Aha a librarian! hey Foxy! I did suspect as much. How come librarians are now so pretty? My childhood ones were old and spinsterish crones.... at least 40. (he he) Ours used to scowl at me over her glasses because I didn't read classical literature, instead of always non fiction. Today I'm sorry I didn't, might have improved my prose and style!

Recent literature suggests that many of the "common" problems do in fact have a physical cause, malfunctioning brain chemical production, brought about by a genetically acquired predisposition. much the same as alcohol, nicotine and drug abuse addictions.

Often there is a trigger to the onset. This is very individualistic, a dramatic emotional dislocation or even puberty.
Both Bipolar and Schizophrenia are examples there of.

Like all things genetics the individual's predisposition and subsequent suffering if at all, can run the gambit from non existent to diabolical. Just because a person has the genes it doesn't mean absolutely the person *will* go on to be sufferer.

The latest 'depression' medication are Serotonin (brain chemical) stimulators (SSRI) which has a flow on effect in stimulating the correct levels of dopamine etc in the brain. There are other chemical anti-spasmodics, anti-psychotic and good old Lithium.

This seems to indicate a physically basis, just the specifics are currently unknown.

Suzeonline has obviously dealt with the extreme end of the continuoum.

As I understand it, Dreamon is correct that a person need not be suffering from a mental illness to kill. Likewise a person who is 'mentally ill' is not necessarily automatically unfit to stand trial.

The executed person in question allegedly suffered from Bipolar, but as this is an episodic ailment his fitness to plea should been judged on his state of mind, at the time of the crime. i.e.depending on severity and if he was appropriately medicated ,he may or may not have been psychotic at the time therefore, he would have been as competent as you or I. Well, maybe you.

The lightening bit is a quote from the site posted and statistically valid.

Dear Examinator,

I'm sorry that your experiences with librarians
have been rather negative by the sound of it.
After all they're supposed to be novel lovers!
(giggle).

As for being pretty - I'm too tall and lanky to fit that
description. (I tend to associate pretty with petite).

Anyway, your take on things is interesting.

I'm inclined to believe that primarily people's earlier
social and psychological experiences contribute towards
people's mental disorders, although I suppose that
hormonal and other biological factors may make at least
some people more vunerable to certain disorders. Also
part of the problem is that symptoms, unlike those of
physical diseases such as lung cancer are culturally
variable.

A judgement about someone's sanity depends to some extent
on the assumptions of the culture (or subculture) and of
the individual making the judgement. Studies show that
psychiatrists disagree about 20% of the time on the
question - whether someone is psychotic or not, and about
50% of the time on the question of which particular psychosis
a diagnosed psychotic is suffering from.

As you know Jeff Kennett in Victoria emptied mental facilities
during his reign as Premier (ironically on his retirement - he
worked for 'Beyond Blue'). It was his attempt to cut public
spending. The results in some cases were tragic. Tens of
thousands of seriously disordered people were "returned to the
community" where, isolated and abandoned, they were forced to
live in dilapidated urban houses, and eke out an existence
on permanent welfare, or even were seen out on the streets
of the suburbs of Melbourne.

The succeeding Labor Government recognised the disaster
created by the previous Government and is slowly
funding suburban housing for the mentally handicapped
by placing them in modern purpose-built residential
housing in suburbia suitable for four or five residents
and their carers.

2/2

< ..snip..>

Of course, its worth noting that aberrant behavior is only the symptom of the internal pathology.

So, when someone like the chap in the vid is expressing concerns about fears of *Big Red* surveillance, what likely was occurring is that he had "neurochemical" paranoia, a fundamentally altered state of consciousness wherein the brain interprets external stimuli in an entirely different manner and that can be identified by mapping out thought form cohesion.

This combined with auditory and or visual hallucinations,

(which are real auditory and visual experiences but ones that only have reality within the mind of the afflicted and are likely an echo of sorts of the patients own consciousness stream)

AND

an individual can really truly start to live in abject terror of the things that he/she was already afraid of, both potentially seeing and hearing, (and other senses can be affected too) those things which confirm his/her own beliefs.

