Descent to madness

[basilio]

This article/book might be interesting for posters on ASF who have had to deal with similar issues in their family.

‘My Friend’s Descent into Madness and Bloodshed’: An American Tragedy​

A conversation with Jonathan Rosen about his magnificent new book ‘The Best Minds.’

By Bari Weiss

April
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Michael Laudor was an exceptional boy. Academically, he excelled. Things that are hard for most young students, like reading multiple books at once and comprehending large volumes of material, came easily for him. His charm was infectious, and he seemed to immediately attract the attention of any room he entered. Through high school and college, one thing was clear: everyone was drawn to Michael.

Michael’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia in his twenties in some ways only added to his allure. On the day he was accepted to Yale Law School, he also believed that monkeys were eating his brain.

The New York Times wrote a glowing profile about his resilience. A major book contract for Michael’s memoir followed. Director Ron Howard bought his life rights and Brad Pitt was attached to star in a movie about Michael’s life.

But then, Michael Laudor did something unimaginable: he killed his pregnant fiancée.

The tragedy of Michael’s story is captured in Jonathan Rosen’s new book, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions.
It’s a breathtaking account of friendship and the harrowing and insidious nature of mental illness as it takes over someone’s life. Most of all, it investigates the invisible forces—cultural, political, and ideological—that shaped Michael’s terrible fortune, and America’s ongoing failure to get people like Michael the help that they so desperately need.

When I finished the book, I told Nellie that it was the best book I’d read this year. She rolled her eyes—I am infamous for overhyping things. But then she inhaled it in two days and declared it “maybe the best book by any living writer.” The reviewers seem to agree.

All of which is to say: you should read it. Especially if you care to understand how it came to be that so many believe that letting people die on our streets is a kind of freedom.

Start by listening to my conversation with Jonathan this week on Honestly, and find an edited, shortened transcript of our conversation below.

‘My Friend’s Descent into Madness and Bloodshed’: An American Tragedy

A conversation with Jonathan Rosen about his magnificent new book ‘The Best Minds.’

www.thefp.com

 

[farmerge]

Though I am not commenting on this article by basilio I feel the title is very apt for the woman who murdered her three children.
It will probably be said that she had a deprived childhood (?) miserable life and killing her children was the only answer.
Sorry to say I won't believe any of it.

 

[basilio]

Though I am not commenting on this article by basilio I feel the title is very apt for the woman who murdered her three children.
It will probably be said that she had a deprived childhood (?) miserable life and killing her children was the only answer.
Sorry to say I won't believe any of it.

I think this situation was tragic and disastrous. I don't want to go too far off topic but how would one view the steady stream of people in the US who kill people who accidentally drive into their driveway, knock on their door or ask them to ease up on shooting their guns and keeping the neighborhood and their baby awake?

How about police officers who calmly "subdue" a person to death over 9 minutes while they are begging to breath ?

What about the relentless stream of mass murders in schools (in the US) ? Do we have a thought on what sort of headspace/social space has been created that seems to (almost) normalise such behaviors.

The story I related was about a clearly mentally ill person who needed help. The book highlights how these situations are not effectively treated in the US. Perhaps one of the issues is that the society is so warped many bizarre behaviours are flowering.

 

[farmerge]

I think this situation was tragic and disastrous. I don't want to go too far off topic but how would one view the steady stream of people in the US who kill people who accidentally drive into their driveway, knock on their door or ask them to ease up on shooting their guns and keeping the neighborhood and their baby awake?

How about police officers who calmly "subdue" a person to death over 9 minutes while they are begging to breath ?

What about the relentless stream of mass murders in schools (in the US) ? Do we have a thought on what sort of headspace/social space has been created that seems to (almost) normalise such behaviors.

The story I related was about a clearly mentally ill person who needed help. The book highlights how these situations are not effectively treated in the US. Perhaps one of the issues is that the society is so warped many bizarre behaviours are flowering.

Yes the US is one sick and mentally disturbed country

 

[basilio]

From The Guardian

The Best Minds review – rich examination of madness and the way the west deals with it

Jonathan Rosen’s heart-rending, thoughtful memoir sheds light on his childhood friend’s schizophrenia and attributes his shocking decline to America’s politicised mental health system

www.theguardian.com

 

[SirRumpole]

From The Guardian

The Best Minds review – rich examination of madness and the way the west deals with it

Jonathan Rosen’s heart-rending, thoughtful memoir sheds light on his childhood friend’s schizophrenia and attributes his shocking decline to America’s politicised mental health system

www.theguardian.com

Why should we care about US problems, we have enough of our own ?

