Schizophrenia Discussion Board Forum [2010]

Surveillance and Spying [DRAFT]

by Simon & Oscar

It was a quiet New Year's Day, with my oldest daughter.

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Simon

Suspended officers can’t be forced to get mental help, RCMP say BY CHRIS COBB, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 6, 2010 OTTAWA - The RCMP revealed Tuesday that it cannot force officers under suspension to seek mental health treatment, even though those officers can continue accessing the health services available to all Mounties. The Mounties refuse to discuss the case of accused killer Kevin Gregson, the suspended constable who allegedly killed Ottawa police Const. Ireneusz "Eric" Czapnik last week. But the limits on dealing with suspended officers - even those still receiving full pay - help explain why Gregson's superiors were apparently frustrated as they tried to deal with their deeply troubled constable as far back as five years ago. Gregson, whose pay was finally stopped in November, had apparently expressed contempt for psychological counselling in January 2005 when his superiors in Saskatchewan, where he was based, told him to seek treatment for violent inclinations. The documents, filed in 2005, paint a picture of a deeply troubled man behaving in an irrational and hostile manner and warning supervisors he would not always be able to control himself and might "strike out." A confidential memorandum sent to Gregson in January 2005 ordered the constable to immediately surrender his RCMP gun, badge and office keys, as well as his personal weapons and ammunition, and immediately undergo a health assessment. "You refuse to be open to any type of assistance," said the memo from RCMP Sgt. Rhonda Harlos, then Gregson's superior at the Humboldt detachment. "You have indicated to me that seeing a psychologist is a waste of time as you can manipulate them," Harlos wrote. "You are constantly twisting what is being told to you and are very paranoid of everyone and everything … you are convinced that every one is out to get you. Kevin, this is not natural, normal or healthy." The memo is part of provincial court records. Another report said Gregson did take some counselling and was diagnosed as a sociopath by a Saskatoon doctor. Gregson later successfully appealed the personal weapons seizure, but according to reports, his irrational behaviour continued. He has spent the past half dozen years fighting dismissal from the force and is still officially in a legal battle with the Mounties over the recent removal of his pay. The Saskatchewan documents also refer to several other incidents, including one in August 2004 when he asked police to remove his wife and two children from the family home because "he may not be able to contain his anger." According to the RCMP, serving officers can be forced to take either mental or physical treatment if a health issue impacts their ability to do their job and if that officer refuses, he or she is committing an offence under the RCMP Act. Punishment can include suspension with or without pay. A suspended officer, however, cannot be subject to the same sanction because they are not on the job. Canadian Police Association president Charles Momy said Tuesday that it is illegal - at least under the Ontario Police Services Act - to suspend any officer without pay. "It also allows the police service a certain amount of control over that individual,' said Momy, "but it's difficult for any police service to impose treatment on an employee." But the RCMP has questions to answer, said Momy, an Ottawa police officer. "If the RCMP has any evidence that an individual is a danger to himself or to the public, doesn't the employer have a responsibility to do something about it," he added. "I strongly believe they do. I don't think the responsibility ends when weapons are taken away from the officer." In 2007, Gregson was convicted of threatening to stab to death a Mormon bishop. "You don't know how many ways I've been taught to kill," Gregson, a Mormon, told the church elder. "I am better with a knife than a pistol." Although Bishop Robert Howie told police he thought Ottawa-raised Gregson, now 43, was going to kill him, the Mountie's lawyer said brain cysts had contributed to his client's irrational behaviour. According to court transcripts, Gregson became distraught, saying he feared receiving a psychological examination by the RCMP in case he failed and lost his job. "I'm messed up," Gregson said. "No one knows how messed up I am." Between the May 2006 attack and his court appearance in April the following year, Gregson had surgery to remove the cysts. Judge Bruce Henning took Gregson's medical condition into consideration when he handed Gregson a conditional sentence which meant that if he kept out of trouble for 18 months, he would not have a criminal record. Gregson was not barred from possessing weapons. The RCMP suspended Gregson, but what happened to him in subsequent years remains unclear. Momy said that investigators and the RCMP itself will be digging deeper into the alleged killer's history with the force. "What happened (to Gregson) between 2006 and 2009?" he added. "It appears no one seems to have done anything." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citize

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Simon

Getting help THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 8, 2010 Re: Suspended officers can't be forced to get mental help, RCMP say, Jan. 6. How many more patients must we allow to fall through the cracks before taking action? Obviously Kevin Gregson needs help and has for many years. However, until the government changes the law making it mandatory for patients to take prescribed medication and seek medical help, nobody is safe. A mentally ill person is not in a fit state of mind to make these decisions. Perhaps former senator Michael Kirby, who is Canada's leading mental health advocate, is in a position to start the ball rolling. Diana Ingalls, Nepean © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Cit

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Simon

A mad scheme to kill a scientist 11 Jan 2010 Ottawa Citizen Few cases present such a grim mix of pulp fiction and Greek tragedy as the lonely death of Walter Sartory, a brilliant man with a mental illness, writes BOB DROGIN. 'To think a man who was already paranoid, who lived his whole life in fear of others, could fall prey to something so horrific is heartbreaking.' LINDA TALLY SMITH Prosecutor Like the disturbed genius in Hollywood's A Beautiful Mind, Walter K. Sartory was a brilliant mathematician with a grave mental illness. It made him the perfect victim. BOONE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE VIA LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT Walter K. Sartory was a brilliant mathematician who was treated for paranoid schizophrenia for most of his life. A former housekeeper and her son have been charged with Sartory's kidnapping and murder. Sartory worked for 30 years at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was built in secret for the atomic bomb project and became America's largest science and energy lab. His work on nuclear weapons remains classified, but he published pioneering papers on reactor design, medical centrifuges and other subjects. He won a top award at the lab and held three patents. "You only played chess with Walt two or three times because you were always humiliated," said John Eveleigh, a British biochemist who worked at Sartory's side. "And I played chess for Oxford, so I wasn't an amateur." Sartory was treated most of his life for paranoid schizophrenia. He believed the CIA trained ants to spy on him. He battled social phobias so acute that he turned down a high-paying job rather than submit to an interview. When Sartory retired in 1992, he shut himself in a tiny apartment and used algorithms to invest on Wall Street, building a $14-million portfolio before the stock market crashed last year, records show. With therapy and new medicine, he began to travel. He moved to Hebron in March 2008 to be near the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. He had no immediate family and knew no one in the area. Then last February, old friends phoned police to say the 73-yearold recluse had vanished. Their plea for help came too late. Sartory had been abducted, drugged and duct-taped to a chair, police later concluded. He surrendered his financial accounts, but died after he was denied the medicine that kept his panic attacks at bay. His body was stuffed in a trash can, doused with gasoline and burned. "We all struggle to have faith in mankind," said Linda Tally Smith, the attorney Twho will prosecute the case. "To think a man who was already paranoid, who lived his whole life in fear of others, could fall prey to something so horrific is heartbreaking." Few cases present such a grim mix of pulp fiction and Greek tragedy as the lonely death of Walter Sartory. Last January, Sartory spent three days visiting Therese "Terri" Davis, 60, in Binghamton, New York. They had met on an Internet site for people with personality disorders. This was their first date. "He was so shy, so quiet," she recalled. "We held hands. I'm pretty sure he never held anybody else's hand before." Sartory told her that government agents sometimes tampered with his car. "And when we went out to eat, he thought the waitress was laughing at him. I couldn't get him to smile." Sartory also complained of a pushy housekeeper back home named Willa Blanc. At 47, she wore big blond wigs and rhinestone-encrusted fake fingernails, even when cleaning homes, and drove a candy-apple red 2007 Corvette. Blanc worked in Sartory's neighbourhood and offered to clean his house in mid-2008. He declined, but she kept bothering him, he said. Sartory also complained about Blanc to Ann Cartee in Sterling, Virginia. They had met in an Internet mental health forum years before and spent hours together on the phone nearly every day. "He said Blanc would knock on his door, barge in, and before you know it, she was there for two hours," Cartee recalled. "He didn't know how to get her to leave." When Sartory returned from Binghamton, he found that Blanc and her 27-year-old son, Louis Wilkinson, had cleared his driveway of snow. Blanc handed Sartory mail, including financial statements, that she had taken from his mailbox. Less than a month later, on Feb. 26, Cartee and her husband, Robert, called the Boone County Sheriff's Department in Kentucky to say their friend had not answered phone calls or responded to e-mails in 10 days. Deputies checked Sartory's beige bungalow several times. But the shades were drawn, as usual, and nothing seemed amiss. They left notes under the door. Then, on March 4, deputies noticed that the garage door was unlocked and entered the house through there. They discovered that the scientist had converted his living room into a monitoring station for extraterrestrial life. Six powerful computers were running a program that analysed radio signals from outer space. Deputies found Sartory's schedules. Each day, he set precise times to brush his teeth, get dressed and so on, and then checked off each completed task. In the kitchen, they found the prescription pills Sartory took daily to ward off psychotic episodes. He would not have left home without them. Neighbours mentioned seeing a van from the cleaning service Molly Maids in Sartory's driveway. Company officials disclosed that Blanc, who sometimes worked for them, told them that she and Sartory "would be travelling" indefinitely. On March 10, Sheriff 's Chief Detective Coy Cox stopped at Blanc's two-storey brick home in nearby Union, Kentucky. She assured him she had just seen Sartory in a grocery store and promised to call when she heard from him. The next day, Cox found a letter in Sartory's mailbox from Fidelity Investments. The detective faxed a subpoena to Fidelity, which informed him that Blanc had added her name to Sartory's brokerage account. Cox raced back to Blanc to demand an explanation. This time, she said she had passed Sartory in his silver Prius. "I said, 'That's not what you told me before'," Cox recalled. "She was totally cool, didn't blink an eye. She said, 'Really? Well, he's fine. He's probably home now.'" As Cox drove away, Blanc packed a bag and fled with her son. Cox's investigation took him to Indiana, where Blanc had been in an accident and totalled an SUV. Police told him Blanc was hauling a large plastic trash barrel when she crashed. She told police at the scene that the can contained firewood. The lid was fastened with bungee cord, and no one bothered to check. She insisted that the tow-truck driver return the wrecked SUV, barrel and all, to Kentucky. Once there, police say, Blanc and her son moved the trash barrel to a rented Dodge van and drove back to Indiana. Blanc had stopped shortly before the accident to gamble at the Argosy, a riverboat casino on the Ohio River. Now, on her second trip with the barrel, she stopped at another gaming hall. "They played bingo until it got dark," Cox said. Then they drove to her friend's farmhouse about 60 kilometres southwest of Indianapolis. The farmhouse owner, Dwayne Lively, later told police that Blanc and her son drove up, but did not stay. But Lively's daughter, Amanda, pulled up just as detectives were leaving and gave a more alarming story. "She said Willa Blanc just showed up and said she had a large dog in the trash can, and paid her dad $1,000 to help them burn it," prosecutor Smith said. "They took all night to do it. This was even weirder than we were imagining." Blanc's son "got third-degree burns from churning the fire," said his lawyer, Jason Gilbert, a public defender. Blanc, he added, "didn't sleep for 48 to 72 hours during this period. She was manic." Police found charred human remains, a pair of burned metal-rim glasses, and steel tread from incinerated tires scattered in the nearby Morgan-Monroe State Forest. Arrest warrants were issued for Blanc and Wilkinson. Police spotted Blanc's Corvette at a Red Roof Inn before dawn the next day in nearby Sharonville, Ohio, and arrested them both. Blanc and Wilkinson have pleaded not guilty to charges including murder, kidnapping, theft and abuse of a corpse. They are being held in lieu of $10-million bail each in the Boone County jail. After his arrest, Wilkinson told Cox that he was "tired of his mother controlling his life" and of being her "slave." He gave two videotaped statements. The grisly details spilled out at subsequent court hearings. Wilkinson lived in the basement of the house his mother and her husband shared. He had discovered Sartory confined there on Feb. 16 or 17, he said. The elderly man's hands and feet were taped to a chair, and tape covered his mouth. He appeared drugged. Wilkinson said his mother ordered him to stay in the basement and locked the door. He said he pulled the tape from Sartory's mouth, and the captive asked if the "terrorist had been paid" and pleaded to be set free. Denied his pills for several days, Sartory repeatedly vomited and struggled to breathe. Wilkinson said he tried to revive him three times with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but never called 911. Wilkinson told detectives he carried Sartory "like a baby" up the stairs at one point to get him medical help, but his mother ordered him to stop. It's not clear when Sartory died, but Wilkinson said they stored the body in the trash can for two days in the garage. Before Sartory died, police say, he gave Blanc his computer passwords and a power of attorney granting control over his bank and brokerage accounts. He also appeared to revise his will to leave Blanc the bulk of his fortune, although police believe the document is forged. Blanc withdrew $210,000 from Sartory's account, the maximum available, before her arrest and was due to get $1.3 million more the day Cox sent his subpoena and Fidelity stopped the transfer. When police searched her home, he said, they found a book with a title like How to Choose Your Prey in her safe. "In her mind, he was perfect," Cox said. "She's tapped out. He has lots of money. He doesn't know anybody. He lives behind closed doors. He's trying to communicate with ET. Who would miss him?" At an hour-long court hearing Dec. 2, Wilkinson stared at the floor, never looking at his mother. She fidgeted and glared at reporters through sparkling, large-frame Dolce & Gabbana designer glasses above her black-and-white prison stripes. Smith said she will seek the death penalty for Blanc when the case goes to trial, probably in the summer. Joanne Lynch, a public defender who represents Blanc, said the case is in a preliminary stage and the facts are still undetermined. Boone Circuit Judge Anthony W. Frohlich had scheduled a hearing Jan. 7 to determine whether Wilkinson is mentally competent to stand trial, but it was rescheduled for Jan. 20. His lawyers also will seek to have his confession tossed out. Sartory's last known act was to send two dozen red roses on Valentine's Day to Terri Davis, the woman he visited in Binghamton. "The flowers were so beautiful," she said. "I tried calling him and calling him and calling him. And then I heard the news. And I cried, and I cried and I cried." THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

