This case does make a person wonder what medication[s] Roeder was taking for his mental illness.

On www.SSRIstories.com there is a case of a man on Prozac who set an abortion clinic in Virginia on fire.

Here is the story [in part].

http://www.ssristories.com/show.php?item=1170

Paragraph 4 reads: "Mitchell, 38, has told authorities he suffers from mental illness and takes the antidepressant medicine Prozac. He has been under a suicide watch in jail. "
__________________________________________________Abortion clinic fire suspect to undergo psychiatric exam
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press Writer
509 words
21 February 1997
23:13
Associated Press Newswires
English

ALEXANDRIA (AP) - A man with a history of mental problems who confessed to setting an abortion clinic afire will have an extensive psychiatric examination before the federal arson case against him goes any further.

Tiller was one of the heros of the prochoice movement, and also a long popular target for the violence of anti abortion folks. His killing was a political assination of sorts. To say the guy that killed him is using mental illness as an excuse is an insult to Tiller.

Still, perhaps the man was pushed to violence by a society that marginalizes people with extreme beliefs like that belief that abortion should be illegal. While I don't agree with this opinion, people have a right to it and I assume psychiatry would attempt to invalidate and treat that opinion or belief a mental disease with humiliating invasive psychotherapy and drugs that cause violence and paranoia. Sad story indeed. If he sought any sort of mental health treatment, that's probably what pushed him over the edge.

Mentally ill or lone deranged gunman? There's really little difference because the results are the same. Both sides in the public debate on abortion can step back, say this man was not like them, show moral outrage and defer responsiblity to some one else.

It is an insult to the mentally ill to say that this man committed this murder because he was 'mentally ill'. We know, as was posted here, that even those diagnosed with so-called schizophrenia were no more likely to be violent than the general population unless, of course, they had been taking illegal drugs.

I imagine that this murderer's med was what caused him to become so violent. I also believe that his medication was either an antidepressant which has listed as a known side-effect in the PDR "hostility" "psychosis" "mania" "paranoia", etc. or it was an atypical antipsychotic which is half antidepressant.

I believe it was in Ghent, Belgium, 150 years ago that the townspeople decided they didn't want their 'mentally ill' to be placed in asylums and then allowed them to live and work like everyone else in the town. The mentally ill were given lots of social support and many recovered. There was no more violence in this town, according to the history books, then anywhere else.

I think it is not just omega 3's, exercise, CBT, etc. that 'mentally ill' people need. I think they need lots of social support too.

It was in Clifford Beer's book "A Mind That Found Itself" written over 100 years ago where he said that his recovery in the asylum took place because he found a friend.

This is what all people need - friends & relationships, not antidepressants.

Perhaps we could have some articles on this site from people who recovered through methods other than antidepressants or atypical antipsychotics. Just a thought.

Right.

It MUST have been the medications! Why? Because there are many cases where ordinary people have been transformed into murderers when using them.

Sure, maybe if he was on medications, then that could have been a factor. But if we're going to be listing other contributing factors, then why not include his belief in an immortal soul? I mean, he was part of a virulently anti-abortion Christian group, and likely thought that his precious immortal soul was doomed to perdition if he did not stop Dr. Tiller from performing abortions. It was the soul!

No, it has to be the medications. I mean, what group of people commits acts of terrorism on the basis of believing that their immortal souls depend upon murdering people, but don't take psychotropic medications? Nope. That never happens.

And this is not to say that medications could not possibly have played a role. They might have. I just find it interesting that whenever there is any spectacular and violent incident, the default explanation here is the medications, when the cases are almost always complex and multifactorial, making it impossible to know what was the definitive cause.

His wife was on Anderson Cooper last night- and he mentioned the shooter was "schizophrenic' his ex wife, kept, saying, 'No,No, He was bipolar".

Strange. Apparently she divorced him because he turned "bipolar".

Or at least that is what she told Mr. Cooper.

dguller, I agree it's a mistake to assume that medications were the cause. It's a parallel mistake to the Treatment Advocacy Center's assumption that mental illness is the cause (if they haven't done so yet, rest assured that they will).

Jesus Rosie. The man's history is all over the web, google much? He's a classic unhinged vengeful (bitter)paranoid. I call Axis II for starters.

I guess some people didn't understand that I was speaking, as they say, "tongue-in-cheek".

A little boy asked his dad, "Where did I come from?" His dad replied with the whole story of the birds and bees. The little boy replied, "Oh, Billy told me he came from Detroit".

I mean we are talking here about a man who murdered a man who murdered 60,000 viable infants. Get real!

And there you have the rhetoric that goaded, encouraged and invited Roeder to enact Dr. Tiller's day of judgment.

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine,
et lux perpétua lúceat eis.
Requiéscant in pace. Amen.