Strollerderby : mental illness

Sylvia Plath's Son Takes His Own Life: Is Suicide Hereditary?

Kate Tuttle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:01:00 GMT

News came this week (though it happened last week) of the suicide of Nicholas Hughes, son of famed poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. According to Frieda Hughes, the couple's surviving daughter, her brother, who was 47 and a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, had been battling depresion for some time. But although his suicide may not have come as a shock to those who knew him and his personal sadness, it reverberated with a sickening familiarity when heard by those familiar with his parents' lives -- and it raises questions pyschologists and researchers are still trying to answer, including the big one: is suicide a hereditary act?

Nicholas was just a baby when his mother Sylvia, despairing at the collapse of her marriage to future poet laurete Hughes, took her own life by means of gas oven while he and his sister slept in another room. She put towels under the door to insulate them from the fumes, and pinned her suicide note to the children's pram. Six years later, his stepmother, the woman for whom Hughes had left Plath, killed herself and her four-year-old daughter, using the same method Plath had. Nicholas Hughes didn't copy those earlier suicides -- he hanged himself -- but it's impossible not to wonder how much his actions were influenced by theirs.

Ted Hughes weathered years of accusations and recriminations for his role in the deaths of his wives, and for how he treated their work after they died. But by all accounts he was a loving and protective father, and it can't have been easy to raise a son left motherless so young, and so violently. He writes of how, after his mother's death, the baby's eyes:

Became wet jewels

The hardest substance of the purest pain

As I fed him in his high white chair.

Was it that "purest pain" that led, 46 years later, to another suicide? Or was it something genetic, a predisposition afflicting both mother and son, lying in wait? The science isn't entirely clear, although for some gentic mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, the suicide rate is approaching 20%. Some families have a vein of suicide running through them, and it can be hard to tease out which part is genetic and which part comes down as an emotional and historical birthright. But this much is certain: if you couple an inborn vulnerability with a life of such stunningly large losses as Hughes faced, his death is, sadly, not a surprise.

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Mother Sets Fire to Her Daughter's Gloating Rapist

Cole Gamble — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, was sentenced to thirteen years in Spanish jail for the rape-at-knifepoint of a thirteen year old girl. Nine years into his time, Soriano was given a three day pass to return to his home town of Benejúzar and who should he run into but his victim’s mother. Reportedly Soriano taunted the mother saying, "How's your daughter?" right before entering a crowded bar.

The victim’s mother followed him.

Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out.

According to a witness:

"She didn't acknowledge anyone but walked up to Soriano, who was drinking a coffee, put her hand on his shoulder and turned him round to face her.

"Then she pulled the bottle she was carrying from under her arm and began to tip it over him. At first I didn't realize what was happening, but then I smelt the petrol. I jumped up and tried to grab her, but when she struck a match I got clear.

"The petrol was in a pool around Soriano, and she threw the match into it. It ignited with a whoosh, and he screamed and staggered about covered in flames. As people rushed outside to escape the flames, she just looked at him, then turned and walked away."

Soriano suffered 60 percent burns on his body. 11 days later he was dead.

After her daughter’s attack all those years ago, it’s said the mother suffered from mental illness. When questioned by police about the encounter with the rapist, the woman claimed to recollect nothing of it.

She is currently incarcerated.

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Octo-Gramps Tells Oprah His Daughter is Kinda Crazy

Madeline Holler — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:28:00 GMT

Nadya Suleman's father went on Oprah yesterday to talk about the out-of-hand situation his daughter has put his once little family in. Harpo Productions has released a few choice tidbits from the taping -- the show will air next week.

Ed Doud, grandfather of Suleman's 14 children, told Oprah he thought his daughter's action and the actions of her doctor were "absolutely irresponsible."

But! He also had this to say when asked about his daughter's mental health:

"Now I'm no psychiatrist, but I question her mental situation."

Doud also made a plea for the public's help, saying he didn't want donations to stop.

"You know what? She needs help. I say to everybody now -- people -- we do need help," Doud said. "Do not punish my daughter for what she had done and do not punish the babies, because they were given by God."

A California non-profit has stepped up and said it will help. The catch is it would cost $135,000 -- um, per month! -- to provide 12 caretakers for round-the-clock assistance.

