karen, the psychos who run those places are at least as mentally ill as anyone their industry claims exist. The more these f-ckers have proliferated, the crazier society has become. My sister has been a political prisoner in California for twenty years now, last November. I will never call 9-1-1 again for anyone after what’s been done to her. They’re psycho f-cking parasites that refuse to take any responsibility for their incompetence and the harm they cause. Why should they, when they can just go on billing the taxpayers indefinitely for a piss poor job, and sadistic treatments? They con the public into thinking they’re actually helping others, when they’re just helping their goddamned selves. If there ever was a case of failing upward, psychiatry is an entire industry that has done so.
yes
Insomnia is a relatively common side-effect of taking too high a dose of SSRIs (and even some SNRIs)such as Lexapro. It does sound as if Hale was suffering from what are known as the extrapyramidal side-effects of these drugs. This can quickly escalate to a medical emergency known colloquially as Serotonin Syndrome.
Serotonin Syndrome is extremely unpleasant. Once upon a time, I had a doctor put me on a few of these drugs concurrently in the hope that it would control some pain that I had been suffering from for some time. It didn't work on said pain and I ended up in Accident and Emergency with Serotonin Syndrome. I wouldn't personally touch any of those drugs with a barge pole now.
Serotonin syndrome is awful, but thankfully is becoming more rare the longer it has become common for people to be on psych meds. It's on more providers' radar now, which helps prevent medication errors like the one you experienced. Serotonin syndrome from antidepressants alone (assuming the patient is taking the prescribed dose, as opposed to taking too much) is thankfully quite rare, though it does happen occasionally. Typically such cases are more mild, as it sounds like you experienced (that's not to say it's not uncomfortable-but severe cases require intensive care and can lead to death).
However, extra-pyramidal symptoms (at least as we refer to them in the US, and given your reference to A&E I'm assuming you're in another country) do not occur from SSRIs alone. That description refers to what happens to a significant percentage of people taking antipsychotics and other meds acting on the dopamine system, and typically includes either severe stiffness and Parkinson's-like symptoms, and/or to the repetitive involuntary movements, often of the mouth and tongue, known as tardive dyskinesia. These movements are typically quite distinctive and would likely be noticed by anyone who is around the patient for any length of time. Sadly, they can persist even after the meds are stopped, sometimes permanently. More sadly, they can be off-putting to people who aren't familiar with what they are and lead to social isolation and ostracization, which doesn't help anyone get better!
The doctor concerned deliberately prescribed me a SNRI and an SSRI concurrently, and was also aware that I was also on an antiemetic that probably exacerbated the adverse side-effects from the other two drugs.
I had to stay in accident and emergency for 12 hours as the hospital I was taken to didn't have any beds spare. IDK though, perhaps starting to develop lockjaw can be classified as "mild"? 🤷🏼♀️
Who's to say?
I didn't mean to diminish your suffering in any way. No matter the severity, the symptoms of serotonin syndrome are awful to experience, frightening, and can progress quickly without treatment (which requires immediately stopping all serotonergic meds as a first step). In the vast majority of cases, the meds you described can in fact be safely used in the same patient WITH responsible prescribing-meaning, "start low and go slow" with doses and add one med at a time-and close monitoring. Ideally, patients would also be advised of the initial symptoms of serotonin syndrome before the second (or more) med is started. It sounds like that didn't happen in your case, and I'm sorry.
With all that said, to be blunt, if you were conscious, breathing without a ventilator, not seizing repeatedly, and still alive, then yes, what you've described is on the mild end of the spectrum of symptoms of this condition. Perhaps because you noticed the symptoms and sought help for them early, and because you were apparently taken seriously at the ED and someone flagged the meds you were on as a cause. Those are all good things. Again, serotonin syndrome is a really serious condition. Always. I wasn't trying to insult you. However, again, given the possible outcomes of the condition, yours was indeed a milder case medically speaking. Doesn't mean it's okay, or that it was no big deal. Just that it could have been much, much worse.
Fair enough. I apologise for having been snarky.
I was prescribed a substantial PRN dose of a benzodiazapine the afternoon that the symptoms came to a head, which I think helped to mitigate against having seizures, etc.
I had already once had the very unpleasant experience of having a seizure due to a build up of neurotoxic metabolites from yet another relatively obscure form of post-surgical pain relief, so I take your point. Had I not recognised those sensations, I would probably have failed to recognise the significance of the side-effects of the particular SSRI/SNRI cocktail I had been started on until the situation was much worse. I'm most grateful that it was on the milder end of the spectrum.
I always hark back to the insane Ronald Reagan at times like these
🍍🥇🏆
Covering the bases, I see 😀
I don’t understand what you mean by covering bases, but did I calculate correctly, that she was six when these ghouls got a hold of her? I was examined once by an internist for the Social Security Administration for the purpose of being evaluated for disability. While taking my (natal) family history, he said, “Stay away from psychiatrists.” A little while later he reiterated, “In my opinion, stay the HELL away from psychiatrists. Only one in a hundred are worth their salt.” They damn well are morally liable for her behavior. How could they not be?