So Stuart fresh from stomping about in RuskyVille fears what used to be the KGB, the Christian experiences persecution of the Devil etc etc,

Part of the problem to me in helping people with this is that "we" are not taught to critique the emanations of our own minds sufficiently, that is to say, we tend to believe the interpretations that our own brain offers up in consciousness. We are not taught that our brain can generate error. Indeed, in my view, insufficient regard is given to the noble art of meditation/observing our own thought forms, stabilising and critiqing them in an objective, analytical manner.

t.b.c.

Also, it wasn't until Uni that I came to know from learning that an individual could experience sensory hallucinations such as those of the more common auditory and visual variety.

Thus, afflicted individuals, not knowing this and in an attempt to understand the nature of their perceptions, come up with theories about space person tech, intelligence agency surveillance etc etc

So for *Pelican* a gentle introduction of another theory if you still practice with those afflicted may be appropriate- perhaps something like this:

"Well, it could be an agency, it could be E.T., .. but it also could be an echo of your own thoughts that has just got really loud (or graphic, or smelly etc)"

"And how would we know? Well, is it somehow connected with your own thoughts in a strange kind of way? ... "

..

A bit of spit and polish on some of *Examinator's* comments:

Yes, physical causes - Wikipedia contains reasonable overviews of the "Dopamine and Glutamate hypotheses" and of course we can lace medications with medical isotopes, "see" where they bind and measure outcomes.

Yes, visa vi genetics whilst some likely candidates have been identified, no one specific gene or set of genes has been identified as definitely being the culprits with conditions which produce hallucinations and altered states (psychosis, paranoia etc)

SSRI - Selective Serotonin reuptake inhibitor. They aren't stimulators or agonists or partial agonists

(those substances which bind to a particular receptor type and enhances its efficacy/energy potential/relative activity level)

but rather inhibit the re-consumption/re-uptake of the serotonin which has already been released by the neurone, whereas the agonists increase overall levels of production.

Thanks DreamOn.

I do still come into contact with those afflicted from time to time although not as much as in a previous job.

After a while I did learn how to deal with people and managed to talk them around for the most part into considering perhaps the messages were coming from within - so to speak. Perhaps the way they were interpreting those stimuli were being mixed up. Sometimes there was no possibility of getting through.

I did get the sense sometimes that some were partly aware that what they were saying was a bit 'suspect'. Often if I challenged in a gentle way - say a spaceship in the back yard and asked if their son or daughter could call next time the spaceship landed to confirm the "sighting" so I could pass on the details to the appropriate authorities - there would be a pause as if something deep inside of them sensed that they were aware of the possibility that what they experienced might not be real.

It was as if in some cases the person had come to identify with their state of being (if that is the right way to put it) and it was all they had in terms of their identity. I can't think of another way to express it but I did on occasion get that sense from a couple of regulars.

Sometimes people just wanted someone to talk to and after not being able to get onto Sane or to Lifeline would pick our number to ring.

It was a real eye opener and made me realise that we are lucky to have all our faculties in order to get through life. It is very difficult for the mentally ill to function and be accepted as Examinator said in 'normal' society.

Dear Pelly,

How right you are. It is hard for people
with mental disorders.

Two things made an impression on me -
growing up. The first was in my initial
library position in a public library - where
an older member of staff suffered from
incontenance - and used to walk around the
library with a wet patch on the back of her skirt.
No one dared say anything to her. Finally I could
stand it no longer and one day took her aside
and gently suggested her bringing spare underwear
and leaving it at work in her locker. I tried to
tell her that it was bad for her health wise - to be
walking around in winter with wet pants. For her own
sake - she needed to take some preventative measures.
I also recommended her talking to her GP about her
problem. She did and guess what - she never had that
problem at work again.

Then I was in a chemist when an obviously mentally
challenged individual
asked for a bottle of vitamin tablets - and got
very confused when the staff member began to quote
all the different brand names. All he wanted was a
bottle of multi-vitamins, which he'd been entrusted to
buy by his carers. Simple task - you'd have thought.
But not for the staff member apparently. I ended up
suggesting to the staff member (middle aged woman
who should have known better) that perhaps she could
recommend a multi-vitamin bottle to the young man?
The young man beamed
at me, bought the bottle the staff member recommended
and walked out of the shop happy.

It isn't easy - because often people try to avoid
situations they don't know how to handle.