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Simon

Anger, grief and the bigger picture BY JANICE KENNEDY, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 17, 2010 10:01 AM It will be a challenge. After the massive emotional outpouring; after the poignant recollections and heartfelt tributes; after the timely calls for honour, gratitude and respect for the police officers who serve and protect us -- and who sometimes die violently in the process, like Const. Eric Czapnik -- it will be difficult to do what we must. Spare a thought for the accused. Kevin Gregson, the 43-year-old suspended Mountie who has been charged in Czapnik's murder, merits at least as much thought as the slain police officer who, apparently, was so easy to love. Gregson was not so easy to love, from what we've learned. All the same, we need to think about him seriously, openly and maybe (if we can manage it) sympathetically. We need to think about him if there is to be even the faintest glimmer of light emerging from the tragic early-morning darkness of Dec. 29. But the thought we spare for Gregson should not be confined to just what we know so far about his troubled history: the disturbing incidents on his service record; the admission that he felt "messed up" and isolated; the repeatedly expressed worries about anger control; the paranoia and stockpiled weapons; the 2006 incident with the knife and the Mormon bishop; the possible effects of cysts on the brain. All these things are crucial to understanding Gregson and deconstructing the systemic breakdowns that may have led to the needless death of a fine officer and a good man. But important as they are, they are details in a larger reality. And the larger reality remains that gigantic blob of elephant in our collective living room: mental illness. Because we still don't get it. As a society, we do a great job of caring deeply about surfaces. We pay impressive lip service to the sanitized notion of mental illness -- to being aware, sympathetic understanding and ... well, fill in the polite and politically correct adjective of your choice. But in the messy realities that sometimes make up manifestations of mental illness, especially in that small minority of cases where bizarre behaviour is also accompanied by violence, we're not so hot. Our jails, filled with people being punished for the effects of the untreated mental illness they suffer, are depressing testament to that fact. And the murder of Const. Czapnik, with its high profile and vast expression of grief, has brought out the worst in many of us. Online public discussions of the case have referred to the accused as a "nutjob" and "monster." Predictably, calls for the reinstatement of capital punishment are echoing around the country. " 'People' like this do not deserve to take another breath," wrote one news reader, enclosing "people" in ironic quotes. "It makes no sense to keep these types of people alive," wrote another in a Stalinist flourish. "I don't care to hear that the suspect had mental problems," wrote yet another. "The suspect should be executed before sundown." The complicating thing is that such impassioned (and disturbingly common) reactions to murder and senseless tragedy are entirely understandable. By any measure of emotional logic, they hold up perfectly. For instance, you expect instinctive passion from someone like the mother of Tim McLean. Her son was beheaded on a Greyhound bus by a schizophrenic man in the grips of a delusional psychotic episode. McLean's mother was furious when a judge found Vincent Li not criminally responsible since "he still did it. Whether he was in his right frame of mind or not, he still did the act." That reaction is a powerful reminder of the roiling passions that make us humans tick, for better and for worse. But in our more clear-headed moments, we also know that it's ultimately misplaced, that the furious desire for revenge will neither undo the crime nor serve justice, if the perpetrator was not of sound mind. It makes satisfying emotional sense, but that's all. There's no other saving grace about it. The truth, which seems to keep eluding us, is that mental illness is illness. And illness is not a choice. The devastating consequences of illness -- whether a failing of vital organs or the terrifying buzz of strange voices in the brain -- are not an act of will. Why is it we understand so empathically when the reference is to cancer, cystic fibrosis, meningitis -- and stop short when the word "mental" precedes "illness?" If it turns out that Kevin Gregson, with or without brain cysts, suffers from mental illness (a not unreasonable supposition, given what we know), the legal route may lead ultimately to a "not criminally responsible" (NCR) decision. Should that happen, it would suggest real social progress if we were to be blessed with an absence of noisy reaction from the get-tough-on-crime gang. It would show marked social maturing if, instead of predictable comments about NCR being a scam or tool of the soft liberal left, the usual critics simply observed a few moments of golden silence. The silence could signal understanding that, yes, the behaviours of mental illness are something different from moral choice. It could be the acknowledgement of a tragedy that has taught us that lesson, once again. It could be a show of respect for Const. Eric Czapnik, who didn't deserve his fate. It could even be a small nod of sympathy for Kevin Gregson who, just maybe, didn't deserve his, either. Janice Kennedy writes here on Sundays. E-mail: 4janicekennedy@gmail.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Simon

Triggered by a trivial dispute with my kids, I experienced another emotional outburst, i.e., the recurrence of the bad memories from 2005-2006. I told my oldest daughter what I learned from movie "The General's Daughter (1999)", i.e., betrayal is worse than rape. I have come to realise that I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

After watching an episode of TV programme "Remorse (House)", I suddenly realised that my ex-mother-in-law is a psychopath. I recalled my youngest daughter saying that her grandmother is manipulating her grandfather and other people, too.

Wikipedia defines it as follows, which exactly fits the observation by me and by my kids.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy. Researcher Robert Hare describes psychopaths as "intraspecies predators who use charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexual intercourse and violence to control others and to satisfy their own needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse". "What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony." Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion; some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments. There is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopathy; there are no medications or other techniques which can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. The consensus among researchers is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth. It is estimated that one percent of the general population are psychopaths.

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Simon

Gambling labelled mental disorder 10 Feb 2010 Ottawa Citizen BY SHARI ROAN LOS ANGELES After years of research, professional infighting and maneuvering from various interest groups, American psychiatrists on Tuesday unveiled proposed changes to the manual used to diagnose and treat mental disorders around the world. The draft document, released by the American Psychiatric Association, for the first time calls for binge eating and gambling to be considered disorders. But it refrains from suggesting a formal diagnosis for obesity, Internet or sex addictions, as some professionals proposed. The document also recommends a single category for autism spectrum disorders, unifying what has been a complicated diagnostic scale. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will be published in 2013. The book is also used by insurance companies making decisions on treatment coverage and in courtrooms and schools. DSM-5 is likely to list fewer diagnoses than DSM-4. Experts have proposed folding several disorders into single categories based on studies that suggest some disorders have similar origins, symptoms and treatments but only vary in severity. MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

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Simon

My 20-year old son was hospitalised a few days ago due to a wild night at a friend's place. He was drinking alcohol, and had no memory of his violent action which involved hitting a glass object instead of other people, thankfully.

The checkup and a brain scan at the hospital showed nothing unusual. However, he experienced a psychosis, so he was transferred to le Centre hospitalier Pierre-Janet and stayed there under observation for 3 days.

Because of his mother's mental illness, he is quite interested in how the brain works. At one time, he even showed an interest in becoming a neurologist, and he is still interested in brain research. He also experimented with drugs like magic mushroom, marijuana and LSD.

A social worker at the hospital called me to arrange an interview to discuss my son's background. So, I prepared a 100-page document, i.e., excerpts from the Schizophrenia Discussion Board Forum in 2005.

