Baffling Suicides
I know people don’t like it much when I write about suicide, and I admit to a morbid fascination with the topic, perhaps because of my own problems with ideation. But I recently read about a group suicide that’s so puzzling, I can’t stop thinking about it. The case is closed now because there are no answers. From the L.A. Times:
Some time in early May, the exact date unknown, Margo and Grace, both 21; Fransuhi Kesisoglu, 72; and Manas, 58, committed suicide with Vicodin, sleeping pills and antidepressants, they said. Only Margrit did not have drugs in her system. As Manas lay unconscious from the overdose, she shot him in the chest. Then she put the gun into her mouth and fired.
That’s a mother, father, grandmother and two twin daughters. No, they weren’t part of a cult; they weren’t religious at all, in fact. Nor was there significant economic trouble the whole family was subject to, nor was anyone sick. It makes no sense. For other family members who struggle to understand, there are no answers:
“There’s just nothing there,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Det. Dan Salcedo, who has been trying to decipher the case since late May. “I’d like to find something, have something, some possible reason to give the family some closure.
“If there were any problems,” he said, “they certainly kept it to themselves.”
There was, however, one odd detail: the twin girls.
Margo and Grace were inseparable. Through elementary, middle and high school they dressed identically — in dark-colored turtlenecks with long sleeves and dark pants. Fellow students at Bernice Ayer Middle School said they were quiet, polite, sweet, smart — and strange. The girls told acquaintances they would be together for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes Manas would join them at school for lunch. In the afternoon, he often arrived 20 minutes before classes let out and waited to pick them up, students recalled.
When they were psych interns at a hospital for pre-med rotations, now in college, they still dressed identically, which I don’t think is the norm for adult twins.
Dr. Kai MacDonald compared them to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the indistinguishable characters in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
“It’s funny that certain people are so conjoined,” MacDonald said. “I guess I would consider them as something of a unit.”
But strange behavior — and not that strange, even — doesn’t explain why a whole family would decide to commit suicide. I’ve read every article I can find, and nothing else jumps out at me. And why do I care so much? I don’t know. It’s just that knowing the agony of the suicidal impulse, I can’t imagine what these five people were going through. The “house of horrors” model doesn’t apply to a home with corpses, but to a home with five people all thinking about wanting to die.
liz | 11:42 AM | suicide
Oh Shit! Is This a Cute Fix or Just a Hallucination?
Thanks to Terry for sending me this very disturbing image of a baby lemur clinging to a teddy bear/stuffed monkey animal. I am taking more Seroquel STAT.
liz | 1:49 PM | Uncategorized
Rabbi Waskow: Who Hardened Pharoah’s Heart?
You don’t have to ponder too long to understand the metaphor here. This morning I heard on the BBC that since the ceasefire, aid groups have been stymied in their efforts to get into Gaza. They’ve been getting the runaround from the Israeli officials. It made me wonder what the good rabbi had to say.
Heard through 21st-century ears, the Plagues that beset ancient Egypt in the Torah’s story of liberation from Pharaoh are ecological disasters. (Exod . 7:13 to 11:10).
The rivers become undrinkable, locusts consume the crops, a climate disaster of unprecedented hailstorms assails the country, mad cow disease descends upon the herds, a sandstorm of impenetrable darkness – a darkness you could actually feel, not only see – holds prisoner the land and its inhabitants.
All brought on by Pharaoh’s stubbornness, his arrogance, his dependence and insistence on horse-chariot armies to subdue other peoples abroad and slave-driving overseers to subdue workers and ethnic minorities at home.
So go the major outlines of the story. But within these stark, boldly inscribed black-letter texts is hidden a more subtle chiaroscuro of the psychology of power. Why did Pharaoh act in such self-destructive ways? (Remember, “Pharaoh’s army got drownded, deep in the Red Red Sea.”)
When Moses first invokes Divine power — showing Pharaoh that he can turn a stick into a snake — Pharaoh is dismayed, but after his court experts perform the same trick, he “strengthens” his own heart and moves forward on his imperial course. When Moses raises the ante and has his stick swallow the sticks of the Egyptian, again Pharaoh is taken aback, but strengthens his own heart and refuses to let the Israelites make a festival for themselves.
And then what we call the “plagues” begin. Moses strikes the Nile, the life-blood of Egypt, with his stick — and now no mere magic trick follows but a major eco-catastrophe: a “red tide” ironically drowns the Nile into what tastes and smells like blood. The source of Egypt’s life becomes undrinkable, and all its fish die. This time Pharaoh is frightened — but when his own magicians show they too can pollute the streams, he strengthens his heart against the poor – and God.
