Ok--this is a subject that fascinates me: where does violence come from? From what I've learned, violence is a learned reaction to stress that people use when they've been exposed to a lot of violence. So if a person who grew up around violence developped a mental illness, he or she would liekly become a violent mentally ill person. But in the absense of that environmental component, I don't believe that mental illness would make a person violent. I'm not an expert--this is just anecdotal observation. As dawdy knows, meds have horrific side effects in some people---and I have heard of people becoming violent against others and themselves because of a bad reaction to medication. But how? I mean this is fascinating. How exactly in the brain can an individual unleash an extreme violent behavoir who never has before, simply because of new chemicals in his or her system? It's probably more often the case that the person was violent or had been exposed to a lot of violence before the bad reaction to the meds. Or maybe our culture is sufficently violent enough to cultivate learned violent resposnes. Whta frustrates me most, what we don't talk about enough as a culture, in my opinion, is the toxic sickening effects of violence. That violence makes people faithless, angry, anxious, depressed, vigilent and detached; that violence disrupts the capacity to love and trust and learn; that violence is more significant as a cause of mental illness than a symptom thereof. Again--I'm no expert, I'm no expert, I'm no expert. Just some thoughts....

Philip~

Thank you for calling Treatment Advocacy Center and The Washington Post to task for emotional manipulation and intellectual laziness...

Gandhi taught:

"The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles"

What plagues America is not the homeless mentally ill.

Cheers,
Moira

I would stop blaming mental illness and start blaming Hezbollah and all those terrorist orginizations that began this lovely little game of slaughtering innocent people.

By the way, I haven't been trying to be mean lately. I'm just on a new medication that's making me way too emotional and shitty feeling. No one take offence to anything I say. And I'll try to shut up more while I'm at it.

Hi. Moira. Love the Gandhi quote. It's one in the morning in Edinburgh and my biological clock thinks it's 7 pm in New Jersey. Bad news for the sleep cycle. But the weather here is BEAUTIFUL. Who needs sleep, right?

Bad meds is what Im thinking, per my daughter's recent and out of character violence on medications.
Prior to that, she was an Animal Planet watcher, and a volunteer. What I saw when she was on certain meds, was a really sick person, who was extremely violent. I believe it was the wrong meds.
All of the psych meds have aggression and agitation as side effects.
The only thing I came across that could explain her being violent towards me, was that I was being too over protective. I tossed that paper out with the guilt.
It's a mystery to me as well.

I would like to respond to what Lizzie posted. At one point after being fired, I was on about 8 medications including 800mg's of Seroquel. That is a crazy amount. As far as seeing violence goes, I was a cop for almost 10 years, most of it in a very violent area. Not once did I hit, slap or act out on the job or in my personal life.

We can ask the why forever but like domestic violence, and other forms of violent behavior, the experts like to drone on about this "circle of violence."

In my experience, violence tends to be about control. If you look the last few mass shootings in Seattle(the one on Capital Hill and the current shooting) both shooter's though targeting different subsets they found threatening for whatever reason and both shooter's took control the only way they knew how.

Five per cent of violent crimes attributed to severely mentally ill patients
01 August 2006
Am J Psychiatry 2006; 163: 1397–1403

"People with severe mental illnesses are responsible for just one in 20 violent crimes, reveal findings published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

In their study of violent crimes over a 13-year period, Seena Fazel (University of Oxford, UK) and Martin Grann (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden) found that 45 violent crimes were committed per 1000 inhabitants, of which 2.4 were attributable to patients with severe mental illness.

This corresponded to a population-attributable risk fraction of these patients to violent crime of 5.2%.

Seena Fazel said that this figure is likely to be lower than most people would imagine.

"Many see those with serious psychiatric disorders as significantly contributing to the amount of violent crime in society," she noted.

The researchers linked data for 98,082 individuals discharged from hospital with diagnoses of schizophrenia and other psychoses to the crime register. The attributable risk was calculated by gender, across three age bands (15–24, 25–39 years, and 40 years and older), and offense type.