 

[basilio]

Why should we care about US problems, we have enough of our own ?

Perhaps it is the topic of madness that is the question? I was highlighting a particularly mad society.

 

[SirRumpole]

Perhaps it is the topic of madness that is the question? I was highlighting a particularly mad society.

Its always easy to pick out the bad bits, 99% of Americans just get on with their lives.

 

[sptrawler]

Its always easy to pick out the bad bits, 99% of Americans just get on with their lives.

Priceless Rumpy.

99% of Australians don't give a rats about King Charles, but love our way of life and welfare systems and criticise the U.S.
Then in the next breath they want to go down the same path as the U.S, just shows how much control the media has over the muppets IMO.

.

 

[farmerge]

Priceless Rumpy.

99% of Australians don't give a rats about King Charles, but love our way of life and welfare systems and criticise the U.S.
Then in the next breath they want to go down the same path as the U.S, just shows how much control the media has over the muppets IMO.

.

Shades of The Pied Piper, play a tune and the hordes will follow.

 

[moXJO]

Had a fee mates that were schizophrenia. One was a potential mass murderer. He tried to kill his neighbour by setting his house on fire, but then ended up stabbing him.

He tried to kill a cop by strangling him. That cop was only saved by his partner beating my mate into unconsciousness with his baton.

I have a million stories like that. All that would happen is they would dose him up and release him after a few weeks in the mental ward. It was a running joke.

All the guys that I knew had schizophrenia got it from heavy pot smoking. Marijuana is a trigger for early onset in some people. No matter how much people say it's safe, I'll disagree. I've seen the effects on a large amount of heavy smokers. There are a myriad of mental health issues.
A lot that end up with schizophrenia end up suicide statistics.

 

[basilio]

Had a fee mates that were schizophrenia. One was a potential mass murderer. He tried to kill his neighbour by setting his house on fire, but then ended up stabbing him.

He tried to kill a cop by strangling him. That cop was only saved by his partner beating my mate into unconsciousness with his baton.

I have a million stories like that. All that would happen is they would dose him up and release him after a few weeks in the mental ward. It was a running joke.

All the guys that I knew had schizophrenia got it from heavy pot smoking. Marijuana is a trigger for early onset in some people. No matter how much people say it's safe, I'll disagree. I've seen the effects on a large amount of heavy smokers. There are a myriad of mental health issues.
A lot that end up with schizophrenia end up suicide statistics

I agree that heavy marijuana use can be a trigger for schizophrenia. Certainly seen such on affect in my family with some very difficult consequences.

How many people are affected? What dosage might cause this ? Are there any other precipitating factors ? I agree that heavy usage of dope is playing Russian Roulette. But then heavy usage of any intoxicant is a recipe for trouble.

 

[basilio]

Its always easy to pick out the bad bits, 99% of Americans just get on with their lives.

That wasn't what I was trying to say Rumpy.

Firstly if 1% of a society was likely to start shooting people up with little or no reason one would have a catastrophic situation. That sounds like a very small number but 1% of say Melbourne with 5million people is 50,000 possible mass murderers. Wow !!

The real issue I was raising was some overall trends in US society that accelerate the problems they are facing. The clearest one is the culture around the virtue of gun ownership and virtually no meaningful control of who owns them. The Right to Bear Arms has resulted in seriously lethal weapons in the hands of roughly half the households while a smaller number, around 8%, have 10 or more guns. It means that whenever people do get upset they have lethal solution in their hands.

 

[moXJO]

I agree that heavy marijuana use can be a trigger for schizophrenia. Certainly seen such on affect in my family with some very difficult consequences.

How many people are affected? What dosage might cause this ? Are there any other precipitating factors ? I agree that heavy usage of dope is playing Russian Roulette. But then heavy usage of any intoxicant is a recipe for trouble.

I have talked to guys that had episodes only after very short term heavy usage.

I think the bigger issue is that insane asylums were all but shut down. A lot of it acted as housing and treatment for many in the US. Which now seems to have defaulted to the prison system.

 

[SirRumpole]

That wasn't what I was trying to say Rumpy.

