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Mark Becker
On June 20, 2009, he went to the home of Dwight Rogers, convinced that he had been hypnotizing him with a teddy bear since childhood. He smashed some windows, then fled in his car when the police arrived. A high speed chase ended when he hit a dear. In the police station he was screaming about Satan and said he wanted to kill someone. He was hospitalized on June 21, 2009, under a 48 hour hold, and treated with the antipsychotic drug, Geodon. Two days later he said he was feeling fine, and the doctor discharged him, with the plan that his case worker would pick him up. Neither the police or his parents were informed of this. His case worker dropped him off at his apartment. They were unable to get his medication because the pharmacy was closed. He called his parents and said he couldn’t get into his apartment, so he stayed at their house. The next day he stole his father’s gun and went to his old school and shot his ex football coach, Ed Thomas, under the belief that he was Satan, and was controlling the children of their town.
I commented on the case that there could have been a court order to keep him for the 5-7 days of treatment he needed. Geodon takes 1-3 days to work, so keeping him longer might have averted the tragedy. He also could have been discharged against medical advice, which would have meant that his family would have had to come and get him, which might have changed things as well. I definitely think he meets the standard of insanity in Iowa, which is “unable to tell right from wrong, and determine the nature and quality of the act.”
I mean, unless that guy really was trying to hypnotize him with that teddy bear.
I will be going back on Monday, 12:15 pm EST.
See a follow up to this post here.
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Poor Guy.
I can’t even imagine about his family’s condition. Watching one of your own turn into some psychotic killer is not a good experience.
I don’t see where he had a history of trauma, Marian. And I don’t think that all people diagnosed with psychotic disorders have a history of trauma necessarily, although of course many do.
You can read Marian’s blog post on my post here and I have a comment awaiting mediation there.
http://diffthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/06/ptsd-expert-doug-bremner-cant-see-ptsd.html
Hello, Doug,
I have posted my comment below to your comment on the Different Thoughts site, in response to your comment that Mark Becker doesn’t appear to be a victim of trauma. Most parents don’t look like trauma inducers, either. We have been trained to associated trauma with sexual abuse or car accidents. People with SZ are much more attuned to picking up trauma that nobody else notices, psychiatrists included. Psychiatrics are always claiming that they met the parents, and they are fine people. I’m sure you would say the same if you met me. However, I will claim special expertise as the mother here, and I feel I know the territory.
Thanks for considering my comment. – Rossa
“I’m a schizophrenogenic mother of a son diagnosed as “schizophrenic” and I believe that yes, all mothers/fathers of children given that diagnosis should be willing to go down the path of linking trauma to result. Trauma, I have discovered, when it comes to schizophrenia is not necessarily the in-your-face kind. It is often subtle and really boils down to inherited family trauma. People with a mental health diagnosis are usually the ones who bring it to the family’s attention. Pharma and its willing handmaidens (doctors and academic researchers) handed families an easy “out” when they convinced people to believe in the damaged brain model. It’s a lot easier to blame it on bad brains or a genetic defect (neither of which are proven) than to say, maybe I should look into the environment that produced the reaction of schizophrenia. I am convinced that many more people would heal if they were encouraged to investigate the family trauma link. There is no shame in it. There are some great therapies at there that my son, my husband and I have done, that have really helped heal the psychic wounds. Sadly, the people who can be helped are not being helped by people (relatives) too afraid to look within themselves for answers. This is psychiatry’s shame. There’s more money to be made in drugs than empathy. I am not familiar with the case under discussion other than what I read in your blog post, but these drugs that are supposedly so helpful, are simply stun gun devices. The public has been duped into believing that all someone has to do is take their meds and all will be well. When you speak of Geodon taking 1 to 3 days to take effect, I presume the effect means to incapacitate the person so he is too stunned to even know what a gun looks like. That’s fine for the short run, but what about the long run? Where’s the help there? Long run help is multidisciplenary and involves taking a serious look at the possible reasons for the psychosis. I am fresh back from a session with my husband and our contractual psychiatrist that explored in a profound way the family history (on both sides) and its tragedies that impact the present generation. This is hardly revolutionary stuff, but to engage in it you have to be willing to not hide behind thinking your relative is a brain damaged psycho who somehow fell to earth from Mars and landed in your family. That’s the story pharma would like you to believe.