As I was first reading the story about the stalker who sent her victim 65,000 text messages after one date and is now behind bars, at least a dozen jokes came to mind.
Like it or not, joking about it is the way my brain – and many peoples’ brains — tends to go. In part, it’s often simply a matter of our psychological defenses at work.
Frankly, she sounded like, and is, basically a garden variety paranoid schizophrenic with the added layer of being a stalker. I didn’t share the jokes around here because (a) acute paranoid schizophrenia, when not successfully treated and controlled, is a horrifying disorder that is a tragedy for the person buried in it as well as their families – not unlike severe autism or any other crippling condition you want to name.
And (b) as a psychologist I’m actually ethically-bound to not do that kind of thing (though I admit I exchanged some gallows humor with the fellow shrink who first told me about it — which is different because she, too, gets it).
Truth is, whenever I even think about it, when it doesn’t involve danger to others, the only thing I feel is profound sadness. When it is dangerous to others (which, statistically, is a rarity, even though those dramatic, “entertaining” cases are the ones that grab headlines – again, like the severe autism success stories similarly over-represented in the media), the sadness is swamped by fear. They can become very scary people – I’ve known, and have been related to, victims of several.
And she is one of those very scary people. Reading about her, I felt a tinge of sadness but much more the reflexive, “Good Lord.”
And now I’ve watched the full 18+ minute jailhouse interview with her that’s shown up online. It’s only intensified those feelings, but more to the point – I am glad to see it getting mass exposure.
Yeah, it’s easy to poke fun at crazy people, to see them as simply “the other.” But most people haven’t had direct exposure to the unvarnished experience of seeing such a delusional system at work, besides in the many easily-dismissed — fictional or not — Hollywood portrayals. Even at their best, “it’s only a movie.” Hey, them people’s crazy.
Most mental health professionals like me have known, evaluated, worked with, and felt deep sympathy and empathy, and sometimes affection, for people like her – yes, including some of the scary ones, but mostly those simply dealing with nothing more than the mundane ravages of it all. And most feel like I do.
There but for the grace of [God, fate, genetics, environment, luck, whatever you want] go I. Go my sibling. Go my parent. Go my child. Please no, never my child.
Imagine living with this. Imagine loving someone living with this. And imagine having to protect yourself from someone living with this.
Yes, understanding and knowledge and treatment have come a long way as the years have gone by. For many, it isn’t a hopeless disorder, by any means. But it’s far from “cured,” or solved. Take a look at the video (it’s easy to find) for a bit of evidence.
No jokes here for me. Only sadness and horror.
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For a bit more reading:
Schizophrenia: What It’s Really Like To Live With This Chronic Mental Illness
(And that is where I found the photo accompanying this story.)