Amok: The Amoks Of Lovelle Mixon, Michael McLendon, Tim Krestchmer, Robert Stewart, Kerby Trevelus, Devan Kalathat, Travis The Chimp (Guest Voice)
Amok: The Amoks Of Lovelle Mixon, Michael McLendon, Tim Krestchmer, Robert Stewart, Kerby Trevelus, Devan Kalathat, Travis The Chimp
by Julian Lieb
Kerby Trevelus decapitated one of his sisters, stabbed another to death, and injured a third. Robert Stewart slaughtered eight people in a nursing home, and wounded another three. In the days leading up to the massacre of four police officers, Lovelle Mixon told relatives that he felt depressed and angry, an uncle noticing that he was emotionally withdrawn.
Michael McLendon killed five family members and five other people before shooting himself. In the days leading up to the massacre, he told a friend that he was depressed. Tim Kretschmer murdered fifteen people before shooting himself. Between April and September of 2008, Kretschmer had five outpatient “therapy” sessions for depression. Devan Kalathat shot to death six family members, wounded his wife, and committed suicide.
In the sixteenth century Portuguese travelers observed Javanese who would go out in the street and kill as many persons as they met, before others subdued or killed them, or they committed suicide. Malaysians called these people Amuco, amok meaning murderous frenzy or rage. Amok was traditionally attributed to loss of face, shame, humiliation, jealousy, or provocation. That amok is an expression of manic-depressive disorder is suggested by the preliminary symptoms: before the attack, the killer is typically preoccupied, withdrawn, brooding and apathetic – in other words, depressed. Following an amok, the perpetrator is often confused and amnesic, and if not apprehended or killed, may commit suicide.
In (1921) Emil Kraepelin, suggested that amok is an expression of enraged mania, others referring to the ”Inattack as the outcome of switching from depression into manic agitation. Dictionary com. deftly defines amok as “a psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.” While the motive and targets of amok are always investigated, an amok is indiscriminate, and biologically programmed to kill as many people as possible, as in battle. Manic depressive disorder has many variations, and a complex phenomenology,
Amok is remarkable not only for the numbers, but for the savagery, when the victims are raped, mutilated, cannibalized or beheaded. It explains the atrocities that soldiers often inflict on civilians during and following battle. Mood cycles have been observed in many species of domestic and wild animals, the vicious attack of chimp Travis all of the markings of amok. The biological basis of amok must be recognized, and society educated so as to be sensitive to its warning signs.
In referring to these attacks as “rampage” media are at odds with the medical literature, which for hundreds of years has used the word “amok.”
If the clinician who treated Kretschmer used psychotherapy, in preference to an antidepressant or lithium or both, the fifteen people he killed may have been the victims of negligent care. Jeffrey Dahmer’s probation officer frequently noted his depression, but nothing was done about it. In adolescence, John Hinckley was diagnosed as “emotionally immature” but while in the throes of a delusional erotomania almost assassinated a President. A psychiatric post mortem on Mr. Dixon might be more revealing than a physical one. Was he ever evaluated by a mental health professional, if so, was it by a Board Certified psychiatrist? Were the diagnosis and treatment accurate?
Bipolar individuals that are offended when the disorder is linked to violence may not be aware that a Swedish study has shown that 90% of murderers have one or another form of mental illness, and often bipolar disorder.
They also tend to overlook the paradox that the disorder has gifted society with most of our creative geniuses. Bipolars are in excellent company with, among many others, Beethoven, Mozart, Schuman, Berlioz, Chopin, Mingus, Parker, van Gogh, Newton, Dickens, Faraday, Byron, Michelangelo, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill.
Sigmund Freud and Emil Kraepelin, lifelong rivals, were born in 1856. Freud seduced America with his psychosexual theories, while Kraepelin’s precise descriptions of hospitalized manic depressives in their acute phases were confined to a minority of medical schools.
Freud won, but America lost.
Julian Lieb, M.D is a retired Yale medical school professor, and author or coauthor of forty -five articles and nine books. With D Jablow Hershman as first author, Dr Lieb coauthored: “Manic Depression and Creativity” and “A Brotherhood of Tyrants: Manic Depression and Absolute Power.” In these volumes, the authors showed that manic- depressive disorder is paradoxical, in gifting society with most of its creative geniuses, and inflicting many of its great destroyers.
