All Posts Tagged With: "mental illness"
Luka Magnotta had paranoid schizophrenia
Court document reveals accused killer was hospitalized
Luka Magnotta, accused of killing and dismembering a Chinese student, was treated for paranoid schizophrenia, though his pyschiatrist said he didn’t always take his medication.
A letter from a psychiatrist who saw Magnotta, 30, is attached to the court file on a 2005 conviction for fraud and references the diagnosis of the “major psychiatric disorder.”
The letter was released today after several media outlets fought for it to be made public.
The doctor at the Rouge Valley Health System in Toronto says Magnotta suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since at least 2000 and had been hospitalized several times.
The psychiatrist writes that Magnotta, then known by his birth name Eric Newman, was on anti-psychotic medications but didn’t always take them, which the doctor said could lead to paranoia, auditory hallucinations and fear of the unknown.
A preliminary hearing for Magnotta, is underway in Montreal, where he faces several criminal charges, including first-degree murder, in the gruesome slaying and dismemberment last year of 33-year-old university student Jun Lin.
The newly released letter was attached to Magnotta’s fraud court file at his sentencing, when the judge handed him a conditional sentence for fraud. After reading the letter she warned that Magnotta would always need to take medication, and if he didn’t, she predicted his life “is going to get messed up.”
A Globe and Mail reporter tried to obtain the letter, a public document, but was rebuffed in several attempts. Media outlets then hired counsel to make arguments to a judge for the letter’s release.
Magnotta’s lawyer Luc Leclair tried to stop the letter from becoming public, but Ontario Court Judge Fergus O’Donnell ruled Wednesday afternoon that it should be released.
It does contain sensitive and personal medical information, O’Donnell said in his ruling, but any privacy interest was foregone when the letter was filed in open court.
“Without access to the letter, the public is not in a position to engage in a meaningful assessment or debate over the appropriateness of what happened to Mr. Newman in 2005 in what is supposed to be an open and transparent court process,” O’Donnell wrote.
A bike rave, mental illness & Noah Kishinevsky
What students are talking about today (March 20th)
UBC Bike Rave (parkermckay92/Flickr)
1. Students at the University of British Columbia celebrated cycling culture with electronic music and glow sticks at the UBC Bike Rave on Friday night. It was organized by student residence advisors and was funded by a community grant. Unlike the drug-fuelled all-night parties of the 1990s that inspired the bike rave, this one was, according to The Ubyssey, “good clean fun.”
2. A student writing in The Varsity at the University of Toronto reports that the stress seminar she attended is a sorry excuse for counseling. “I had hoped that this “Coping with Stress” workshop, run by U of T’s Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) would help me, but instead it left me frustrated and angry,” writes Amanda Greer. “After a hard first semester, I approached CAPS about meeting with a counsellor. I was told there was a four month waiting list and to start looking for other options.” She points out that despite much discussion about the mental wellness of Canadian students, including in a recent cover story in Maclean’s, students often can’t access the one-on-one counselling. It’s a shame, but I think the explanation is obvious: tight budgets.
3. Western University is mourning the loss of student Noah Kishinevsky, whose body was found in a parked car at a high rise in London, Ont. The cause of death has not been confirmed, “but a hazardous substance was found in Kishinevsky’s car,” reports The Gazette. Police told the student newspaper that there was “no foul play” and that they won’t release more details.
4. A commentary in The Griff student newspaper at MacEwan University defends Ohio University photography student Sara Lewcowicz, who witnessed a man beat his girlfriend and documented it with photos instead of intervening. The heartbreaking photos of Shane, 31, abusing Maggie, 19, were published in TIME. Rebecca Trites supports the young photojournalist, arguing that intervening can be dangerous and that the photo essay creates awareness of domestic violence.
5. Police arrested 45 people in Montreal who were demonstrating against tuition fee hikes on Tuesday, reports CBC. As usual, police immediately declared the demonstration illegal because organizers did not submit an itinerary in advance. Several of the protesters threw snowballs, and four were arrested for assaults on police, reports Radio-Canada. The hikes recently proposed in Quebec under its Parti Quebecois government are about $70 per year—much less than the $325 increase that was planned by former premier Jean Charest. Quebec students pay about $2,200 per year.
University of B.C. graduate opens up about suicide
Joshua Beharry works to improve mental health on campus
Moments before he jumped off Vancouver’s Oak Street Bridge, Joshua Beharry texted his brother. He was hoping the message would be delayed—his brother had notoriously bad cell reception—but he wanted his family to know what had happened. Then, after waiting for a break in traffic, he leaped over the railing and into the Fraser River. “It was terrifying,” says Beharry, now 25. But even after jumping, he didn’t regret it. “I was thinking ‘this is the right thing to do.’ There was no chance of me ever getting better.”
Just over three years later, Beharry is speaking out about his suicide attempt in hopes that people like him will get help without feeling stigmatized.
