ingliz wrote:And I can't see it being White angst when most shooters are middle-class, and the middle classes have nothing to be angsty about. PoD says they are not mentally ill.
With all due respect, I think POD is quite wrong. I'm not up for a research assignment at the moment, but the last time I looked into it, most of the mass shooters were diagnosed or exhibited signs that they were mentally ill and many were on an anti-depressant such as venlafaxine.
I'm not one to shy away from medical texts, and frankly what I found in reading about psychopharmacology as prescribed at the retail level was disturbing. In the 1950s, they didn't really have much for depression except for
tricyclic anti-depressants.
The first TCA reported for the treatment of depression was imipramine, a dibenzazepine analogue of chlorpromazine code-named G22355. It was not originally targeted for the treatment of depression. The drug's tendency to induce manic effects was "later described as 'in some patients, quite disastrous'". The paradoxical observation of a sedative inducing mania led to testing with depressed patients.
Later, they developed non-selective beta blockers like
Propranolol. However, drugs like that can have serious interactions with blood pressure medications (it's a blood pressure med itself). Now, if you think about Propranolol, it reduces the effect of epinephrine--a neurotransmitter that can lead to anxiety, and in excess for a duration to depression. It was primarily used for coronary artery disease and hypertension, but it was found to have a big effect on anxiety. It's prescribed for stage fright. However, lots of doctors prescribe benzodiazepines to performers. Stage fright is definitely going to be an excess of epinephrine, not an excess of glutamate. Yet, doctors are trained to treat symptoms without necessarily getting into the cause of symptoms. So if a patient speaks of anxiety, they may get a prescription for a benzodiazapine or an SSRI when what they need is a low dose of a beta blocker. Antihistimines like Hydroxazine were shown to have anti-anxiety properties too.
The first major SSRI was developed marketed in 1987--Fluoxetine or Prozac. It was developed after research observed a weak anti-depressant SSRI effect from diphenhydrmine or Benadryl. Since then, there have been countless new SSRI, SNRI and NRIs introduced. In other words, we went from almost no choices to a plethora of treatments. Yet, diagnosis hasn't got any better in my opinion.
Do you have low serotonin? Well than an SSRI might be appropriate. If you have low dopamine, maybe not. If you have high levels of epinephrine, why would an SSRI help? Yet, there aren't really any panel of tests you can take. Doctors don't take your blood or your pee and examine neurotransmitter metabolites nor genotype you and look for genes that may be causing trouble, such as MAOA, COMT, MTHFR, etc.
So since SSRIs don't interact with blood pressure and other medications too much, doctors are encouraged to hand them out like swag at a trade convention.
So what happens if you have someone with a low transcription for MAOA, like a 3-repeat allele and you give them an SSRI because they are anxious and irritable? Could you end up giving them something that leads eventually to a violent manic episode?
That's my theory. Reading a few psychopharmacology books and DSM, I came away from that experience feeling like your family doctor is frankly just guessing.
Julian658 wrote:I agree with POD: Only a small percent of shooters are psychotic which is basically totally nuts and out of touch with reality.
Yes, most are not permanently psychotic, needing Haloperidol or Seroquel. However, it does look a lot like a hypomanic or manic episode. Mania is not always the opposite of depression. Manic people can become quite violent.
wat0n wrote:But even then, even if all shooters are mentally ill in some way, why have shootings increased over time in the US? Has there been an increase in the prevalence of mental illnesses across the board (not just psychosis or psychiatric ones) that could plausibly explain the much greater number of mass shootings?
DSM-IV and even more with DSM-V, doctors are practically encouraged to prescribe anti-depressants.
Julian658 wrote:Up until 1960 most people in the USA were married and had a two parent home. That provides massive stability and avoids the LONER syndrome. The NIHILISM causes this lonely men to commit suicide by cop.
Yes, and with women encouraged to join the workforce, and having no choice if they are single mothers, you have the same effect on human children as the Harry Harlow experiments showed on the effects of maternal deprivation in Rhesus monkeys. Not to worry, doctors are right there with the drugs for you, and if you don't have good insurance, you can always get some meth, ketamine, PCP, or whatever floats your boat off the street. However, I think a lot of these people were legally and clinically medicated.
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