The one-hour appointment became a 2-hour session. I received a parking ticket when I parked for 2 hours on a street in front of le Centre hospitalier Pierre-Janet. :-(

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Simon

Brad Rawn's story proves it's really never over until it's over Brad Rawn has a lump in his throat that hasn't gone away in 15 years. BY HUGH ADAMI, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN FEBRUARY 21, 2010 A bitter custody dispute with his ex-wife, a chronic paranoid schizophrenic, over the woman's access to their two children finally ended in 2007, in his favour. The legal fight took more than 11 years. It ruined Rawn financially, while his ex-wife had the benefit of legal aid. Now he's facing a battle with his former lawyer, Richard Marks, who is looking at his Greely home to try to recoup at least some of the money he says he is owed by Rawn. Rawn, an airplane mechanic, declared bankruptcy in November and doesn't have any equity on the house. He owes about $135,000 to his bank, which has not foreclosed on his mortgage. Marks says he is just trying to get paid what a court has determined he is entitled to for representing Rawn. Rawn has complained to the Law Society of Upper Canada about Marks' actions. The Law Society is reviewing the matter. Rawn says Marks sent him an unexpected bill -- for $58,046.75 -- in January 2009. The bill shows $46,050 in credits for a total fee of $104,096.75, dating back, says Marks, to 2003, when Rawn first hired him. The bill came 14 months after Rawn received what he thought was supposed to be his final invoice after the 2007 hearing, for $42,597.93. Rawn says he only had a remaining balance of about $2,000 on the November 2007 bill when he received the January 2009 invoice. In the 2009 invoice, Rawn was charged $300 an hour for 321.75 hours of work, plus taxes. In the 2007 bill, Marks rate was $371.52 an hour for 103.15 hours of work, plus taxes. A letter from Marks to Rawn before the 12-day hearing in early 2007 says "the costs of the trial will be very high and I expect if it goes beyond one week, you can anticipate that our fees will be in the range of $20,000 plus any fees that we have to pay for expert witnesses." Rawn says he tried to contact Marks to get an explanation for the 2009 bill, but couldn't reach him. Rawn says he saw Marks again when the veteran lawyer took him to so-called assessment court, which handles billing disputes between lawyers and clients. The assessment officer ruled that Rawn owed the lawyer virtually all the money plus interest. Rawn says at the hearing Marks explained that he had the bill recalculated dating back to 2003 because he previously had problems with computer software he used for billing purposes. But Marks told me that the November 2007 invoice was just a "pre-bill," which he ran off from his computer. "I'm just running this off so we can kind of keep him abreast of how things are going, and we needed to make sure he understood this was going to be an expensive process," Marks said. "I knew he had no money. I knew he was limited in terms of cash flow ... He had two kids to support and he was trying to provide a nice lifestyle for them ... that's why we had all these discussions about running a huge bill here and the likelihood of never getting paid. "We carried him for five years." "We never had actually rendered him a (complete) bill (until the January 2009 invoice)," says Marks. "We came to the office and I said 'Brad, we have to sit down and start talking about what your account is.' So we were going through the accounting, and I said: 'This is on a very casual basis' and 'I think your bill is somewhere in this range.' "Then, there was confusion of whether he had paid or not paid for this or that, and then I said, what we'll do is just run it all off." Rawn didn't make any payment following the assessment ruling, so Marks moved to garnishee his wages last fall. Rawn says he was forced into bankruptcy. Under an agreement between Rawn and the bankruptcy trustee, Marks will, over 21 months, receive a very small fraction of the debt owed to him by Rawn. Rawn is now paying $365 a month -- the amount fluctuates depending on his net pay at different times of the year. Part of that monthly cheque goes to Marks and a portion goes to the trustee. The bankruptcy trustee, Ginsberg, Gingras and Associates Inc., says it is highly unusual for an unsecured creditor to be interested in a property that doesn't have any equity. Marks asked the bankruptcy trustee for an appraisal of the home, because "I don't accept there is no equity in the property." Rawn says the appraisal requested by Marks was done recently and confirms his house is worth around $135,000. Rawn says he was also told by the trustee that it has since been asked by Marks to carry out much-needed repairs to the house to raise its value. The trustee would not comment further. Asked if he thinks he'll ever recoup the money he says Rawn owes him: Marks replied: "I don't know. This is not the focus of my life. ... Life goes on." Rawn's nightmare began around the time his second child was born in 1995. His marriage collapsed, and, not long after, his ex-wife was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The children, a boy and girl, 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 respectively, were placed in Rawn's care in 1996, the year they divorced. His ex-wife demanded greater access to the children, including overnight visits. But Rawn was opposed, given her condition, and would often not obey the more restrictive rights that she had at that time. But the mother was granted overnight visits -- as long as a relative was present -- following a 2002 hearing in which Rawn represented himself. He parted ways with his previous lawyer in 2000 because of the expense. According to the court document from the 2007 hearing, his ex-wife suffered from alcohol and drug abuse and had been a patient at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. The document also said she had delusions, including thoughts that Rawn abused their children. Rawn says his ex-wife went to the police with allegations that he was trying to poison her and the two children. Rawn says she would also call police to tell them he was responsible for various Ottawa murders. The 2007 court document also says that in 2000, in view of the children, she attempted to run down Rawn with a vehicle. Despite the woman's condition, the court document says a professional assessment found that the children's visits with their mother were positive. It "confirmed that the children were comfortable in their mother's home and appeared to enjoy their time there. The children were affectionate with their mother and she with them." The 2007 ruling also says that although Rawn "has cared very well and lovingly for his children ... under some very difficult and trying circumstances ... the evidence supports the finding that (he) substantially contributes to the problems surrounding the children's access to their mother." Rawn was later awarded $10,000 in court costs for the 2007 hearing, payable through his ex-wife. But the court determined that attempts by the two parties to settle the matter without a hearing were hindered because Rawn kept changing his demands. Rawn, for his part, says it was wrong for someone as mentally ill as his ex-wife to have access to legal aid as long as she did, while he had to financially fend for himself. While she didn't have any money to lose, he says he was forced to spend every penny he had, including what he was hoping to save for his children's education, on legal bills. He took out a second mortgage, a $35,000 bank line of credit, and borrowed from his parents. One consolation from the 2007 hearing for Rawn is that he was successful in having his ex-wife lose her rights to overnight visits. The court ruled the mother would only regain those rights under certain conditions. Those conditions have not yet been met. Is something bothering you where you live, work or play? We'd like to know. Please contact thepubliccitizen@thecitizen.canwest.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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B.C. father found not criminally responsible for deaths of children Mental illness, psychotic behaviour a factor in killings, judge finds CANWEST NEWS SERVICE AND KAMLOOPS DAILY NEWS FEBRUARY 23, 2010 3:08 AM A British Columbia man has been found not criminally responsible for the 2008 murders of his three children. Allan Schoenborn meant to kill his daughter and sons but psychotic delusions robbed him of his ability to know what he was doing was wrong, a judge ruled here Monday. "I find that Mr. Schoenborn did commit the first-degree murder of each of his children as described in the indictment, but is not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder," wrote B.C. Supreme Court Judge Robert Powers in his ruling. Schoenborn, 41, had pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murders of Kaitlynne, 10, Max, 8, and Cordon, 5, who were found dead in the family trailer in Merritt, B.C., in April 2008. Their mother, Schoenborn's former common-law wife Darcie Clarke, made the gruesome discovery after she left the children alone with their father and spent the night at her mother's house. Her two sons had been smothered and her daughter stabbed to death. Police launched an extensive manhunt and Schoenborn was arrested 10 days after the murder in the hills above Merritt, about 270 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. Powers on Monday agreed with the defence arguments, citing evidence of Schoenborn's mental illness, as well as psychotic behaviour in the months leading up to the killings. "Any reasonable or rational person would know that it was wrong. However, due to his psychosis at the time, he was not able to make that decision," he said. The judge rejected the Crown's assertion Schoenborn killed his children to get revenge on Clarke. Schoenborn admitted to killing his children but testified during his three-month trial that he feared they were being sexually abused and that killing them was the only way to end their suffering. "Mr. Schoenborn, if anything, was overprotective," Powers said Monday. "The irony is that the real danger to the children was Mr. Schoenborn himself and none of the dangers that he imagined in his mind." The B.C. Review Board will now decide on Schoenborn's fate. Powers said he will remain in custody until he appears before the board in the next 90 days. Outside the courthouse, defence lawyer Peter Wilson said Powers gave a thoughtful, comprehensive judgment. "It was the right result," said Wilson. "It shows the system works. It's clear Mr. Schoenborn was mentally ill. "He loved his children. What he did didn't make any sense. He loved them." Schoenborn's trial, heard without a jury, began on Oct. 5. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Did a child killer manage to fool a B.C. court? CANWEST NEWS SERVICE MARCH 13, 2010 Kim Robinson stands by his decision to turn in Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, even though his faith in the justice system has been shattered, writes Tobi Cohen. Hailed as a hero for capturing a convicted child killer, Kim Robinson stands by his decision to turn in Allan Schoenborn rather than take justice into his own hands. Ever since a British Columbia Supreme Court found Schoenborn guilty in the deaths of his three children -- but not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder -- Robinson has heard countless musings from people who say they would have killed Schoenborn had they been the ones to find him. While the long-time hunter and trapper is not second-guessing his choice to turn Schoenborn in, he doesn't mince words when he describes how the verdict has left him with "a bad taste in his mouth." "I don't feel that I have any faith in the justice system," he said in an interview from his home in Merritt, B.C., a little more than two weeks after the verdict. "He had a life not a lot of us would envy, but there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country I would bet that have had very similar lives and very similar kinds of mental distresses. "I hope that (this verdict is) not sending a signal to people that if you've finally had it after years of breaking up with your wife you can go and do something horrible like that and be deemed not responsible." Robinson was the man who found Schoenborn, identified by police at the time as the key suspect in the deaths of his daughter Kaitlynne, 10, and sons Max, 8, and Cordon, 5. Robinson found the 41-year-old cowering in a field 10 days after the bodies of his children were discovered by their mother inside the family's trailer in April 2008 in the B.C. interior community. The court heard the young girl had been stabbed, while the boys were smothered. Schoenborn told the court he killed the children because he believed they were being sexually abused. He was found guilty of first-degree murder last month. While the courts found the Merritt man was suffering from a delusional disorder and had symptoms of schizophrenia, Robinson said the judge may have thought differently had he spent the same 20 minutes with Schoenborn that he did while awaiting police. Robinson described Schoenborn as a jilted husband who was upset that his wife had left him and surprised to learn she hadn't taken her own life when she discovered her children dead. "All he wanted was a cigarette," Robinson said of their brief encounter. "He knew what he did was wrong and he hid from it." Recapping his testimony, Robinson said Schoenborn told him he killed the children to save them from a "life of humility." "The impression I got was that he felt he didn't have a good life," he said. "He had 10 days to think up a story." Robinson believes Schoenborn is a skilled manipulator and fears he'll have no problem convincing a review board that he's been rehabilitated. "I feel he isn't really nuts," said Robinson. "I think if he had to prove something in order to be released from a mental institution, I believe he'll be able to do that." The B.C. Review Board has 90 days from the time of the verdict to hold a hearing to determine Schoenborn's fate. The board must determine if Schoenborn is mentally fit and whether he poses a risk to the public if released. Given the nature of the case, experts have said Schoenborn is most likely to end up in custody at the Forensic Psychiatric Centre in Port Coquitlam, B.C. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Bus killer could soon go free: doctor Vince Li responding faster than usual to treatment BY GORDON SINCLAIR JR., WINNIPEG FREE PRESS MARCH 17, 2010 The man behind one of the most shocking violent crimes in recent memory is responding well to psychiatric treatment and could be released from custody in just a few years. Vince Li stabbed, decapitated and dismembered 22-year-old Tim McLean in front of nearly three dozen horror-stricken witnesses on board a Greyhound bus outside Portage la Prairie, Man., in July 2008. He was suffering from untreated schizophrenia and psychotic delusions at the time. Li was found not criminally responsible during his trial in March 2009. A provincial panel ruled 10 months ago that the Chinese immigrant must be confined indefinitely under heavy security at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre. Dr. Stanley Yaren, Li's original psychiatrist, said Monday that his former patient is making good progress in treatment -- and could be released into the community in a matter of years. "It's really a guess," Yaren said. "But I'm going to say a time frame within five years is not unrealistic. "Relatively speaking, his response to treatment ... has been better than average, somewhat faster than usual." At the time of the attack, Li claimed he'd been hearing commands from God, ordering him to kill McLean -- a stranger Li apparently believed was a demon. Yaren reported that since last autumn, Li was no longer hearing voices. After his arrest, Li reportedly claimed he wanted to die. Yaren said Li thought at the time that he had failed to obey everything "God" had told him to do. Later, Yaren said, Li wondered whether it was an evil God who told him to kill the young bus passenger sleeping beside him. Within a month of the murder, as his medication took effect, Li began to accept he was ill and that the voices that drove him to kill were illusions. Yaren said it was then that his patient made a remarkable decision. "He wanted to meet the family and apologize to them," Yaren said. That meeting apparently never took place. McLean's family was angry with the verdict in Li's case. Shortly before Li's trial, McLean's mother vowed to fight to make sure her son's killer was never released into the community. "I am absolutely terrified of him and his capabilities. I think he'd do it again," said Carol deDelley. "I'm going to fight to keep everyone safe from him. If it means going (to court) every year, I'll go every year. Instead of birthday parties, it'll be (not criminally responsible) hearings." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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I attended a conference "La schizophrénie et le trouble schizophréniforme" at le Centre hospitalier Pierre-Janet Wednesday evening with my 19-year old daughter. It reminded her that her mother's symptoms (delusions and auditory hallucination) exactly match the definition of psychosis.