Get out your checkbooks!

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Photo: cdn.necn.com

Bipolar Disorder: A Family Secret

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:55:00 GMT

What would you do if your 10-year-old daughter said to you, “I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to feel anymore. Why aren’t you doing anything about this?” Or if your normally loving son threatened to slit you open with a knife? Naturally, you would want to do anything in your power to make your children better, but what if that meant giving your six-year-old lithium? Or sending your 10-year-old away to a therapeutic residential school?

In deference to the many parents who face these challenges day after day, I highly recommend Jennifer Egan’s piece on bipolar disorder in children. She traces several families’ struggles to cope with children who rage against the world from the time that they can talk, and offers a comprehensive portrait of the uncertainties surrounding bipolar diagnoses in kids.

Until relatively recently, it was believed that bipolar disorder only affected adults. Now nearly all leading child psychiatry experts agree that children can suffer from the disease—but they mostly all disagree about how to diagnose childhood bipolar disorder. Most experts believe that it is over-diagnosed, in part because managed care usually only pays for one brief psychiatric evaluation a year and because of the highly questionable yet widely popular book The Bipolar Child.

Diagnosing mental health problems in children is further complicated by the fact that many of the symptoms of bipolar disorder overlap with the symptoms of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). And mania is not as clear-cut in children as in it adults--it's often normal for children to act grandiose or have terrible temper tantrums.

James, one of the kids Egan writes about, was diagnosed with ADHD, OHD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), and bipolar disorder by the time he was eight. With so much uncertainty about the disease, even parents whose children have seemingly clear-cut episodes of mania—stealing strangers’ cell phones or wearing outlandish clothing—followed by clear episodes of depression remain uncertain about their children’s treatment.

Once a child is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he and she is prescribed strong medication with harsh side effects. Making the decision to give such drugs to kids is a huge weight of responsibility on a parent’s shoulder—and this decision requires trusting a doctor whose personal biases will inevitably influence her diagnosis and prescribed treatment.

At the very least, I hope that Egan's article will bring greater awareness to this issue. As one of the mothers interviewed said of her son's horrible temper tantrums, "It's like a dirty little secret. It's like having a husband who beats you, only it's a kid. It's your own."

Image: New York Times

Mentally Impaired Mom Loses Seventh Child To Foster Care

Amy S.F. Lutz — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:04:00 GMT

How did a story about a kidnapping evolve into a raging debate about state-sponsored sterilization in the Philadelphia media?

It started when two-month-old Shaniyah Grantby disappeared last Saturday. Her mother, Tiesha Pitts, 26, had let another woman take Shaniyah to the store, and that woman - later identified as Clarissa Hanton, 23 - never brought her back.

When Shaniyah was found Monday, it seemed like a happy ending. Until it came out that Tiesha entrusted her child to someone whose full name and address she didn't even know. And that she waited more than 24 hours to report the baby missing.

So the Department of Human Services placed Shaniyah in foster care temporarily while they investigate the family. But maybe DHS already knows enough: Shaniyah is Tiesha's seventh kid, and it turns out the other six are all in foster care.

Tiesha's mother, Ernestine Pitts-Rainey, said that Tiesha has "the mind of a 12-year-old," and suffers from emotional and developmental disorders.

This revelation enraged many Philadelphians who had been rooting for Shaniyah's safe return - an anger reflected in comments on local websites covering the story: "Why was this woman not stopped from procreating by her own parents . . . Norplant was a wonderful thing," wrote one reader.

A fair question. Shouldn't Tiesha's mother have put her on some kind of long-term birth control before she was 18, knowing what she knew about Tiesha's disabilities?

Another reader stated, "The state of PA does have the right to make this young woman be sterilized because she is mentally challenged." And although the thought of forced sterilization makes me queasy, I have to admit I can't think of a better solution in a case like this. Tiesha is only 26. If she continues to pop out babies at the current rate, she could easily have ten more children - kids whose safety might be comprised while under her care, and, should they be placed in foster homes, would face a terribly uncertain, difficult road. Never mind the strain on already stretched public resources.