Continue reading University of B.C. graduate opens up about suicide
Stop calling these students mentally ill
Anxiety and depression need to be reclassified
Photo by Sander van der Wel on Flickr
Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about efforts to improve the services available to students related to their psychological well-being on campuses. University presidents met for a workshop recently, and Queen’s University welcomed a new $1-million chair to study stigma.
Now, I am no mental health professional but I do know a few things about universities and have some experience with anxiety and depression.
If it were up to me, those trying to improve things on Canadian campuses would keep one crucial principle in mind: be careful how you talk about it.
First, let’s call depression and anxiety something other than “mental illness.”
Students aren’t getting the facts about marijuana
Research shows links to mental illness, lung capacity
Photo by Yeshe on Flickr
When sociologist and drug-policy expert Andy Hathaway surveyed one of his first-year classes at the University of Guelph last fall, 80 per cent of students reported experience with cannabis.
Hathaway cautions that it was only a small pilot study (around 100 responses), and it took place at Guelph, which is, let’s face it, “a bit granola.”
Still, that 80 per cent figure isn’t surprising.
When twelfth graders are asked if they’ve tried marijuana, roughly half say yes.
Provincial rates of lifetime usage now range from a low of 40 per cent of Albertan twelfth-graders to a high of 63 per cent of those in Nova Scotia, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. And that’s before university.
Continue reading Students aren’t getting the facts about marijuana
Big brains, big danger
Universities are “perfect incubators” for mental illness
Photo by Randy Faris/Corbis
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings—on newsstands now. Story by Shanda Deziel.
Jonathan P. describes his second year at the University of British Columbia as “very, very rough.” He had five intensive reading and writing courses in international relations, plus volunteering commitments. But as an overachiever, he felt “on top of his game.” When he fell behind at week five, the Quebec City native decided he needed to work harder. “The obvious solution, to me,” says Jonathan, 21 at the time, “was to spend less time with friends, less time doing fun stuff, and study, study, study.” By week 10, as assignments piled up, he was sleeping three hours a night. “I woke up one morning,” he says, “and I just didn’t have any taste for my studies and every day looked like it would pretty much never end.” He would call home crying. When he told his stepmom he wasn’t eating, she urged him to go to a doctor, who prescribed sleeping pills that got him through the semester. “When I was home for Christmas,” he says, “just the thought of going back to UBC, I was like, ‘Hell, no. This is not happening.’ ”
Student club offers “philosophical counselling”
Group opposes psychiatry
The Students’ Association of Philosophy for Counsellors at the University of the Fraser Valley promoted their club at a recent mental health awareness week, reports The Cascade.
But links on the SAPC’s website show that they not only oppose psychiatry, but question whether mental illness even exists. They also offer a link to a YouTube video that says antidepressant medications—now taken by more than 10 per cent of American adults—may not work.
The club is partly a discussion group, but also offers free talk therapy from students who have studied philosophical counselling in a UFV class called Philosophy for Counsellors.
According to The Cascade: “philosophical counselling uses [philosophical] reasoning and logic to identify the initial premise upon which a person’s thoughts, beliefs, values and assumptions are founded. The thought processes of an individual are followed and examined for fallacies…”
How many students suffer depression in silence?
Students just might not feel they have the time to seek help
Twent-five per cent of university students who seek medical attention on campus may be suffering from depression, according to a new study.
That’s a pretty high number, especially considering that the Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that only eight per cent of Canadians will ever suffer from clinical depression.
It’s probably fair to say that students with depression are more likely to visit their campus clinic, even if they don’t realize they’re suffering from depression.
According to the National Post “students often arrive at the campus clinic complaining of something physical—from fatigue to premature ejaculation — when the real underlying problem is psychological.”
“Frequently they don’t recognize these symptoms as symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression,” Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier, director of student health services at McGill University told the paper.
Now, I’m assuming here, but I feel like most students rarely, if ever, visit health services; students just don’t have time to be sick.
So how many students are suffering in silence? Not feeling sick enough to go to the doctor or thinking that their sad feelings aren’t serious enough to merit medical attention. Could the real rate of depression among university students be even higher?
It’s definitely possible. According to a 2009 Globe and Mail story, around 15 per cent of students are diagnosed with a mental illness while they’re in university. And that number doesn’t count those who don’t seek treatment, which some researchers believe could be as many as half of those suffering, or those who are already receiving treatment.
This isn’t just a North American problem, researchers in Australia recently found that university students are five times more likely to suffer from mental illness than the rest of the population.
Suicide is the second biggest killer of young Canadians, after accidents, so this is clearly an important public health issue.
Our society has certainly come a long way when it comes to normalizing and treating mental illness but even depression is still stigmatized. More importantly, it’s high time to start looking into what’s causing students to have such high rates of depression and other mental illnesses.