The speaker said that if one parent has schizophrenia, his/her child is 13 times as likely to have schizophrenia as the general population. We also learned that the rate of schizophrenia in the population is not 1 % as previously thought, but 0.5 %. I am alarmed by the continuing decrease of the rate over the years from 1.1 % to 1.0 %, 0.8 %, and now 0.5 %. I am afraid that hidden cases like my ex-wife's are not included in this new statistics...

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It was unseasonably warm, so I went cycling for the first time this season to the Champlain Lookout of the Gatineau Park on Sunday and on Monday. I was able to use gear combination of 2-7 throughout, but I needed a few brief pauses. It took me 4 hours round trip, instead of usual 3-1/2 hours. I was exhausted after cycling.

I have to cycle 23 more times this year in order to reach the life-time goal of 100 times.

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Fighting mental illness one order at a time Legal muscle has helped, expert says 7 Apr 2010 Ottawa Citizen KELLY EGAN Jeffrey Arenburg helped create Community Treatment Orders for the mentally ill. Possibly, they could have saved him from himself. We'll never know. Arenburg committed one of the more chilling acts of our times, the cold-blooded slaying of sportscaster Brian Smith, a man he only knew through the mad lens of his schizophrenia. In the wake of the tragedy, Ontario law was changed to permit psychiatrists to issue binding orders that require the severely mentally ill to accept treatment, especially medication, as a condition of living in the community. Violation of the order could result in arrest and another hospital stay. (At the time of the slaying in 1995, Arenburg was untreated for his paranoid schizophrenia.) It has been roughly 10 years since CTOs were first made available. At a public lecture on Thursday, the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group will provide an overview on how this new tool has worked. Co-ordinator and social worker Ann-Marie O'Brien, the speaker, rankles at the suggestion the orders are a form of hospital "parole" for patients who are criminally involved or a possible threat to their neighbours. Far from it, she says. The great majority of those on such orders have no criminal involvement at all. In the last decade, the Royal has issued 508 orders for 217 individuals. The orders last six months, though they are renewable, and patients can appeal conditions to an oversight panel. Typically, the orders are only used on those with a "serious and persistent" mental illness, with schizophrenia and associated psychoses being the common thread. Taking medication regularly is a key component, as is contact with a physician or case manager. Supportive housing is often an additional requirement. If patients go underground and skip their meds, they can be apprehended and returned to the hospital for assessment and possible readmission. (A history of hospital stays, in fact, is a prerequisite to issuing an order.) O'Brien says shelters, hostels and families like CTOs because they establish a clear blueprint for treatment. "It really puts a floor on suffering," she said Tuesday. "A person living in a puddle of urine under a bridge is not making a choice. We're saying, if there is a mental illness, we're going to have the courage to provide a plan of treatment, of care and supervision. "A journey of recovery can begin with an involuntary admission." (Unsaid, however, is the fact that Ottawa is woefully under-served with case workers to manage the worst afflicted, usually those homeless and addicted.) The Royal put us in touch with a family that has had experience with such orders. What a harrowing time they've had. Their son began with booze and drugs at age 14. By 17, he had virtually dropped out of school. By age 20, he was a father in a soured relationship. Drug abuse was a persistent problem. Life, school, was all fits and starts. Nothing seemed to stick. Finally, after living on the street and in shelters, he was taken to the Royal and diagnosed, at the end of 1999, with schizophrenia. He was 33. He started taking medication, but had little insight into his illness. His parents, meanwhile, were turning into full-time health-care workers, being forced to learn the system's ins-and-outs. There were many low points, like October 2002. Early one morning, acting on a tip, they drove to a bridge over the Rideau River near Algonquin College. They peeked underneath. There was their son, sleeping on a concrete ledge, clothed in rags. "Watching my son live like an animal makes me sick," the mother wrote in a narrative of the family's experience. More ups and downs followed. A stay at a treatment centre for his addictions. A beating over a drug debt. In 2002, another admission to the Royal. This time, he was released under a community treatment order that compelled him to take his medication, live in a group home and see a case worker. Eventually, the order expired and the man tried living on his own in an apartment. That year, 2006, was a disaster, his mother said. When he finally left, mother wanted to see how bad things were. In the living room, she said, "there was a pile of stuff the size of a Volkswagen." In the unit, she found dozens and dozens of needles. The crowd he was running with had been using the unit as a shooting gallery, taking advantage of his passive nature. Another CTO followed in January 2007. In all, it would be renewed five times. It has not all been smooth sailing, but the man, now in his 40s, has found some stability. Her son now has a network of supporters and advocates outside the family. "The CTO has been instrumental in giving him the ability to have structure in his life." The lecture begins at 7 p.m. at the Royal on Carling. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Police killer held in stalking Schizophrenic who shot Ottawa officer in 1977 accused of harassing female neighbour BY GARY DIMMOCK, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 14, 2010 OTTAWA - Fred Koepke, the deranged sniper who killed rookie Const. David Kirkwood and wounded seven other Ottawa police officers in a 1977 shootout, has been arrested on stalking charges and is to appear in court this morning, the Citizen has learned. Koepke, now 56, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1978. He is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. At his murder trial 32 years ago, court heard that he was capable of lying to stay out of prison. The jury also heard that he had been gripped by delusions that police were coming to kill him and that he opened fire in "self-defence" as officers closed in. The court heard at the time that Koepke had actually been diagnosed as mentally ill two years before Kirkwood, 21, was shot and killed while executing an arrest warrant at Koepke's two-storey family home on Gladstone Avenue. A psychiatrist determined that Koepke would be better off being treated in the community rather than in a secured hospital. When he was found not guilty of Kirkwood's killing by reason of insanity, the court confined him to a mental hospital. His defence lawyer then said Koepke would likely spend at least 10 years in treatment, if not the rest of his life. A review board comprised of doctors and clergy freed him 10 years later because he no longer posed a threat to society. Following his release, he would be charged with assaulting his mother at the same home where he engaged Ottawa police in a three-hour shootout from an upstairs window. Koepke now faces charges of criminal harassment in connection with a series of stalking incidents in 2009 involving a former neighbour. Police and prosecutors allege that a man would repeatedly show up at the woman's door. When she told him to leave her alone, he refused. Sometimes, prosecutors say, the man would show up at her door, and other times, he would be parked in a car across the street spying on her. One day, after she told him to stay out of her life, she walked out of her front door with her child in tow only to see the him again, parked in a car across the street. Another time, the man is said to have shown up at the woman's parents' home, demanding that their daughter, who was inside at the time, come out and talk to him. They refused. The police have been investigating since. In 1982, Koepke's lawyer said his client's "problem" could be "controlled by drugs" and that he was off medication "at the time of the (1977) shooting." Police today fear Koepke has stopped taking his medication again. Koepke is known for handling rifles and shotguns. He also likes to spend his free time tinkering under the hoods of old cars. When Koepke was arrested in 1989 after the assault on his mother, his defence lawyer dismissed police fears about his client's freedom. Scott Milloy said his client was "perfectly normal" and "has every right to be on the street." His former client will literally be on the street in a few days. The Citizen has learned that Koepke is scheduled to be evicted this week from his apartment in Chinatown. According to his landlord, and records from Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board, Koepke hasn't paid rent since January. His landlord served a termination notice on March 2. Koepke, according to government records, owes his landlord $1,600.76. The Landlord and Tenant Board heard the landlord's application for termination on March 31. Koepke didn't show up for the hearing. The board also ruled that he owed interest on the back rent, plus the landlord's costs of filing the termination notice. So, as of today, Koepke owes $3,238 to the landlord, according to the provincial board. If he doesn't make the payment by week's end, he'll be out on the street. Gary Dimmock can be reached at 613.726.6869 or gdimmock@thecitizen.canwest.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Police killer not fit for stalking trial Judge orders paranoid schizophrenic into treatment for 60 days BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN 15 Apr 2010 A paranoid schizophrenic who killed one Ottawa police officer and wounded seven others in a 1977 shootout has been found not fit to stand trial on criminal harassment charges and ordered to undergo treatment for 60 days at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. After that, a judge will determine if Fred Koepke, 56, can stand trial on the two charges or remains unfit. Koepke is facing charges of criminal harassment in connection with a series of stalking incidents in 2009 involving a former neighbour. In 1978, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting 21-year-old Const. David Kirkwood to death while he executed a search warrant on Koepke's twostorey family home on Gladstone Avenue. Wearing a brown suit jacket over an open-collared dress shirt, an unshaven Koepke sat in the prisoner's box, frequently running his hand through collar-length hair that did little to hide the bald spot on the top of his head. He interrupted the hearing several times, standing up and speaking rapidly to his lawyer, Ken Hall, and later Ontario Court Justice Ann Alder, commenting on the proceedings and the opinions of a psychiatrist who was testifying. The psychiatrist's testimony, along with Koepke's statements and the judge's reasons for finding him not fit to stand trial and making the treatment order, are all protected by a court-ordered publication ban. Such a ban is routine, meant to protect the fairness of a possible trial later, since the defence has little opportunity to respond to allegations made by the Crown at this stage. Koepke, who had been living in Chinatown, will remain in custody at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre while receiving treatment. He will next appear before a judge in mental-health court on June 9. It's not the first time Koepke will be treated at a mental health facility. He was confined to a mental hospital 32 years ago after Kirkwood's death. During his murder trial, court heard he was gripped by delusions that police were coming to kill him and that he opened fire in "self-defence" as officers closed in. At the time, Koepke was off his medication, a situation police fear has happened © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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My 20-year old son takes a bio-ethics course at uOttawa. During a discussion, he expressed an opinion that mentally ill people should be left alone untreated without medication as long as they function well in society. I showed him old documents about my ex-wife, and reminded him that non-violent actions like unnecessarily filing Access to Information Requests and sending letters to high-ranking government officials due to her false belief of Surveillance and Spying have greatly affected other people in a negative way.