Firstly if 1% of a society was likely to start shooting people up with little or no reason one would have a catastrophic situation. That sounds like a very small number but 1% of say Melbourne with 5million people is 50,000 possible mass murderers. Wow !!

The real issue I was raising was some overall trends in US society that accelerate the problems they are facing. The clearest one is the culture around the virtue of gun ownership and virtually no meaningful control of who owns them. The Right to Bear Arms has resulted in seriously lethal weapons in the hands of roughly half the households while a smaller number, around 8%, have 10 or more guns. It means that whenever people do get upset they have lethal solution in their hands.

Quite right, its a situation that has been brewing for some time.

I believe that the statement in the Constitution about "well regulated militias" in respect to the right to bear arms has been Ignored by Conservative judges and may be overturned in the future. It won't happen soon but it may happen.

Thats about their only hope in getting out of the nightmare in my view.

 

[farmerge]

That wasn't what I was trying to say Rumpy.

Firstly if 1% of a society was likely to start shooting people up with little or no reason one would have a catastrophic situation. That sounds like a very small number but 1% of say Melbourne with 5million people is 50,000 possible mass murderers. Wow !!

The real issue I was raising was some overall trends in US society that accelerate the problems they are facing. The clearest one is the culture around the virtue of gun ownership and virtually no meaningful control of who owns them. The Right to Bear Arms has resulted in seriously lethal weapons in the hands of roughly half the households while a smaller number, around 8%, have 10 or more guns. It means that whenever people do get upset they have lethal solution in their hands.

The gun laws in the US of A are beyond belief. Whether sane or not a military assault rifle is within easy reach.

 

[farmerge]

Quite right, its a situation that has been brewing for some time.

I believe that the statement in the Constitution about "well regulated militias" in respect to the right to bear arms has been Ignored by Conservative judges and may be overturned in the future. It won't happen soon but it may happen.

Thats about their only hope in getting out of the nightmare in my view.

Until the gun owners and gumnlobby get to see the bright shinning light there won't be any change to the right to bear arms. Gun lobby is to powerful, and is any President, past or present had the balls to do something about it. Nay I say.

 

[basilio]

The gun laws in the US of A are beyond belief. Whether sane or not a military assault rifle is within easy reach.

Which is pretty xxxxing insane...

 

[Smurf1976]

All the guys that I knew had schizophrenia got it from heavy pot smoking. Marijuana is a trigger for early onset in some people. No matter how much people say it's safe, I'll disagree. I've seen the effects on a large amount of heavy smokers. There are a myriad of mental health issues.
A lot that end up with schizophrenia end up suicide statistics.

When it comes to drugs I'm dead boring but as I've said to a few friends with teenage children and obvious concerns:

Illicit hard drugs are worst of the lot. It's a one way ride and tends to end badly.

Marijuana comes next in my observation. It stuffs a lot of people psychologically and that's in addition to the very long list of toxins it comes with - there's not much in tobacco that isn't also in marijuana when it comes to carcinogens and poisons. It does however seem to be a less certain plunge to oblivion than any of the other illegals.

Alcohol comes next. Heavy use can lead to death on the first occasion if the user does something stupid but moderate use takes a long time to do serious damage. Yes it's a carcinogen and so on but used moderately it takes quite some time.

Tobacco comes next after that. It's outright deadly but it has two major redeeming features - it's rare that anyone dies with less than 20 years' regular use and crucially it's not mind altering. The user remains fully functional mentally and has quite some time to reconsider their smoking before it kills them.

And finally caffeine. Yes it's a drug but a relatively harmless one. Not great but it's comparatively benign. The biggest problem is the sugar commonly consumed with it and the health implications of that.

My observation being the moderate use of alcohol is the line in the sand. That or anything below it might damage your health but that's all and it takes quite some time to do serious damage. Anything beyond that, heavy drinking through to the illegals, it's a slippery slope.

I've left out vaping since it's not clear where that sits although it's probably less bad than tobacco but more bad than caffeine. Probably.

Put all that together and suffice to say I strongly disagree with what seems to be an agenda to legalise marijuana whilst at the same time going to full blown prohibition on vaping and going one step short of prohibition with tobacco. We're replacing bad with worse so far as I can determine, if we're going to crack down hard on any of those then it's pot that ought be the target, it seems to cause the most harm.

 

[sptrawler]

Our decent into madness, is accelerated by our embracing of failure.
Which funnily enough, makes failures feel like achievements .