It's sad to hear about the mental issues these people have, after a school shooting. It's at the point now, if they talk about shooting others, they should be committed in-house. Why can't we catch any of these people before they commit a crime,?
It would be great, but it's not that simple. You'd probably be pretty shocked at the sheer numbers of people who talk about violence in a psych setting. Most never do it. Some do. And we're not good at all at figuring out which is which, until afterwards, when it all looks so simple in hindsight. In most states, in order to involuntarily hospitalize or medicate someone at all, the threat must be imminent and specific, and the patient must be judged to have the ability and resources to carry it out.
The other issue, though, is that even if someone is felt to be enough of a risk to admit against their will, state laws make it quite difficult to hold people long enough for any significant recovery. Along with that, after they are discharged, it is quite difficult to ensure follow-up AND ensure the threat remains low.
Not to mention, the "treatment"available in inpatient settings in the US generally consist of...meds. period. No actual therapy (after all, when lengths of stay average 2-5 days, what kind of therapy can be accomplished?) or anything else. People are treated in dehumanizing ways that can make them more violent and agitated-and more likely to avoid treatment like the plague-in the long term. In fact, inpatient stays often end up actually increasing suicide risk shortly after discharge, and i wouldn't be at all surprised if this was true of homicide risk as well.
Changing this would require significant investment of financial and other resources that thus far has been elusive. I mean, we haven't even managed to get all states to expand Medicaid to even ensure people like this have insurance at all. The current trend nationwide is for hospitals to close or reduce size of their inpatient psych units, because they are almost universal money-losers, and more and more hospitals are becoming all about profit. Those that aren't really struggle to survive. Psych patients are more likely than other inpatients to be uninsured or on public insurance, so fixing this would require state and federal legislators to substantially increase medical spending in order to raise compensation enough to allow inpatient units to at least break even
Adequate, effective inpatient hospitalization, with effective outpatient follow-up, would require much more money and political will, and many more good therapists and other mental health workers. It will also require significant changes to state laws, which will almost certainly then face years or decades of legal challenges.
Not to mention, even our very minimal involuntary treatment laws now can be and are abused or applied to the wrong cases. This causes real harm to the patients wrongly held essentially prisoner. Not to mention, given that inpatient care is so ineffective, even if patients are held for good reason, the stay STILL is at least as likely to harm as help.
Improving care is an important goal. But we have a long way to do, and in the meantime, even the best providers have very limited options with which to help.
A good resource for information on this issue is the Treatment Advocacy Center.
I think letting mentally ill persons wander around soiling themselves garnering disdain from all of society is cruel. Housing them in facilities were they can be treated is helpful and probably more fruitful than throwing tons money at homeless crisis only to let them wander off and soil themselves because it’s cruel to house them. Just thinking out loud here. Little off topic I know., but was reacting to asylum issue.
You're right. Unfortunately, the issue becomes much thornier when you realize that 1) involuntary treatment is often far less effective than voluntary treatment and 2) much mental health treatment in our current system, and especially nearly all inpatient care, is ineffective at best and often harmful. For example, one of the biggest risk factors for completed suicide is recent discharge from psych admission. Of course, psych patients are at higher risk anyway. But one would hope inpatient treatment would reduce the risk, and instead it actually increases it in many patients. Before we start committing large numbers of people, we need to overhaul our system so it's actually helpful. And so far, we don't seem willing, as a country, to cough up the (significant) quantities of money needed to do this right.
Given how pill-happy American shrinks tend to be, I wonder how much of that time she was drugged. They put developing brains on drugs then wonder why the kid grows up confused as hell about who they are inside
AVH is auditory hallucinations ('hearing voices'), I think?
Usually it refers to auditory [hearing things] and visual [seeing things] hallucinations.
Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying 😃
Twenty two years,it doesn't sound like time well spent.
First, I hope all the families who lost a family member sues Vanderbilt. This is awful. Second, the therapists/doctors should have notified law enforcement to put her on the mental list, so she couldn't purchase a firearm legally. Lastly, I believe the therapists/doctors never thought a woman would carry out a mass shooting, because girls don't do that! On top of that, I also believe the trans discussion was introduced, so them buried that to protect the "trans" patient, because we can't shine a light on mental illness and trans, that's bad! I do believe we need to overhaul the psychiatric community, they have become utterly useless the past several years and it isn't getting any better. I always believe asylums need to be brought back. As a society, we have a huge mental health crisis and drugs alone can't solve all evils.
the so-called mental health field has totally been taken over by the pharm industry
Despite Tennessee being a deeply red state, our medical institutions are "all in" on the gender ideology. Matt Walsh (whether you like him or not), uploaded a video of some VUMC administrator telling a room full of doctors and surgeons that if they were not on board with "trans" surgeries, they could lose their jobs. People started flooding comments to the Vanderbilt Childrens' Gender Clinic, and then everthing disappeared. Even Matt is not talking about this issue anymore.