I was saddened when my 16-year old daughter reminded me that I should move on after 5 years of hell...

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Police chief supports marijuana decriminalization White says his only concern is suggesting drug does no harm BY TONY SPEARS, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 26, 2010 5:07 AM Ottawa Police Chief Vern White says although he doesn't necessarily want people to have criminal records for simple possession of marijuana, he doesn't agree that marijuana is harmless. "My only concern about the word 'decriminalizing' is the suggestion to the public that (marijuana) is not a dangerous drug," he said. The Citizen asked White about decriminalization following a recent community meeting. An Angus Reid poll released earlier this month shows a majority of Canadians remain in favour of legalizing the plant. And last Tuesday, hundreds flocked to Parliament Hill to smoke up in an annual ritual in support of decriminalization. "If this is about, 'we don't want people to have a criminal record for possession of marijuana,' that message is a good message," White said. "Because I don't want them to have a criminal record for possession of marijuana either." But the police chief said that the levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) -- the active ingredient in marijuana -- has increased several-fold since the 1970s. He also pointed to studies that link consumption of marijuana to the onset of psychoses. A 2007 review of 35 studies found users were 41 per cent more likely to experience delusions, hallucinations or schizophrenia, though the researchers noted that the lifetime risk of contracting a chronic psychotic disorder had a probability of less than three per cent. "So don't say it doesn't hurt," White said. "It's like saying alcohol doesn't have a negative impact. Of course it does. But let's focus on do we want them to have a criminal record for simple possession? If that's the focus, I'm all for that discussion. But if it's around, 'it's not hurting people,' ... I don't agree with that." White said he believes police forces across the country would not oppose decriminalization. "There's not a police chief in the country, I think, that sits there salivating over the fact that people with simple possession charges have criminal records," White said. "I'll tell you the truth -- most guys don't get charged with marijuana anyway. Most people who have marijuana end up with it heeled into the ground, or with a verbal warning." Statistics Canada figures for 2008 show that, of more than 50,100 incidents in which police encountered a cannabis possessor, police laid possession charges less than half of the time. But in Ontario, 15,787 incidents led to 10,204 people charged. Those under the age of 18 made up less than 20 per cent of people charged. White said he's "good" with the 30-gram personal amount that the federal Liberals suggested when they toyed with decriminalization, though they ultimately proposed to decriminalize a reduced amount of 15 grams. The bill died shortly before the 2006 federal election that saw Stephen Harper's Conservatives take power. The Harper government has said it does not support decriminalization. White said anyone carrying 30 grams in pre-rolled joints or 'dime' bags would likely face trafficking charges. A 'dime' of marijuana weighs about 0.7 grams and sells for $10, though some dealers will sell whole grams for that price. A full 30 grams bought in bulk might be had for $200 to $250, but at that weight it would more likely be sold as an ounce -- slightly more than 28 grams. "My support will be in having a frank discussion about whether or not we want people to have criminal records for possession of marijuana," White said. tbspears@thecitizen.canwest.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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The sickening of society BY SHARON KIRKEY, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE APRIL 26, 2010 The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is undergoing its first major update in 16 years, and draft recommendations have alarm bells going off for some experts. They fear the proposed changes will spark "epidemics" of mental illness, exposing millions to potentially harmful psychiatric drugs. In a special series all this week, Sharon Kirkey looks at some of the changes being considered for the DSM, and the possible consequences. As Dr. Allen Frances read through the list of proposed changes to psychiatry's bible of mental sickness, alarms started ringing in his mind. "I was surprised," the renowned U.S. psychiatrist says, "that the proposals managed to be much worse than my most pessimistic expectations." By the time he was finished reading, Frances had calculated that the recommendations contained within the first draft for the fifth and latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- a hugely influential book used daily by doctors worldwide, psychiatry's official classification of all the ways humanity can go "mad" -- could unnecessarily trigger wholesale "epidemics" of mental illness and expose millions more adults and children to potentially harmful psychiatric drugs. Frances, more than most, knows the kind of surprises that may be lurking. He chaired the task force that wrote the current edition of the manual -- referred to as DSM-IV -- which Frances says is a book that unintentionally contributed to vast and sudden increases in the diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and childhood bipolar disorder (manic depression), after it made changes in those definitions. Rates of bipolar disorder alone jumped 40-fold in the U.S. after the definition was broadened to suggest that children don't have to experience the typical manic symptoms seen in adults to be diagnosed bipolar -- and that depression in kids can be a persistent irritable mood. "Most of this was not our fault," says Frances. Rather, he blames "a runaway fad led by thought leaders and pushed by drug companies and advocacy groups." "We were remarkably conservative and very careful. We laboured very carefully not to have surprises, not to have unintended consequences," says Frances, former chairman of the psychiatry department at Duke University's School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. He's now a professor emeritus at Duke. But once a diagnosis gets out of the bottle, he says, "it spreads like wildfire in ways you could never imagine." This psychiatrists' bible is in the midst of its first major rewrite in 16 years, coming at a time when antidepressants, tranquillizers and other psychoactive drugs have become the second most-prescribed drug class in the country, second only to cardiovasculars, according to prescription drug tracking firm IMS Health Canada. Across Canada, pharmacies last year dispensed 61.2 million prescriptions for psychotherapeutics, worth nearly $2.4 billion. The changes being proposed for the manual would create even more patients for whom psychoactive drugs can be prescribed. Under the revisions being recommended for the upcoming fifth edition binge eating would officially be classified a brain imbalance. Children with frequent temper outbursts and a persistent "negative mood" could meet criteria for a new illness called "temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria," or TDD. And an entirely new category of mental dysfunction called "behavioural addictions" would be created, with gambling as the single, sole disorder for now, but with Internet and sex addiction recommended for inclusion in the appendix as conditions worthy of further study. "Hypersexual disorder" would become a new category of sexual dysfunction at a time when Tiger Woods and other celebrities are taking philandering to new heights. The diagnosis would capture men and women with recurrent, "out of control" sexual behaviours that, according to the rationale, "are not inherently socially deviant," but that are causing them problems nonetheless; they may be consumed by pornography or cybersex, for example, or repeatedly engage in "one-night stands" or affairs. Most men, as well as a considerable number of women, would recognize themselves in the criteria for hypersexual disorder, says Christopher Lane, a literature professor at Northwestern University in Illinois and author of Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness, which chronicles the creation of more than 100 new disorders in the third edition of the DSM, based on the APA's archives of unpublished letters, transcripts and memorandums. "It's an extremely alarming precedent to see psychiatrists trying to legislate what are normal sexual desires and how often we should experience them," he says. One of the most controversial proposals calls for the establishment of a new condition called "psychosis risk syndrome." The goal is to identify young people at risk of developing a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, and intervene early. But even the very experts behind the proposal say the unanswered question is whether "ordinary users" in "ordinary settings" -- meaning not just expert investigators working in university-based research clinics -- will be able to reliably identify cases based on the criteria. "You and I might say, 'Well, there are a lot of adolescents who are just kind of funny, and have funny ideas, and they don't communicate well.' About half my students are like this," says Edward Shorter, professor of the history of medicine and of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and author of A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. "The DSM-5 says, 'Ah, no. These people probably have a precursor of schizophrenia, so we'll treat them prophylactically with powerful antipsychotic drugs in the hope of forestalling the eruption of serious illness that we know to be almost inevitable'." Frances worries that the "false positive" rate could run as high as three to nine adolescents wrongly diagnosed at being at risk for psychosis for every one correctly identified. Many of these misidentified youth would be prescribed antipsychotics that can cause one pound per week of weight gain, a greater risk of diabetes and "likely reduced life expectancy," he says. "I think about 400,000 (American) kids are already on these meds," says Frances, adding pre-psychotic risk and temper dysregulation would ratchet it up even further. The more behaviours the DSM medicalizes and the more disorders added to the official nomenclature, the bigger the market for psychiatric medications grows. The first DSM, published in 1952, was a skinny, 132-page spiral-bound booklet containing 128 disorders. Its current edition, published in 1994, lists 357 disorders, and runs 886 pages. "There's something wrong with that," says Dr. Frank Farley, a past president of the American Psychological Association. "We're seeing too many quote-unquote disorders lurking simply in the extremes of behaviour. We see some extreme of behaviour and we decide it's a 'disorder,' that it's out of order with something, that it's not normal," says Farley, an Edmonton native who's now a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia. "Are we going to force human behaviour into a kind of 'normal' category that, let's face it, is ill-defined? What is 'normal' behaviour? That's ground zero. That's job one, to clearly define what is normal, before you start saying what's abnormal." There is no reliable biomarker or blood test a doctor can point to and say, "This person has a psychiatric illness." And so, not one biological test is ready to be included in the DSM, says Frances. The challenge is finding which diagnosis, according to the criteria, is the best fit. (Insurance companies require a DSM code before they will authorize reimbursement.) In their book, Making Us Crazy; DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders, Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk say the manual is intended to describe symptoms of mental illness that can make life devastating for individuals and their families. But the guidebook goes further, they say, "by defining how we should think about ourselves; how we should respond to stress; how much anxiety or sadness we should feel; and when and how we should sleep, eat and express ourselves sexually." The tome, Kirk said in an interview, has led to manufactured epidemics of illness. "Bipolar disorder in children was never seen 20 years ago. It was thought it wasn't even possible," says Kirk, a professor of social welfare at the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. "The APA knows it really got tagged manufacturing that category and throwing lots of children in it unnecessarily, so they're now trying to figure out where else these children should go, as if they need to go somewhere. ... And that's not unusual with changes in DSM," he says. "They try to fix one area of silliness by seeing if they can redistribute the behaviours to another disorder." The latest revision of the DSM has been a decade in the making. About 160 of the top global experts in various areas of diagnosis are members of the task force and work groups. The APA says the highest priority is to ensure the manual is useful for those who diagnose and treat patients, as well as for the scientists studying the causes and most effective treatments for the patients being treated. Field trials of the draft criteria will begin in May. The final book is scheduled for release in 2013. The editors of the DSM say the criteria are developed by consensus, that the diagnoses are borne from meticulous reviews of the data and are meant to serve as guidelines for people with the appropriate training, and not as a cookbook way of diagnosing mental illness. But Farley says the manual is driving a "sickening of society." If a person is talking to Napoleon, he says, and "showing serious problems of reality contact and cognitive slippage of some sort -- and it's serious enough that they're not functioning in their life, then, OK, we're probably on track with something like that. "But are we sickening society with simply too many labels, way over-pathologizing human behaviour? Do we have 300-some valid and reliable disorders? I don't think so. And that's DSM version No. 4," he added. "This new version may well end up with a whole lot more, becoming a growth industry of labelling and diagnosing, with no end in sight." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

A History of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1840: The frequency of "idiocy/insanity" is recorded in the 1840 U.S. census, the first official attempt to gather information about mental illness in the U.S. 1917: A new guide for mental hospitals -- entitled the "Statistical Manual for the Use of Institutions for the Insane" -- is published. It includes 22 diagnoses. 1943: The U.S. army produces "Medical 203," used to diagnose and assess Second World War soldiers and veterans. It is the first formal attempt at a psychiatric "nomenclature" and becomes the precursor to DSM-I. 1952: DSM-I is published as the first official American Psychiatric Association manual of mental disorders. It lists 128 disorders, including "passive-aggressive personality disorder" and "emotionally unstable personality disorder" and "inadequate personality disorder." 1968: The second edition of the DSM is published. with 159 disorders. Homosexuality is listed under "sexual deviations" but removed from the manual in 1973. 1980: DSM-III is published. Explicit diagnostic criteria are introduced for each disorder. It includes 227 disorders. New disorders added include social phobia, avoidant personality disorder and several similar conditions. Post-traumatic stress disorder and attention-deficit disorder also appear for the first time. 1994: DSM-IV, the last major revision, is published. It includes 357 disorders. 2013: DSM-5 is scheduled for publication. It is too early in the revision process to know whether the number of diagnoses will be more, less or the same as those in DSM-IV. Sources: The American Psychiatric Association; "Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness," by Christoph

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I attended a conference "Les conjoints et la loi" organised by L'Apogée (Association pour parents et amis de la personne ayant un problème de santé mentale).