Then come the frogs, and Pharaoh surrenders for a moment; but when the frogs vanish, he toughens his heart. Again, when swarms of mosquitoes infest the land, he wavers but toughens his heart again. Mad cow disease strikes the herds, but Pharaoh toughens his heart.
Boils erupt on the bodies of Egyptians – and now for the first time in response to any of the plagues, YHWH — the Breath of Life Itself – strengthens Pharaoh’s heart.
When hailstorms far worse than had ever afflicted Egypt shatter crops, Pharaoh strengthens his own heart.
Then Moses warns Pharaoh of a plague of locusts that will eat away not only the present crops but their seed for the future, and the will of Pharaoh’s courtiers finally breaks. “Do you not see that you are destroying Egypt?” they cry out to Pharaoh. But once again the Breath of Life toughens Pharaoh’s heart, and he overrules even his own advisers, so bent is he on reasserting his own power.
There comes a darkness so thick it could be felt – perhaps a three-day sandstorm – but once again, though Pharaoh trembles, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Only the deaths of all of Egypt’s firstborns push him over the edge into ordering the Israelites to leave – notice that he orders them, rater than permits them — and even then, when he awakens in the morning to see his land devastated and his economy torn to shreds, he cannot bear his humiliation, his powerlessness. He orders his army to reenslave the departing Israelites. He and the Army end up drowned in the Sea of Reeds.
We might well ask, Why does God intervene to harden, toughen, stiffen Pharaoh’s heart? At those late moments in the story, what has happened to “free will”?
We might similarly ask, “What has happened to the free will of a heroin addict?” The first shooting-up, the fifth, even the tenth, may be acts of free will. But at some point, Reality (call It “God” if you like) takes over. The body has so deeply responded to these acts of free will that it loses its freedom.
And this is what happens to Pharaoh. He chooses hard-heartedness so often that he loses his ability to choose. He — the most powerful man in the world — has lost his freedom in order to deny freedom to those he has enslaved. The most powerful army, the most brutal police cannot save him: indeed, they destroy him.
There is a teaching, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Torah teaches, “Absolute power addicts absolutely — and self-destructs absolutely.” And this is a warning to all leaders and peoples, not a mere historical chronicle but an archetypal tale of what happens when top-down, unchecked power becomes not an instrument for change in the service of life but an addiction. Who today are the institutional pharaohs that are bringing plagues – ecological disasters — upon the earth, and serfdom – economic disasters – on the people?
liz | 10:39 AM | politics
Dead-On Praise for Philip Dawdy
This is exactly — exactly — why Phillip is so important and so valued by those of us in the blogosphere. I’m so glad David Dobbs wrote this piece for his blog, Neuron Culture:
However, unique and critical contributions came also from another front — the blogger Philip Dawdy, who at Furious Seasons has reported and written extensively on Lilly’s illegal marketing of this powerful antipsychotic. Dawdy, an independent one-man op working with low pay, no benefits, and minimal infrastructure, is an emblematic pajama journalist. A former journalist (he got laid off), he’s open about his interest rising from his experience as someone formerly treated for bipolar disorder with antipsychotic medication. (He’s off now, and seems to manage pretty well.) Though he’s often accused of being antipsychiatry, he’s not. He just feels, like many both outside and inside psychiatrty, that conflicts of interest within the field and hypermarketing on pharma’s part have harmed both patients and the discipline. He works hard to practice an impassioned but disciplined type of journalism.
Dawdy has pressed the Zyprexa story hard since early 2006 — it’s possible no one has read or written more about it — adding, synthesizing, and commenting on tons of information, and he pulled the sheets off in February 2007 by publishing, at what would seem to be frightening legal risk, the full set of court documents relating to Lilly’s Zyprexa marketing. Presumably these are the same documents that were sent to the Times a couple months earlier, but which were not easily obtainable publicly until Dawdy posted them.
How do you compare the contributions here? You can’t get the scale to hold still. Yet it’s clear that the combination of the Times expose and Dawdy’s reporting and outing of the documents created a dual pressure that was crucial to the growing attention the case received, and ultimately to Lilly’s extraordinary admission last week of criminal activity.
The Infinite Mind
In another case, Dawdy led the way, drawing attention to conflicts of interest in the radio show “Infinite Mind” with a story on April 14, 2008. That story inspired a May 6 Slate piece that in turn helped inspire a Nov 22 story Times piece. Shortly after the Times’ story ran, the show — a long-running, popular program — ceased production.
Again, how to weigh the contributions? Dawdy broke the story — but no change came till the Times ran its story 7 months later. Again we see how MSM and PJM can complement each other. Again we see how crucial the Times’ sources and clout were — sources in the Zyprexa case, clout in both, but the clout was especially crucial in the Infinite Mind case.
