Mental Illness, Right & Wrong, Drugs, and Violence

The recent incident in the grounds of Washington Capitol, involving a young educated woman, Miriam Carey, brought shock to many people. It was another opportunity to blame a victim of mental illness and demand further restraint and medical attention for such individuals. “The initial portrait of Carey that emerged suggested a person unlikely to be found at the center of such violent drama,” says The Washington Post, “Carey, according to public documents, friends and family members, had finished college and established a work history as a dental hygienist.”¹

It is easy for a society, which does not want to take accountability for its shortcomings to hang on to scapegoats and blame a lack of medical treatment for the mentally ill. Yes, we certainly do suffer from a lack of appropriate and effective treatment for the sufferers of mental traumas. Yes, we are lacking dignified, caring, discerning and attentive treatment for those whose spirits are broken. But we certainly don’t suffer from a lack of medical treatment for such individuals. In fact, if anything, we suffer from overmedication, and hurtful treatments that may damage a person’s ability to make right and wrong decisions.

In the midst of all chaos and pain and suffering, it is easy to blame the sufferers and grasp for straws that cannot hold the weight of our challenge and adversary. The concept of abundant violence by those suffering from mental illness (particularly “schizophrenia”) due to the lack of medical treatment has been touted in popular media. There is no scientific evidence to show that the lack of medical treatment has facilitated these awful events. In fact, if anything, most recent episodes of violence were committed by people who were on some kind of psychiatric drugs on and off. In regard to Carey’s case, CNN reported that authorities “found medications in her apartment to treat schizophrenia and other mental disorders.”²

The prominent psychiatrist, Peter Breggin, has reported in his research that psychiatric drugs are the culprit behind the violence by those who suffer from “mental illness.”  In Medication Madness, he discusses, “The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide,and Crime.” The investigative journalist, Robert Whitaker, has effectively argued for the unforeseen changes in the brain of those on psychiatric drugs.⁴ The neuroscience and psychiatric literature is filled with the evidence of change in the human brain as a result of psychiatric drug consumption.⁵

It is valid to question whether a person whose brain structure has been altered by the use of these drugs loses his insight and his judgment of right and wrong. I suggest that it is that loss of insight that may lead to foolish and harmful acts completely foreign to the person’ s native character and values. The scientific studies clearly show a sense of dysphoria on the part of those on antipsychotic drugs. Kapur explains that though the condemning voices and delusions may persist for years after the person has been put on medication, it has been repeatedly reported by patients that these elements don’t “bother” them “as much anymore.” Referring to pivotal studies in the 1950s, Kapur explains that “antipsychotics induce ‘a forgetfulness of motive’ . . .  this core finding has been replicated in hundreds of different paradigms over half a century and remains the single fundamental property shared by all effective antipsychotics.”⁶

Contrary to Psychiatry’s assertion that the mentally ill have no “insight” due to their illness — a justification for compulsory treatments — I suggest, it is their true insight about right and wrong that brings them to rage against the evil voices they hear. After being medicated for a while, and after having experienced structural alterations in their brain, they are not as bothered by the voices they hear, possibly because they have lost their true insight and a judgment of right and wrong. Possibly, because their brain is numbed out, and they’re no longer bothered by the voices, they quietly follow the commands given to them, and their seemingly controlled “delusions” give us a false sense of security. Yes, I know there are people who are helped by these drugs and are functional members of the society. But I am not talking about those few fortunate ones! I am referring to the majority of sufferers who have lost their true identity and personhood through overmedication and coercive treatments.

This is my first post on this blog, so I am unknown to most readers of this blog. Here I am not speaking as a PhD researcher who has dedicated her life to understanding the human side of mental illness, but as a mother of an adult child who was diagnosed with “schizophrenia” at the peak of her life, after graduating from one of the best universities in this country. This is not the time and space to give her story or even my story of a care-giver who has witnessed the ups and downs of her struggle. My daughter Helia was treated with a variety of psychiatric medications for the first 5 years of her illness. She suffered from severe persecutory voices and finally was led into catatonia, which went on for about 2-3 years. Unfortunately, none of her drugs helped her to control her demons.

It was finally after years of struggle that she stopped taking her medications. She has been without medication for about 7-8 years now (the dates are blurry in my mind). I have cared for her all this time and I have witnessed her struggles and brave fight to overcome the evil that has overtaken her. She finally came out of her catatonic state to everyone’s surprise, but her challenges continued and by all western standards she is quite dysfunctional today; but she is alive and she is participating in life. In fact, the voices continue to command her to do things that are quite strange and incomprehensible.

But in the midst of chaos, I see her setting boundaries for her voices. Many times I have heard her in rage telling them that: “I refuse to do this…You cannot make me do this one thing!” I don’t know what “this one thing” is. But I am assured by her sense of control over the limit that she allows the voices to go. Deep inside her, her sense of right and wrong controls her choices, because her brain is not so confused by overmedication and alterations that would put her at the mercy of the commands coming to her. She is absolutely harmless, and more innocent than many, who instead of respecting the dignity of the human spirit, by stigmatizing the sufferers of mental illness, epitomize proclivity of humanity to harm one of her own.