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Risk vs. reward BY SHARON KIRKEY, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE APRIL 28, 2010 'Psychosis risk syndrome' is being considered for inclusion in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to identify and help people before they develop full-fledged delusions and hallucinations. However, as Sharon Kirkey reports, some fear the move could lead to a huge level of false positives and open the door to medicating vast numbers of children and teenagers who don't need it. The day the visions and delusions took over her mind completely was the day Karen Dare decided she needed to die. She was convinced she was going to be the conduit for the apocalypse, that an evil force was about to unleash itself onto the world through her body. "I need to kill myself," she thought. "I can't be responsible for the destruction of humanity." She doesn't remember screaming, but she must have because suddenly paramedics were in her room, shouting questions. She couldn't make sense of what they were saying. She couldn't speak or move. It was her second psychotic episode and the first time the doctors spoke the word "schizophrenia." She was 23, but since Grade 9, Dare had felt different and disconnected from the world around her, as if everyone was "fake" or an actor, and nothing was real. They were symptoms of pre-psychosis, a condition at the crux of a proposed new mental illness that is stirring a storm of controversy within the field of psychiatry. The first draft of the newest edition of the massive tome used the world over to diagnose mental disorders is recommending the addition of a new diagnosis called "psychosis risk syndrome." The idea is to identify "soft" symptoms of psychosis in people at risk for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders early, before they develop full-fledged delusions and hallucinations. However, critics fear that adding risk syndrome to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will lead to a huge level of false positives and open the door to medicating vast numbers of people who don't need it. The worry is that children and teens who aren't frankly or floridly psychotic would be treated as if they were and put on antipsychotics that can cause rapid and substantial weight gain -- an average of 12 pounds in 12 weeks -- and elevated blood fats, increasing their risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the long-term. Even in the most expert hands, most of those diagnosed with early symptoms of psychosis don't end up developing schizophrenia. Proponents say the preferred treatment would be cognitive behavioural therapy and other non-drug treatments, but critics say that, practically speaking, with a label like "psychosis" risk syndrome, there is every likelihood people would be prescribed antipsychotic medication. According to the rationale for adding psychosis risk syndrome to the manual of mental illness, early signs and symptoms of schizophrenia are present years before a diagnosis is made. With psychotic disorders, "you often get a story from parents who say: 'I had kind of a normal teenager and gradually the kid kind of withdrew ... and they're talking in sentences that don't make sense all the time, and sometimes they'll just stop talking and look around as if they're listening to something that no one else can hear, and yesterday, my son asked me if I put poison in his food, and, doctor, this just isn't right. There's something going on here,'" says Dr. William Narrow, research director for the American Psychiatric Association task force that is in the midst of writing the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. "If it was only going on for the past month, this teenager wouldn't meet the criteria for schizophrenia, but clearly there's something going on, and this child would meet the criteria for the psychosis risk syndrome." A world leader in the study of schizophrenia says making psychosis risk syndrome official enough for the DSM would mark a revolution in the treatment of the onset of psychosis in youth. "Up until now these young people are basically going crazy on their own," Dr. Thomas McGlashan says. "And, when it breaks, they don't know what's happening," says McGlashan, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. "They go out of control, the family doesn't know what's happening, the kid ends up being taken by force into an emergency room because they've become disorganized or paranoid, and that's their introduction to the treatment system. And it sets up a negative relationship with the treatment system that can last the rest of their life." Other experts in the field say that the criteria being proposed are far too watered down, would cast too large a net and would falsely diagnose at least three children and teens for every one correctly identified. "You're setting the bar so low, and making it so simple (to diagnose) that, while it's easy for tens of thousands of clinicians out in the field to use, the threshold to meet criteria for the psychosis risk syndrome is so low that you could create a lot of false positives," says Dr. Paul Roy, director of the Champlain District First Episode Psychosis Program in Ottawa, also known as On Track. Roy doesn't prescribe antipsychotics unless, and until, he sees bona fide psychosis. "The risk is that they're put on medication, or they're told that they may be at risk for progressing to an illness like schizophrenia when in fact they're not. It's stigmatizing. It's terrifying. It's at least extremely upsetting. And you don't really have any substantial evidence that the majority of these individuals are going to progress. You just have a suggestion." Studies suggest that 20 to 35 per cent of people with early symptoms of psychosis actually convert to frank psychosis within two years. Teens would meet the criteria if they experienced "attenuated," or low-grade, delusions, hallucinations or disorganized speech that occurred at least once a week for a month, but there can be many reasons for teens to behave strangely, Roy says. "They could be depressed, they could be smoking pot, they could be just having a phase-of-life problem. It's very hard for clinicians who don't see thousands of these things, like a family doctor or even a psychiatrist in the community, to look at this and say, 'This is a schizophrenia prodrome.'" "I'm not adverse in principle to working toward defining a prodrome ... but this proposed syndrome may be setting the bar too low." Still, families of mentally ill children so sick they think they have telepathic powers, who think that if they take a train to another city they can escape the voices in their heads, often struggle to get help. One mother described how she took her teenage son to the doctor every few months with a new ailment. When he complained he was tired, he was checked for mononucleosis. When he complained he was having vision problems, he was referred to an eye doctor. When he said his food tasted strange, he was tested for food allergies. "No one ever asked him any question that would lead us to believe he had a psychiatric disorder." When he finally started having full-blown psychosis, he told his parents one day: "Take me to the emergency room. There's something really wrong with me." Dare, from Ottawa, speaks to high school students about her experience with psychosis and schizophrenia. She says she was discharged from hospital after her first psychotic episode with no instructions or support for her parents on how to deal "with a freshly discharged psychiatric patient." Dare always felt a little off, but, as the disease took hold, she was convinced that people were talking about her in code, that she was being watched and that her ideas weren't coming from her, but that she was somehow being guided by another being. "I could feel myself losing control," she says. "But I couldn't stop it." It has been five years since her last psychotic episode. "This is not going to happen again," Dare told herself then. She credits the treatment at On Track and alternative therapies in helping her better deal with the triggers that may produce symptoms, "so that this illness no longer becomes me." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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We must not feel shame about mental illness THE OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 29, 2010 I applaud Michael Kirby, chairman of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, in his efforts to find ways of reducing the stigma of mental illness. His upcoming initiative to raise funds and awareness for mental health and to direct these resources appropriately sounds like a very pro-active and valuable strategy. By reducing the stigma of mental illness, more people will seek treatment for themselves or for their children. Many Canadians who have suffered from mental illness experienced symptoms as a teen, but they did not seek treatment partly due to the shame they feared from society. As a parent and a teacher, I was determined not to be in denial or feel ashamed if my children developed some type of illness or disability. Coming from a family in which two members suffered from severe mental illness, I am very much aware that my children could be at risk. If my kids need help, I will not hesitate to get them that help. Providing an environment with lots of acceptance and understanding will further add to their healthy mental development -- nature and nurture. I believe that, if the right supports are in place, the severity of any mental health issue could be significantly reduced. Avoiding the issue will only compound the problems. Anxiety disorders will escalate and depression will become more severe and harder to treat. Early intervention is key in reducing the onset and severity of mental illness. Early treatment and coping strategies will also pave the road to self-advocacy. We need to teach children and youth how and when to get help, so they will know how to help themselves without fear or shame. I also know that even family members who are not afflicted with mental illness can feel the stigma. Discussing mental illness can make people feel uncomfortable. But the more we do it, the easier it gets. A huge part of the stigma is that many of us feel a pressure to strive for perfection in order to succeed or to be accepted, and admitting to mental illness puts us at a real disadvantage in reaching this ideal. Would there be a stigma, or even as many cases of many illnesses and disorders, it we honoured strengths, guided weaknesses and accepted differences? I have found it very fulfilling to tap into the authenticity, individuality and empathy in people. This shift in our mindset could go a long way in creating a healthier future for our children and youth. If Kirby needs assistance with his mental-health campaign, he can count me in. Nancy Cosman, Stittsville © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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The new 'normal' Many fear psychiatry has narrowed the definition of accepted behaviour to where eccentricities are viewed as conditions worth medicating. SHARON KIRKEY reports. BY SHARON KIRKEY, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE APRIL 30, 2010 Since 1950, man has landed on the moon, made computers commonplace and harnessed nuclear power. We're obviously using our minds to the fullest. Yet the number of ways we can go officially crazy has nearly tripled. The hugely influential reference book used by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals the world over to diagnose mental illness - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - currently lists 357 types of psychiatric afflictions, up from 128 when the first volume was published in 1952. The psychiatric establishment says it has learned to detect more mental illness in the population than was possible a half-century ago, and that science has advanced to the point that the broadly defined disorders of the past are now seen with much greater resolution, yielding many more specific conditions. We're not expanding the domain, they argue, as much as we're refining it. But skeptics say it is less about advances in brain science and more about psychiatry shuffling more and more behaviours and reactions to life's letdowns into boxes of mental dysfunction and assigning them codes, and that we risk becoming so overdiagnosed and overmedicated, we'll be like the patient in The New Yorker cartoon, who asks his psychiatrist: "Could we up the dosage? I still have feelings." "The unavoidable conclusion is that we've narrowed healthy behaviour so dramatically that our quirks and eccentricities - the normal emotional range of adolescence and adulthood - have become problems we fear and expect drugs to fix," says Christopher Lane, author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. It's not enough that people sometimes want to be alone, Lane says. Solitude? According to the DSM, including its criteria for "avoidant" and "schizoid" personality disorders, that could be viewed as a sign of mild psychosis, he warns. Feeling restless, keyed up or on edge could be markers of generalized anxiety disorder, and trouble sleeping a symptom of a major depressive disorder. After "social phobia" (code 300.23) - "a marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur" - was added to the DSM in 1980, it rapidly became one of the most popular psychiatric diagnoses in the western world, Lane observes. "That's partly because public speaking anxiety - one of the most widespread fears on record - was added as an official symptom of the phobia in 1987." Other symptoms included fear of eating alone in restaurants and avoidance of public washrooms. The more diagnostic categories added to the DSM, the more broadly they're defined, the bigger the market of potential new drug customers grows, says Stuart Kirk, professor of social welfare at the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs. Within each revision of psychiatry's bible, pharmaceutical companies see a "bonanza" of marketing possibilities, he says. When U.S. drug regulators approved Paxil for the treatment of social phobia, drug giant GlaxoSmithKline launched a nationwide campaign with the slogan, "Imagine being allergic to people." According to Lane, "more was spent on that promotional campaign ($92 million in 2000) than was spent that year advertising Viagra." When, after fierce controversy, "pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder" made it into the DSM appendix, Eli Lilly, makers of Prozac, began airing commercials in the U.S. showing a frazzled woman struggling with a stuck shopping cart. The tagline: "Think it's PMS? It could be PMDD." An analysis by researchers at the University of Massachusetts and Tufts University found about 68 per cent of the members of the task force working on the next edition of the manual of mental illness, and 56 per cent of panel members who have posted disclosure documents, reported industry ties, such as holding stock in a drug company, serving as consultants to industry or sitting on company boards. "When you have independent researchers providing data that seriously questions the validity of a new disorder and pharmaceutically funded researchers claiming the disorder should be included in the DSM, I think there may be a conflict of interest," says lead author Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts. The American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM, recently required all members revising the manual limit their income from drug companies to $10,000 annually, until their work on the guidebook is complete. "We have a wealth of social psychological research to clearly show that even small gifts or amounts of money significantly influence behaviour," Cosgrove says. "The APA leadership clearly knows this, or why would they have instituted a financial conflict-of-interest policy for the DSM-5?" The short list for which disorders make it into psychiatry's official nomenclature comes after a certain amount of quid pro quo, says Edward Shorter, professor of the history of medicine and psychiatry at the University of Toronto. "It's a consensus document and consensus always involves a lot of horsetrading: 'I'll put in your favourite diagnosis if you put in mine.'" Each disorder in the DSM is defined by a list of diagnostic criteria. A person can qualify for the disorder, depending on how many they have and how frequently they occur. But critics say too many of the disorders overlap in symptoms, and that many people could see themselves in the hundreds of pages of criteria contained with the DSM tome. "I think it's just gotten out of hand," says Dr. Frank Farley, a former president of the American Psychological Association and a native of Edmonton. He says the DSM is insufficiently scientific and overly subjective "to the extent they may use a vote count: ' How many vote for this, how many vote for that?' It's a problem. The science of human behaviour has gone way beyond that." What concerns Farley most is that, as the bible of mental illness expands with each revision, we may be squelching some of the richest facets of human behaviour and the human condition. Pushing the envelope of human behaviour has been one of the things that has created the modern world, Farley says. "Taking risks, taking chances, going in new and different directions," he says. "The people who change the world tend to be extreme. They're non-conformists." The DSM, he says, has a conformity quality to it, one that views extremes of human behaviour through a kind of "pathological patina. "So we begin thinking of too many things in terms of sickness. We're going to treat you to make you 'normal.' "The expansion alone raises red flags. It does for me," Farley says. "It should for everybody in our culture." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