Philadelphia Daily News photo

Mom Abandons Son At Airport

Amy S.F. Lutz — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:04:00 GMT

So, it was kind of funny when the Filipino family immigrating to Canada forgot their toddler in the airport. I mean, funny in a greatest-brain-cramps-in-history kind of a way. Funny in a thank-god-he's-fine-but-we'll-be-telling-this-story-at-his-wedding kind of a way.

But there's nothing funny about Jolanda Newberg, who deliberately abandoned her 12-year-old son, Brandon, during a layover at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Friday.

Imagine how that poor kid felt, walking out of the bathroom and waiting for his mom, who said she would meet him there, but never came back. I wonder how long he waited before he found airport security.

Police found Newberg Saturday morning, 20 hours after she disappeared. They have no idea where she went during that time, but she was picked up at the airport rental car center. She was taken to a hospital for evaluation - which, if you ask me, is a good call. Obviously, any mom who would put her child through that kind of trauma must be mentally ill.

AP Photo

When You're Afraid Of Your Own Kid

Amy S.F. Lutz — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:05:00 GMT

When they heard about the Columbine shootings in 1999, Elaine and Tom Sonnen had a very different reaction from most parents. Instead of shock, or grief, what they felt was recognition. The anger and alienation of the shooters reminded the Sonnens of their own son, Richard, who had been prone to aggressive and unpredictable outbursts since shortly after they adopted him from Bulgaria when he was four years old. The Sonnens resolved to keep a very close eye on Richard, who - although he was only ten years old - had already screamed at his parents many times that he wanted to kill them.

It turns out, the Sonnens were right to be wary. Richard continued to struggle with social and behavior problems. In eighth grade, he was diagnosed with both bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorders, for which he was prescribed anti-psychotic medication. Then, two-and-a-half years ago, when he was a junior in high school, Richard confessed to his mom that he had drawn up a hit list of eight classmates he wanted to kill, and had constructed an elaborate plan on how to do it by planting bombs at strategic locations throughout his school. Subsequently, he added a teacher, his mother and his sister to the list. Richard's mother immediately had him committed to a mental institution.

When I started reading this article on CNN, I assumed there was a happy ending, since both Richard and his parents had taken their story to the press, hoping to both encourage troubled kids to seek help, and to educate their parents about what warning signs to look for. But although Richard was released from the hospital after about eighteen months of treatment, and even started college at Lewis-Clark State College with the help of a cocktail of three anti-psychotics, the Sonnens are still very concerned about their son. Shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, Elaine Sonnen was contacted by police because of threats Richard allegedly made against his own school. Richard claims his words were misunderstood, and that he was talking about the threats that caused him to be institutionalized when he was sixteen, but his parents aren't so sure. Mental illness is something that never really goes away. The Sonnens are still so afraid of what their son is capable of that they keep an alarm on his bedroom door when he comes to visit them.

SIDS Risk Tied to Parents' Mental Illness

Karen Murphy — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:05:00 GMT

Yipes, as if people challenged by various manifestations of mental illness didn't have enough to worry about and enough opportunities to be victims of the stigma attached to it, but now there's yet another thing to worry about: a new study reports that "in families with a parental history of psychiatric hospitalization, either fathers or mothers, the risk of SIDS was roughly doubled compared with the frequency seen in the general population." Ugh. In addition:

If BOTH parents were hospitalized, the risk of SIDS went up seven-fold. And, if the disorder was related to substance abuse, and it was the mother who was hospitalized, the risk went up five-fold.

All this folding. Even in cases of depression: again, though, it seemed that the problem was the severity of the disorder, because the risk was elevated only if there was a hospitalization involved.

The moral: if you're crazy don't tell anyone and be sure not to be hospitalized, that is, if you want your babies to survive. Uh, no. But seriously, isn't this kind of news going to deter people from getting the help they need? Mental illness isn't a crime, and lots of people have tough times and get help for that and then do just fine afterward. So the risk of SIDS is elevated in these cases? Has anyone stopped to think that it might have something to do with the hospital experience itself? I'd really like to know a cause here, not just a loose correlation.

What a lot of probably needless worry this is going to cause people who really don't need more reasons to worry.