It’s hardly a comfortable collaboration. The very symbiosis creates a mutual unease. As Dawdy has noticed, the Times has never cited him in its Zyprexa, Infinite Mind, or any other coverage. He seems to be held outside “the sphere of legitimate debate,” as Jay Rosen frames such exclusion in a HuffPo piece about how the MSM excludes certain people and ideas from discourse. There’s something in what Dawdy does and represents — his attempt to mix openly declared passion and dismay with disciplined reporting — that makes the MSM uncomfortable. it’s the same stuff that makes him so invaluable.
Dobbs is pointing to two cases that Dawdy owns, unequivocally. But there are others that he continues to work on — atypicals, bipolar in kids, etc. — that are likely to be ignored, again, by the MSM. It’s outrageous. And I’m to blame too. I probably link to the Times more often than I link to Furious Seasons, though I couldn’t say why. I don’t consciously have any agenda, but I think I just gravitate toward the MSM like everyone else. Hype breeds hype. I’m complicit in the problem.
Zyprexa, Infinite Mind, and mainstream vs. pajama press
[Thanks to Susan for bringing this to my attention.]
liz | 3:35 PM | Uncategorized
Go, Peer Counseling!
I’m a Certified Peer Specialist, so I feel I can say that it’s quite important for people with mental illnesses or psychological strife or whatever yadda yadda to get help from People Like Us, or PLUs (that’s my new favorite acronym). A study in the British Medical Journal seems to confirm this.
Click here for full text of article in the journal or if you’d rather get a summary, click here for an L.A. Times piece.
liz | 2:43 PM | Uncategorized
Mission Accomplished — This Time, for Real
Congratulations, Barack — or I guess I should call you “Mr. President.” Now if you can just NOT get a blowjob from someone under the Oval Office desk, you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of our last Democratic prez.
[Post updated thanks to a perceptive commenter who noticed I'd implied Clinton gave a blowjob. Only metaphorically, unfortunately. Just think what the comedians would've done with that one.]
liz | 12:34 PM | Uncategorized
I’ve Done Something Possibly Suicidal
I’ve started a new blog called “If He Does Nothing Else… . What’s wrong with me? I guess I don’t have enough work to do. Here’s how I’m explaining it:
This is a blog that’s going to chronicle what Barack Obama does right. I started it because I know, though it’s only January 19th as I write this, that he’ll disappoint people and disillusion them and make them cry salty tears of regret and rage. The idea for it came when he got elected. I thought, “If he does nothing else, he’s finally broken the color barrier for the presidency of the United States.”
And then, amid murmurs of pre-disappointment disappointment, during the Holder confirmation hearings, I thought, “If he does nothing else, he nominated a man who said publicly that waterboarding is torture.”
And I realized: Someone needs to say this every day because people are going to be crapping all over him. So every day I’m going to say one good thing that Barack Obama is doing to remind us why we voted for him and not John McCain, and why it’s better to have Democrats in power than Republicans.
I hope you join me. I’m guessing tomorrow he’ll upset people by hugging Rick Warren or something, so let’s focus on the positive. It’s a blog of hope. Hope, godammn it!
I’m hoping it’ll turn into something more — a commentary on national politics, which I follow with great delight and disgust simultaneously. I suspect in the weeklong hormonal siege before my period (OMG! TMI!), I won’t be blogging there as often, but it should be fun.
liz | 11:25 AM | Uncategorized
Oh My God, I Am Going Link-Mad!
I’ve incorporated virtually all the links you’ve suggested on my blogroll. Keep them coming!
An aside: NPR has Susan Lori Parks doing a spoken-word poem right now for Obama and it is, quite possibly, the most embarrassing thing I’ve heard in a long time. I feel obliged to like it, but it’s crap.
liz | 4:46 PM | Uncategorized
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Okay, I’ll just say it ’cause I’m feeling it: Pretty exciting that we’re inagaurating our first African-American prez tomorrow, right? On Wednesday we can start feeling disillusioned, but today I’m going to feel happy.
On the mental health tip, in the spirit of injustice, Joe sent me the following:
Under the heading of “Beyond Belief.” Having grossly violated the trust of consumers, GA’s DHR is being permitted to monitor the operation of its state hospitals under the terms of a DOJ settlement, “The Department of Human Resources —- the agency that operates the seven state hospitals —- will monitor its own compliance with a settlement agreement reached last week with the U.S. Justice Department. The agreement calls for the state to correct deficiencies that caused hundreds of injuries and illnesses and dozens of deaths among psychiatric patients, spending as much money as is necessary.”
DHR to monitor itself in mental hospital settlement
liz | 11:59 AM | hospitals / hospitalization
I’d Love to Know What You Think of This
A new dark comedy about Dissociative Identity Disorder.
liz | 3:18 PM | D.I.D.