This combination photograph of famous people who purportedly suffered from mental Illness includes, clockwise from upper left, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ernest Hemingway (shown with wife Mary Welsh), Vincent van Gogh, Winston Churchill (holding cane), Charles Darwin, and Dame Agatha Christie.

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My 20-year old son had another episode of psychosis. This time, right in front of my eyes. He said that his brain was overwhelmed, and his hands were shaking. He believes that it is uneven distribution of dopamine in different parts of the brain. So, a Parkinson patient may have psychosis, and a schizophrenia patient may have shaking.

Our discussion about psychosis has led to the realisation that hallucination is not something appearing but perception becoming new reality. So, hallucination and delusion are one and the same thing. It means that the scenes of John Nash seeing a guy in movie "A Beautiful Mind (2001)" is wrong. John Nash was looking at something, and his mind was interpreting the image as something else.

However, it has come to attention that N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a hallucinogen which naturally occurs in the brain. My son says that it is responsible for dreams. So, if a dream due to DMT occurs while awake, then the John-Nash situation is possible. I also recall and experienced that natural hormone melatonin causes wild dreams.

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Man found unfit to stand trial Accused refuses medication, shows signs of confusion 17 Jun 2010 Ottawa Citizen BY ANDREW SEYMOUR A paranoid schizophrenic who killed an Ottawa police officer in a 1977 shootout has been found unfit to stand trial on charges he criminally harassed a female neighbour. Justice Lise Maisonneuve made the ruling after hearing Fred Koepke thinks his lawyer is a jail inmate and he doesn't believe he has a mental illness requiring treatment. Dr. Shirley Brathwaite testified Fred Koepke, 56, refused to take his medication after a 60-day treatment order expired last week and doesn't seem to understand the charges or who his lawyer is. That confusion appeared to carry over to the courtroom, where he asked lawyer Ken Hall, " When am I getting out?" after being ordered into the custody of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. He's to remain there until the Ontario Review Board, which reviews the status of people found unfit to stand trial, makes a decision on where he will be residing until he's mentally well enough for a court proceeding. "Do I have to be returned to the cells? I'm doing quite well," said Koepke, who is facing two counts of criminal harassment in connection with a stalking incident involving a former neighbour in 2009. In 1978, Koepke was found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting 21-year-old Const. David Kirkwood to death while he executed a search warrant on Koepke's two-storey family home on Gladstone Avenue. Seven other officers were wounded in the incident. Koepke was released from hospital in 1988 after a review board of doctors and clergy found he no longer posed a threat to society. Brathwaite testified that there is no indication Koepke is pretending to be more ill than he really is. "He has nothing to gain by faking because he doesn't want to be in the hospital. His preference is to be in the community," said the psychiatrist, who explained that doctors had to give Koepke his medication by injection so he couldn't just pretend to take it. Koepke "does not perceive himself as having a mental illness that requires treatment," said Brathwaite, adding that Koepke told her the " judge told him the case is over and he just needs a ride home." Brathwaite said Koepke doesn't understand that he no longer has a home since he has been evicted from his Chinatown apartment. Hall argued there was "overwhelming" evidence that Koepke was not fit to stand trial and asked the judge to remand him to the hospital, and not the detention centre, where Koepke told Brathwaite he believed Hall was an inmate. The Ontario Review Board must have a hearing in 45 days and then again annually to determine where Koepke will reside and his fitness to stand trial. If and when he is found fit, he will return court. "He doesn't want to be in custody, he doesn't want to be in the hospital. He just wants to go home," said Hall. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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85-year-old unfit to stand trial in Ottawa nursing-home killing Relatives of man killed in care home call for coroner's inquest to protect vulnerable seniors BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JUNE 18, 2010 OTTAWA - The family of an 88-year-old dementia patient who was suffocated in his sleep at a city-owned long-term care home says the elderly resident found unfit to stand trial in the death of their loved one is also a "victim." They are now calling for a coroner's inquest to protect other vulnerable seniors. John Townesend said he believes an "entire systemic failure" led to the killing of his brother-in-law, Frank Moir, at the Peter D. Clark Centre in Nepean on Oct. 21. On Friday a psychiatrist testified that 85-year-old Peter Lee was suffering from hallucinations and delusions and didn't understand why he was being taken to court because he didn't think he had done anything wrong and doesn't know who died. Lee was charged with second-degree murder. The two men shared a bathroom in the dementia wing of the long-term care home. Police allege Lee entered Moir's room in the early morning and suffocated him as he slept before dragging him out of bed and across the floor to the bathroom door. Police say Lee then filled a basin with water and left it on the bathroom floor. Staff found Moir's body a short time later, but couldn't immediately find Lee. They eventually discovered him in another resident's room. Police allege that Lee, who court heard moved to Canada from Shanghai in the 1960s, had a history of aggression and agitation and had "expressed displeasure" with sharing a bathroom prior to the killing. Dr. Shirley Brathwaite testified that the frail-looking Lee, who wore slippers and sat in a wheelchair after arriving at court by ParaTranspo, was legally blind and suffered from dementia, psychosis and severe Parkinson's disease. Brathwaite said he was unlikely to ever get better. Townesend, who attended the hearing with his wife, Faith, said they always assumed Lee would be found unfit. They now hope their family's tragedy can open public debate on important policy issues related to the quality of care for Ontario's "most vulnerable" residents. Moir - a Second World War veteran who spent 11 years in a Scottish orphanage before coming to Canada as one of the homechildren - had advanced dementia. He moved into the Peter D. Clark Centre in 2005 with his wife, Betty, who had Alzheimer's. Betty and Frank Moir lived side-by-side until she died a month before his death. Lee moved into the room next to Moir's. Townesend said there are also unanswered questions as to how Lee was placed at the Peter D. Clark from the psychiatric wing of The Ottawa Hospital's Civic campus, given his history of mental health issues. Brathwaite testified Lee had a history of paranoia, in one instance dialing 911 to complain that people were walking on his roof, and in another, accusing his wife of poisoning him. He also believed his medications were poison. Since being transferred to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre after Moir's death, Lee has complained that his neighbour wants to kill him, said the doctor's report. "It really comes down to a question of whether or not we are capable of handling these kind of situations, which are going to increase significantly with the baby boom coming through," said Townesend. "Everybody's interest is at stake here. The whole baby-boom generation is facing this." Townesend said he believes a coroner's inquest is the best way to fully investigate all of the circumstances leading up to his brother-in-law's death. "We would hope that something good could come out of this, because at the moment up to now, we have only seen really damage come out of it." He stressed that his family harbours no ill will toward the Peter D. Clark Centre or its staff, whom they believe did the best job they could. As well, "our hearts have always gone out to the Lee family. They must have had horrendous circumstances to deal with. They certainly have our thoughts and our prayers." Those sentiments were echoed by Lee's son, Bill, who sat outside the courtroom with his father following the hearing. "My deepest sympathy to the Moir family. It is a tragedy for both families," he said. aseymour@thecitizen.canwest.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Accused killer hearing voices, court told Man charged in death of landlord pleads guilty to fraud BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JULY 13, 2010 A 27-year-old Ottawa man accused of killing his landlord hears voices telling him to kill himself and is at a high risk to harm himself, according to a jail psychiatrist who examined him. In a letter to a judge, Dr. Keith McFarlane wrote that "self-harm and suicide risk" is the "prime source" of concern with Dalibor Orsag. "Although medicated, he still experiences these voices on a daily basis and frequently feels desperate enough to either bang his head or punch himself in an effort to quell them," wrote McFarlane. The letter was entered as an exhibit after Orsag pleaded guilty in a barely audible voice Monday to an unrelated charge of fraud and possession of stolen property, admitting he used a phoney cheque to buy a $3,800 diamond engagement ring that was offered for sale on the online classified website Kijiji.com in November 2008. Orsag, who has been in jail since February after being charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of 58-year-old Said Kasbary, was then sentenced to 90 days in jail for the fraud. Kasbary was found dead Feb. 24 in the burned-out rental office of a Blake Boulevard apartment building he owned. Orsag, who lived in a neighbouring building also owned by Kasbary, had worked for Kasbary as a handyman and was about to be evicted at the time of the killing, according to Kasbary's friends. "He definitely needs treatment," said Orsag's lawyer, Geraldine Castle-Trudel outside of court. "There are mental-health issues, but it is not clear what they are." Castle-Trudel said a court-ordered psychiatric assessment previously ordered to help determine whether Orsag should be found not criminally responsible for allegedly killing Kasbary was inconclusive. Based on McFarlane's recommendation, Ontario Court Justice Jack Nadelle recommended that Orsag be moved from the Regional Detention Centre on Innes Road to the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre in Brockville. The treatment unit is a 100-bed facility within a correctional complex for male offenders with "serious mental illness," according to an online description of the facility posted by the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group. One of the admission criteria is to have a history of psychiatric issues or suicidal thoughts or attempts. Assistant Crown attorney Julie Scott neither supported or opposed the request that Orsag be sent to the St. Lawrence Valley. Ultimately it will be up to correctional officials whether they follow Nadelle's recommendation. In his letter, McFarlane recommended Orsag be housed at St. Lawrence Valley until his condition can be stabilized or his outstanding charges resolved. In court on Monday, Orsag admitted he used a fraudulent cheque to buy the diamond engagement ring. According to an agreed statement of facts, the woman selling it was contacted by a male who identified himself as "Dado" Orsag. The two met on Nov. 2, 2008 at a downtown bookstore, where Orsag gave her a $3,800 cheque drawn on a company account of "Prestige Limousine Service" in exchange for the ring. Scott said Orsag e-mailed the woman on Nov. 3 telling her he thought the diamond was a fake, but didn't want to return it when the woman offered to take it back. Orsag next called the woman on Nov. 5, telling her she might not be able to cash the cheque because she wasn't on the limousine company's payroll. He then asked for her bank-account number so he could wire her the money. When the woman refused and demanded cash or the ring back, Orsag said "he was in Montreal, could not pay right now and hung up," said Scott. When she called the bank to verify the cheque, she was told there was no such account. The woman then reported the incident to police. A preliminary hearing for Orsag, who has already consented to stand trial on a second-degree murder charge in Kasbary's death, is expected to be held Nov. 22. aseymour@thecitizen.canwest.