Must-See Spikol TV
Sugar gliders originally come from Australia, and thus fit nicely into our international theme. Of course, these particular sugar gliders come from my living room, so that’s not very exotic. Though our decor does feature lots of wicker.
Notice how Vince keeps poking Buster to wake him up for food. He hates the light, though. Also, Mela gives Champ a good smack at the end. She’s fierce.
liz | 1:32 PM | Uncategorized
The Land Down Under, where you can shoot a guy in front of his kids in his own house
From the Austrailian:
Two policemen who took part in the shooting of a mentally ill Victorian man will not have to give evidence at an inquest into his death following a court decision that has upset the man’s widow.
Lee “Wally” Kennedy, 40, was shot in his Shepparton home, in Victoria’s north, on April 19 last year, several weeks after doctors told him to reduce his medication for bipolar disorder. Senior constables Erin Levay and Simon Watts were directly involved in the shooting, and were the only adult witnesses to it, but their lawyer, Martin Grinberg, today argued they should not have to give evidence on the grounds it may incriminate them.
He said they risked exposing themselves to charges such as criminally negligent manslaughter and breaching a duty of care owed to the victim and his two sons, then aged four and two, who witnessed the shooting.
Mr Kennedy’s widow Melissa Kennedy told the inquest she was dismayed by the order and feared she would never know what happened. “It would bring a lot of closure and explain a lot of things that happened in the room,” she said.
The inquest was told Mr Kennedy was grieving for a brother who had recently killed himself and also suspected his wife of having an affair, which she was. Mr Kennedy was diagnosed by his GP, Dr Alan Wallace, as having bipolar disorder and depression, and was taking medication for both.
But in the weeks before the shooting Dr Wallace told Mr Kennedy to reduce his medication upon advice he had sought from mental health specialists at Goulburn Valley Health. One psychiatrist there advised that Mr Kennedy did not have any mental illness and his medication should be stopped completely, the inquest heard.
Ms Kennedy said her husband was upset by the advice but that he generally followed doctors’ orders.
Ms Kennedy ran a massage business from home and on the day of the shooting her husband called police complaining that a client was refusing to leave the house, which Mrs Kennedy said was untrue.She said she was with a client when they heard yelling, so she went inside to tell her husband and children to be quiet. She said she heard a shot like a cap-gun. “When I walked into the kitchen and around the corner I saw two police officers,” she said. “One was a lady and she had one of my kids.”
Ms Kennedy said she grabbed her other child and ran back to her client then called her older son, who was crying, and later left the house on police orders. The inquest continues.
Is that not bizarre? More Australian news later today.
liz | 12:04 PM | Uncategorized
And now, competing for the title of Shortest International News Item Ever…
From YoungPeopleNow:
Mental Health: Services told they fail Black people
Campaigners are calling for youth mental health services to address race discrimination.
Black Mental Health UK and Black Majority Churches in Britain say child and adolescent mental health services have failed Black young people.
They want a reform of the 1983 Mental Health Act.
Matilda MacAttram, founder of Black Mental Health UK, said: “Every Child Matters is failing if it is excluding the concerns of Black young people in mental health services.”
The words “Every Child Matters” give me the same oogly feeling as “No Child Left Behind.” Ick.
liz | 12:29 PM | Uncategorized
Um, Tuesday’s not so international
For the rest of the day, I promise to give you international reports. But because of the anniversary of Katrina, studies are being released that detail the mental health of the hurricane’s survivors—with conflicting results.
The Associated Press details a report from Harvard University of the results of a study funded by the National Mental Health Association. While it’d be unfair to describe the outcome as rosy, it certainly puts a relatively positive spin on things. (And yes, I realize studies aren’t supposed to have spin, but the presentation of results often do.)
The AP reports that the study’s key findings are:
There was a 30% rate of suspected mental illness—double the usual—after the storm. People were predictably troubled by what they lived through and lost in the disaster. Yet only 1% of these troubled survivors either thought about or planned for suicide. Before Katrina, 8% of mentally ill people from the same region had such thoughts and 4% made plans to carry out suicide.
Researchers believe this is a result of the power of positive thinking on the part of survivors. From the AP:
More than 95% of all survivors professed more faith in their ability to rebuild their lives when necessary, and 70% felt more inner strength. These beliefs seemed to fend off suicide, because only the mentally ill people holding them showed the lower suicide risk.
The study makes a strong case for this protective effect, says psychiatrist Matthew Friedman, who directs the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“A lot of things happen in a traumatic event,” said Friedman, who read an advance report of the findings. “You can have a ramping up of your psychological stress or symptoms — but at the same time it can be a positive event in a life-changing way.”
Yay. The survey was conducted in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi and included 1,043 adults. Interestingly, Reuters gave the study a completely different spin, as published in the Washington Post under the headline “Mental Illness Up Among Katrina Survivors.”
Conversely, a new report conducted by the California International Medical Corps (which responds to disasters, though Katrina was the first domestic reponse) of 400 trailer-park residents is less encouraging, and indicates a mental healthcare crisis:
From Reuters:
50 percent of respondents met criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, more than seven times the U.S. national rate. Since displacement, reported suicides are 15 times the rate in the rest of Louisiana and suicide attempts are 79 times greater. 70 percent of adults who were not able to access medical care cited financial difficulties as their main reason. 56 percent of study participants did not have any form of health insurance.