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6 Responses to “Amok: The Amoks Of Lovelle Mixon, Michael McLendon, Tim Krestchmer, Robert Stewart, Kerby Trevelus, Devan Kalathat, Travis The Chimp (Guest Voice)”
Tim Krestchmer was receiving medication to treat depression. The majority of these mass hurderers were on SSRI antidepressants which can cause, among other side-effect, mania & psychosis.
The Physicians Desk Reference states that SSRIs and all antidepressants can cause mania, psychosis, abnormal thinking, paranoia, hostility, akathesia, agitation, etc.
Go to http://www.SSRIstories.com where there are over 2,900 cases, with the full media article available, involving bizarre murders, suicides, school shootings [49 of these] and murder-suicides – all of which involve SSRI antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc, . The media article usually tells which SSRI antidepressant the perpetrator was taking.
No, Darlenet–how do we know that the treatment caused the problem and not the underlying illness? Were they taking their medications? Were they the right medications–the things you list are not usually used for mania. I really wonder how they decide that the treatment caused the suicide, murder, or whatever, and not the condition they were being treated for? Surely they do not give medications to those with no problems??
Yes, Dr. Lieb. You are right. The public, though, never sees an amok as a human being who has been subject to tortures in his own mind–instead he must be a monster. Or else the drug industry has done this. My late husband was a manic depressive who was on lithiuim for 27 years, which finally destroyed his kidneys but gave him 27 years of his life as he wanted to live it. He was an outspoken advocate for medical treatment of mental illness and often used himself as example.
The public does not take mental illness seriously as an illness. Or rather, of course, a number of illnesses. No matter how often we read of someone having trouble when off his medication, it just doesn't get through. Freud has a lot to answer for beyond his disdain for and fear of women.
Alphonsegaston,
I am very sorry for your husband's death. I am glad that lithium gave him a life for 27 years.
However, http://www.SSRIstories.com is not a Website about lithium. It is a Website about the dangers of taking antidepressants which can CAUSE mania.
Since the introduction of Prozac in 1988, almost one in seven people have taken either Prozac or another SSRI or SNRI. This massive drugging of the population of the U.S. with antidepressants is producing an increase in bipolar disorder. Go to http://www.SSRIstories.com/index.php and scroll down past the 49 school shootings and the 17 “won” cases. There you will find 54 Journal Articles. The second and third Journal articles from the top explain how more than 200,000 Americans are being hospitalized because of mania & psychosis induced by SSRI antidepressants and how the number of people diagnosed as bipolar has increased by 4.8 million people in the eleven years between 1994 and 2005.
The problem seems to be that these people who go insane on the antidepressant are then being diagnosed as “latent” bipolars. But if they had never taken the antidepressant, their illness of bipolar disorder would never have manifested itself. Such a tragedy. Is this true bipolar disorder or is this chemically induced insanity?
Here is an example of a case out of Lousiana where a mother killed her eleven year old daughter and why she was given probation. Go to:
http://www.ssristories.com/show.php?item=1153
Paragraph 14 reads: “Higgins said Pinckard's doctors believe the Prozac she was taking before the shooting caused her behavior; it acted as a catalyst for a hidden bipolar condition”.
Last paragraph reads: “Higgins said Pinckard's psychiatrists testified that if she had not taken Prozac, her condition may never have manifested itself.
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http://www.thetowntalk.com/html/1B1F2639-6036-4…
Woman who killed daughter released on probation
Julia Robb
Posted on July 11, 2003
File Photo
Paula Pinckard: had been “the all-American housewife,” attorney says.
COLFAX — In March 2000, Paula Pinckard shot her 11-year-old daughter Aubrey to death before shooting herself in their Rock Hill home.
Prozac (fluoxetine) for Depression: I have been taking Prozac for 1 week for depression. It seems to be helping me with my attitude. But I am VERY concerned about weight gain.
bipolar psychosis…
This was one of the more insightful posts I’ve read in a while. I continue to find comments very useful however. They’re almost like an accuracy validator. Once you read through them and slice out the junk you’re left with some very helpful addition…
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