People commit murder for many reasons, whether it is out of anger, love, jealousy, pure rage, etc. , but why is it that we never speak of those who just seem more inclined to the extreme emotion, or lack of, that can lead to murder? In fact, “Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U. S. —10 million, or 4. 2%—experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. (Mental Health by the Numbers)
Based on the statistics, a decent chunk of Americans are burdened with a serious mental illness (S. M. I. ), but not all of those who are impacted take the next step to get help. S. M. I. is an important topic and a crucial discussion to have, but in American society, reactions are very mixed in response to those being diagnosed with an S. M. I. which can range anywhere from happy that someone got the help they needed to disgust or shaming someone for simply having a S. M. I.
Those who mock the individuals who are diagnosed tend to not understand the consequences of their actions for they can push from the diagnosed individual to feel outrage for the mockery, shame in oneself, the feeling of needing the conform to “typical normalcy”, or a combination of the feelings. What would be considered as “typical normalcy”? This can range anywhere from avoiding certain activities in which the S. M. I. is obvious or debilitating to halt taking medication.
When someone stops taking their prescribed medication that is used to treat their mental illness, warning signs and red flags should begin to go up. Medication is not meant to be taken whenever one feels like it but as it is prescribed, whether the doctor says once a day or thrice a day. After all, the doctor gave the medicine for a reason. “On November 20, 2010, 48-year-old Thomas Scimone, was armed with a shotgun and threatened to kill firefighters was shot by police as he ran from his burning home. He was in critical condition following the incident.
A relative said she believed Scimone was not taking his medication for bipolar disorder. ” (300 Mental Illness Tragedies in NYS) “Studies in male prisoners convicted of homicide reported higher rates of schizophrenia (10. 9– 12. 6%) and, partly, major depression and bipolar disorder (20. 6%)” (Schanda et. Al, 2004) There are many more cases similar to Scimone’s in which the seriously mentally ill stop taking their medication and commit crime, specifically referring to homicide. Another great example of the mentally ill and murder would have to the Andrea Yates case.
Andrea Yates was a very devoted Christian mother to five children in Houston, TX. She suffered from postpartum depression, which worsened after each child, and developed into postpartum psychosis. “She felt convinced she was a terrible mother, deserving of punishment. ‘I think the Devil’s in me,’ she confided to her brother. Fearing that her children “weren’t developing correctly,” she started to have thoughts about killing them to save their mortal souls: ‘They were not righteous,’ she felt, and would surely burn in hell if she did not terminate their still young, innocent lives. (Diamond, 2008)
The mother’s filicidal thoughts were brought to life in 2001, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Were her acts truly committed under those circumstances? She believed that her children would go to hell if she didn’t do something, aka drown them, to stop it, and she did this because God had commanded her to. “Depending upon the nature of the psychotic distortion, this mental defense argument is strengthened.
For example, if the defendant believed the command was coming from God, or, due to her delusion she falsely believed that she had to act violently to defend herself from being killed, the argument is strengthened that she did not know what she was doing was wrong. ”(Felthous, 2008) “Individuals with severe mental illness have also been recently recognized as a high-risk group, because of both their mental impairment (e. g. poor reality testing, judgment, social skills, planning, and problem solving) and the social context of their lives (e. . poverty, unemployment, homelessness, lack of meaningful activities, and social isolation) (26, 27)” (Maniglio 2009) People take a healthy mind for granted, but not everyone is lucky enough to be free of mental illness. Each illness comes with their own symptoms, possibly making it harder to the ill to cope, calm down/feel their emotion, and so on.
In fact, just knowing that the individual has a mental illness can cause someone to feel shame or act out, possibly to draw attention away from his/her S. M. I. and towards the actions that were committed. “In a review of the forensic examinations carried out on 693 offenders, from a total of 994 offenders initially examined, Eronen et al. (1996a) found that 6. 4% were diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizophrenic type psychoses…. These figures are compatible with a retrospective study by Petursson and Gudjonsson (1981) of all homicides in Iceland between 1900 and 1979, which estimated that 15% of all homicides were committed by people with schizophrenia. (Patterson et. Al, 2004)
Maria Papanastassiou, Gerard Waldron, John Boyle, and Laurence P. Chesterman did a study to see the connection between post-traumatic stress syndrome, otherwise referred to as PTSD, and murder. The four gathered 29 participants, but only 19 of the 29 actually participated. “In the sample, 63% (12/19) suffered from schizophrenia, 11% (2/19) each had a delusional disorder, major depressive disorder and a schizoaffective disorder, while 5% (1/19) suffered from a psychotic disorder [NOS].
Eighty-five percent (17/19) were on antipsychotic medication and 58% (11/19) on antidepressant medication at the time of the interview. ” (Papanastassiou et. Al, 2004) Based on all the research found, mental illness can impact lives like one never thought was possible. S. M. I. can trick us into believing something that is false or not occurring, leaving some people blind as to the difference between illusion and reality. Sadly, this confusion has cost people their lives, those who were killed and those who suffered consequences of his or her own faulty reasoning.