Hmm. That doesn’t sound so good. Nor does Time magazine’s article “The Storm Lingers on: Katrina’s Psychological Toll,” whose subhed is: “Depression, suicide, drinking and domestic abuse are up in New Orleans, which is ill-equipped to offer much counseling help, and the hurricane’s one-year anniversary only makes it worse.”
liz | 10:26 AM | Uncategorized
Tuesday’s International: Shortest news item ever
From Ocean fm in Donegal, Ireland:
Mental illness problem greatest in rural areas
Certain rural parts of Donegal have higher levels of people suffering from mental illness than the larger urban centres according to a local councillor. Fine Gael Clr. Terence Slowey said the entire issue of mental health has been the “Cinderella” area of the health service which suffers from a lack of investment.
He said that up to 10% of the population encounter psychiatric problems with 75% of people taking part in a recent survey knowing somebody who suffers from a mental health problem.
liz | 10:28 AM | Uncategorized
To cheer you up
I think we all need some happy posts. And we’re in luck: I took a ton of photos at Barcelona’s zoo. I like this one because of the lemur’s tongue. It’s subtle, but achingly cute once you spot it.
For more of my photos (she says immodestly), go here.
liz | 4:24 PM | Uncategorized
Katrina’s mental-health victims
Given all the anniversary memorials to commemorate Katrina, it’s crucial that we pay attention to the mental health crisis that is the legacy of the storm. From Forbes.com:
Anecdotal reports indicate the city’s suicide rate has tripled, depression is widespread, and federal agencies estimate that 500,000 people are in need of mental-health care.
“All that is really directly related to the slow pace of recovery,” said Dr. Janet Johnson, an associate professor of psychiatry at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. “People are still struggling with insurance and living in trailers and under very, very stressful conditions. We’ve really got a crisis going on.”
“People are having problems with depression and anxiety, and a fair number are also having PTSD,” added Dr. Richard Weisler, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The depression and anxiety can be quite profound, so that a lot of people appear to be reaching levels of major depression.”
The article, which is excellent, is about New Orleans, but it’s important to remember that there are survivors in other cities and states as well. I heard a BBC report today about a coastal town in Mississippi that was completely destroyed—and a year later, still looks pretty much as it did just days after the storm. People there are disheartened and depressed too, and mental healthcare efforts need to be broad-based.
liz | 2:22 PM | Uncategorized
Speaking of parents…
A Connecticut mother, Judith Scruggs, was charged in 2003 of contributing to her son Daniel’s suicide after she filed a suit against her son’s school because they didn’t protect him from bullying, which she claimed was the reason the 12-year-old (pictured) hung himself with a necktie in his closet. Judith was then put on probation for allegedly having a home environment that was damaging to the child’s mental health.
This week, however, the conviction was overturned by the Connecticut Supreme Court, which seems like the right move to me, though I’m no lawyer. The horror of losing your child to suicide would be gruesome enough; to be held legally responsible for it would be unbearable, I’m guessing.
On the other hand, the first article below, from PreventSuicideNow.com makes the argument that Scruggs was, in fact, partly to blame for her son’s death. It’s an interesting dilemma, but I worry. Once you open the door to blaming survivors for their loved one’s suicides, it’s that old proverbial slippery slope.
Judith Scruggs Receives Probation for Contributing to 12-Year-Old Son’s Suicide
Conviction in son’s suicide overturned
liz | 1:24 PM | Uncategorized
Christina Eilman
I just read another article in the Chicago Tribune about West Hollywood’s Christina Ellman (pictured), the 21-year-old bipolar girl who was thrown from a seventh-floor unit in the Robert Taylor Homes after being sexually assaulted there. She’d come to the housing project in a profound state of disorientation, having been released from a nearby jail just hours before into one of the highest-crime neighborhoods in Chicago. She’d never been there before.
Having nowhere to go, and without any friends and a dead cell phone, she wandered into a store and asked for a bottle of water to take a pill with. People who encountered her said she was barely coherent—a seemingly drunk white woman stumbling through a black neighborood in tight shorts with a blond ponytail. She was bound to be noticed.
She would never have been there at all if it weren’t for the fact that Chicago police arrested her the day before at Midway Airport. She was trying to get on a flight home, but she was off her meds, and too out of control to know what to do. Her father wanted her to be held somehow until family could come get her, but she was thrown into a jail cell rather than a hospital.
She protested, knowing even in her manic state that she needed help. Her pleas to the guards to take her to a hospital were ignored, and even mocked. The police fielded phone calls from her parents, who told them repeatedly she had bipolar disorder and was without her meds. Still, she was kept in a cell without medical attention, violating every rule of dealing with a mentally ill person. Then she was released, and was later found on the ground in her underwear.
liz | 10:23 PM | Uncategorized
Supergirl (um, woman)
I got a new computer today, and the funnest thing about it so far is that I was able to render this comic-book image of me. My whole life, I’ve wanted nothing more than to be in a comic, as I am a true comix nerd. Now technology has made it possible. Paging Alan Moore …
liz | 5:02 PM | Uncategorized
