Virginia Tech Killer Named
I’ve been wondering if the man who killed more than 30 people and then himself at Virginia Tech could have been on a medication that would impact his thinking. While such reactions are rare, I know from first-hand experience that they can happen. And what makes it worse is that your doctor, who is viewed as the authority and the scientist, is telling you to take the medication because it will make you better. So you have a hard time reconciling in your mind the kind of thoughts you are having with the idea of being “better.”
If you decide that the doctor is right, you could easily start thinking that you are the one who is healthy and everybody else is sick.
In my case, I was able to tell myself that I don’t usually think such thoughts and stop taking the medication. Very quickly, I was myself again. I’m totally speculating here, but I wonder if Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior at VPI, was having emotional problems, then got a prescription for something that made his emotional problem worse rather than better.
There is already a hint of this in the latest reports:
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as a English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school’s counseling service.
News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus.
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday’s bloodbath began.
A 23-year-old does not have the life experience to know that some of what he has been taught to trust is not trustworthy. For example, doctors are not always acting in the patient’s best interest, or that they have a relationship with drug companies where they get financial rewards for writing certain prescriptions.
The irrational, contradictory premises that serve as the foundation for our culture are enough to drive some people crazy. And there’s no escaping them. They are everywhere.
It’s a full-time job just hanging onto your self in a culture that is built on self-sacrifice.
You’re going to hear a lot of talk about the beauty of self-sacrifice and selflessness in the days and weeks ahead with regard to this tragedy. Commentators will fail to note, however, that that’s exactly what Cho Seung-Hui did.
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April 19th, 2007 at 12:27 am
I think you are 100% correct and I am willing to bet on it. Many of these anti-psychotics and psychotropics are known to cause violent behavior in users. There is much evidence on this to date.
“In Dr. Tracy’s testimony before the FDA in September of 2004, she states, “Research on serotonin has been clear from the very beginning that the most damaging thing that could be done to the serotonin system would be to impair one’s ability to metabolize serotonin. Yet that is exactly how SSRI antidepressants exert their effects. For decades research has shown that impairing serotonin metabolism will produce migraines, hot flashes, pains around the heart, difficulty breathing, a worsening of bronchial complaints, tension and anxiety which appear from out of nowhere, depression, suicide - especially very violent suicide, hostility, violent crime, arson, substance abuse, psychosis, mania, organic brain disease, autism, anorexia, reckless driving, Alzheimer’s, impulsive behavior with no concern for punishment, and argumentative behavior.”
And that’s just one article and one doctor. Thanks for bringing this to our attention in your blog. It is a very important and alarming factor that we must all be aware of.
Lisa
April 19th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
I don’t want people to get the wrong impression.
Psychotropic drugs like antidepressants have offered great benefits to many people. The problem is that some people have atypical reactions to them and/or undesirable side effects.
When they have undesirable side effects many doctors will prescribe more drugs to counteract the side effects, but those drugs have their own side effects. If you get enough drugs in the system at once, there can be interactions between the drugs and often it’s impossible to know what’s doing what, which drugs have benefit and which are causing problems.
Such drugs must be used with caution and patients need to be monitored to insure they are having the desired response without a lot of negative side effects.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 am
After hearing about the shootings on the news, one of the first comments I made to my sister about it was, I wonder which pharmaceutical company is going to get sued. The guns aren’t the weapons we should be so worried about, in my opinion. It is the readily available medications that doctors are handing out like candy, so to speak. I have witnessed first-hand what an SSRI medication can do to provoke violence. There’s not doubt in my mind about the connection between SSRI’s and violence. And mostly we only hear about the “big” things, like shootings or suicides. What about all the people who have had their brain altered by these chemicals, who haven’t actually succeeded with their violent attempts, or have been harmed to a ‘lesser’ extent. I wish the media would give more attention to the subject.