Violent offending in women was more attributable to mental illness than in men across the three age bands, at 14.0% in women aged between 25 and 39 years, and 19.0% in those aged over 40 years. Overall, the risk attributed to mental illness was lowest in those aged 15 to 34 years, at 2.3% for male patients and 2.9% for female patients.

The highest risk of violent crime among people with severe mental illness was found for homicide and attempted homicide, and arson, at 18.2% and 15.7%, respectively.

"Because these are higher-profile crimes, this would partly explain the impression given by the media of the high rates of violence in psychiatric patients," the researchers comment.

"However, focusing solely on such crimes would not give a complete picture of the public health burden of violence because the base rates are so low, accountable for only 0.6% of the violent crimes in Sweden in the case of homicide and attempted homicide."

The researchers conclude that their findings "should generate a more informed debate on the contribution of persons with severe mental illness to societal violence."

TAC is picking this study apart on their blog with their usual twist.

Regarding medications and the agitation, agression, hositility that can be a side effect (in Depakote and Zyprexa literature for example).
If the shooter was on medication, and we single medicated and bipolar out of the horrid crime this man comitted(meaning he had a plan, and there are many parts to this), if we focus on WHAT medications he was on, this is a topic well worth looking into, IE(suicidal ideation on SSRI's).

Six years my daughter was on Depakote and Zyprexa, and had a constant state of agitation, and just never had a super good day on those meds. Removal of them escalated her into full blown aggression, though she did not own a gun or have access to one. She was aggressive other ways.

Just to finalize my thought and make my point:

She is on a new combo of medication after trialing 13+ in the last year.
This new combination of medications are new to her per since 1999.
This is a quote from her this last week:
"I love these new meds, I don't have meltdowns anymore and I feel so CALM."
This coming from a med-compliant 18 year old who took meds since she was 11 years old. I agree, is so calm, I am meeting an entirely new person, making her "return" from her year long psychotic break even more wonderful.

She said :"I feel like I have been given a whole new life."

This all on a new medication combination.

If the media and public want to blame bipolar on this man's seemingly rational and planned out murder plot, then they must also look at the medication he was taking.

"We don't want to violate individual civil rights for the mentally ill, but instead we allow his or her illness to progress to the point where real harm is done that cannot be reversed."-That is a quote from a letter to editor in the Seattle Times.

If this is what the general public believes within days of such a tragedy, it is clear, that the person who wrote the letter had a preconceived idea regarding mental illness. I fail to see an interview with the person, the shooter himself, telling us, why he did this, and what medication he was taking or not taking.
The fact that the general public thinks that this is beyond our civil rights, just violated my rights.

I have been judged, and my trial not a fair one, due to the stigma produced by media, whether it is in print, on television, internet, or within a letter to an editor by a citizen.

I have the right to choose to deny chemo, or any other chemical that would save my life: but, due to mental illness, I get walked on with a discriminatory ideation that I may harm someone due to being medication compliant.Therefore the public wants me, a potentially dangerous person to be on medication they know nothing about.

The ignorant population regarding mental health, does not understand that medication itself can create tragedies, and that medication itself can make a person who was never violent or suicidal, both of those things.

America has an enormous rug, in which we have been placed underneath, to suffocate and be stripped of our civil liberties all in the name of unjustified discrimination, that should not be tolerated by mental health consumers.

To quote a wonderful person that I had the pleasure of seeing outside of a psychiatric hospital in my own community shopping today:

"I know you from somewhere", he said.

"Yes, I am from West Seattle, art class." I said, while standing in Target.

He walked around the display case and we held hands, and I told him I was so happy he was there. He was so relieved to be out of the hospital, and he was equally excited to know my daughter was out also.

He said this profound statement:

"We are so much more than chemicals.

We need so much more than what they do to us in hospitals, the shots, the medication."

I agreed with him. He said he is not on any medication. He never looked better. We were shopping together, outside of a hospital and he is unmedicated.

I felt pure joy at that moment, and it is one I will never forget. Never.

My post above quoted a Letter to the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003176087_sunlets06.html

scroll down to:

"The unchanged mind"