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Assessment ordered for man shot by police Schizophrenic accused of pointing pellet gun at two officers Ottawa Citizen BY ANDREW SEYMOUR 24 Jul 2010 A 30-day psychiatric assessment has been ordered for a schizophrenic 19-year-old man who was shot by police after allegedly pointing a pellet gun at two officers. The assessment is expected to provide the court with a psychiatrist's opinion on whether Ryan Charles can be held criminally responsible for his alleged actions on June 23, when he was shot twice in the chest by police following a confrontation in a Van Lang Private apartment building. Charles was charged with pointing a firearm at two officers and assaulting a third with a utility knife, along with other charges, following his release from hospital July 14. "There are real issues based on his history of schizophrenia," his lawyer, Doug Baum, said outside of court. Baum said Charles had been dealing with symptoms of his schizophrenia "off and on" for some time and has previously been seen at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Care Centre. Charles is due back in court on July 30 to determine whether a bed has become available for him at the Royal Ottawa. The assessment is expected to be completed by Aug. 20. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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'Delusions' dogged man in 24 Sussex fire Psychiatric report followed 2007 stabbing of passerby 17 Aug 2010 Ottawa Citizen BY ANDREW SEYMOUR A mentally ill man accused of starting a fire outside the Prime Minister's official residence on Saturday was once found not criminally responsible of twice stabbing a stranger in the back with a Swiss Army knife. At around the same time as the stabbing, Daniel Skahan, 29, had also harboured thoughts of assassinating a politician such as Stephen Harper with a gun. The reason, according to a 2007 psychiatric report prepared after he was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon, was rooted in delusions that he needed to show a "powerful" person in the United States, who he feared was going to use him as a "pawn" in a game to "blow up earth and find another planet to colonize," that he was not "afraid." According to the 2007 report, Skahan suffers from schizoaffective disorder, a mood disorder whose symptoms can resemble bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Skahan was found not criminally responsible of the stabbing and was then placed under the supervision of the Ontario Review Board. According to the ORB, he spent several months at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre before being discharged to live with his parents. When his symptoms reemerged, he voluntarily returned in January 2008 to the hospital, where he later wrapped a belt around another patient's neck. That incident resulted in him being placed on continuous observation and his medication increased. In November 2008, he was released to a community-based program before being allowed to move into his own apartment a year later. Although still considered a "significant risk" to the community, the Ontario Review Board granted him a conditional discharge in May, which required him to follow several conditions, including reporting once a month to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and refraining from possessing any weapons. The ORB is required by law to render the least onerous and restrictive disposition that balances the need for public safety with the liberty of the accused person. According to the ORB decision, the hospital believed he should be closely monitored for a year following discharge for the return of any symptoms. The decision noted Skahan's mental health was "very stable" and he had complied with his follow-up treatment and ORB conditions while living in the community. In the January 2007 incident, Skahan randomly stabbed a man as he waited for a taxi on Guigues Avenue. Dogged: Judge orders in-custody assessment The victim was grabbed from behind and forced to the ground by the six-foot-four Skahan, who put his hand over the victim's nose and mouth before getting on top of him. Skahan stabbed the man twice in the back before the victim, who received nonlife threatening wounds, was able to flee. When Skahan, who cut himself during the attack, returned home with a bloody hand, his mother asked him what happened. He told her he had just stabbed someone and she called police. Skahan later told the doctor he had tried to slash the man's throat and only resorted to stabbing him after realizing he was unsuccessful. The incident occurred at around the same time he was thinking about shooting a politician, although Skahan abandoned those thoughts after deciding that finding a gun would be too difficult. He instead settled on killing someone with a knife. According to the 2007 psychiatric report, Skahan believed he was "not in control of anything" at the time of the stabbing and needed to kill someone to show he was in control. The stabbing, the report indicated, was further fuelled by his "bizarre" delusions that killing someone would prevent him and Jesus - whom Skahan strongly identified with because he, too, was an only child - from being sent in a spaceship to colonize a new planet as part of the plot by a powerful American. "Mr. Skahan developed a belief that he was morally justified in killing someone in order to ward off harm to himself, Jesus and the Earth," said the psychiatric report, which the Citizen obtained independently of Skahan's first court appearance on Monday. Skahan attended Ashbury College, an elite private Ottawa school, where he was described as captaining the football team and playing rugby and other sports and was named a prefect. He first showed signs of his mental illness while at Queen's University in Kingston, according to the report. By March 2003, he was having difficulty with school work and became withdrawn, sitting in his room with the lights off. He saw a psychiatrist and returned to school the following year, but was admitted to hospital after staying up two nights in a row, preoccupied with "standing up against the Bush administration." He was treated for bipolar disorder and completed his university degree, even coaching on a voluntary basis at Ashbury College and working part-time in a computer lab there, but soon became isolated and anxious, worried that he was going to be homeless, without friends and alone in the world. He was taken to the Montfort Hospital in 2006 after punching his father in the jaw and spent months in hospital at the Ottawa Hospital's General campus and Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre's Mood Disorders clinic. His psychiatrist stopped seeing him when Skahan was released in May 2006, and he couldn't find a new doctor, according to the report. Despite treatment by a family doctor, within four months Skahan was again showing symptoms, punching his father in the leg and acting strangely just weeks before the stabbing. On Saturday, Skahan was arrested outside Harper's residence after a man poured a flammable liquid on the sidewalk and lit it on fire. Police officers quickly extinguished the fire, which was set outside the gate. Wearing a green T-shirt and glasses, an unshaven and slightly heavy-set Skahan glanced around the courtroom on Monday, but said nothing as Ontario Court Justice Lise Maisonneuve ordered him to undergo an incustody 30-day psychiatric assessment. A publication ban was imposed on proceedings in court. Skahan is charged with mischief under $ 5,000, possession of incendiary material and failing to comply with conditions of an assessment order. His next scheduled court appearance is Aug. 23. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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The Ministry of Happy Marriages 'Family breakup is an economic problem. It's a health problem. It's a mental health problem. The bottom line is that we know family breakup has a whole bunch of ramifications.' DR. SUE JOHNSON, the head of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute and a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Ottawa ... © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Man deemed delusional when he slashed wife Father of 3 suffered dementia, believed wife was cheating, psychiatrist says BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 14, 2010 A 63-year-old Ottawa man on Monday was found not criminally responsible of trying to kill his wife, after a psychiatrist testified he was suffering from paranoid delusions brought on by dementia that led him to believe she was cheating on him. Abbas Saramgar was depressed and suicidal, felt threatened by his wife's perceived lovers and was afraid of losing his relationship with her when he used a large kitchen knife to slash Fatima Vahedi in the face, arm and neck in their Blossom Park home exactly a year ago, Dr. Helen Ward testified. The father of three then cut his own wrists and legs, injuring himself so significantly that he had to be resuscitated in hospital, she said. Ward said testing showed a "dead area" in the part of Saramgar's brain that controls the "animal instinct." The damage was likely caused by a stroke, Ward said. In addition to dementia, Saramgar was suffering from psychosis and depression. "He was depressed and despondent and very caught up in these beliefs about his wife having an affair," said Ward. "He couldn't make a rational choice except to attack his wife and kill himself." According to an agreed statement of facts, Saramgar and Vahedi were arguing when Saramgar went to the kitchen where he had an alcoholic drink. His wife followed, and Saramgar threatened to kill himself before attacking Vahedi with the knife he was using to cut an orange. Vahedi then left their Levadia Avenue home -- but ended up lying on the street in front of her driveway, where Saramgar stood over his bleeding wife before offering her his hand. When she refused to take it, he ran back into the house. About 10 minutes later, and covered in blood, Vahedi staggered down Athans Avenue toward Bank Street, where the driver of a passing truck stopped to help. Ward testified that Saramgar believed his wife had been unfaithful to him and was sleeping with a number of men for about a year before the attack, going so far as to dress up in a "crude disguise" to follow her or go to the hair salon where she worked. Saramgar had also begun tape recording in the house and was hearing voices, Ward said. Family members -- including his wife and two sons who were in court Monday -- told Ward that Saramgar's condition began to deteriorate rapidly after he was charged in 2008 with sexual assault for allegedly touching a CAS ward while he worked as a volunteer driver for the agency. Saramgar, who was sent to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, is back in court on that charge Tuesday. Ward said there was no other motive for the attack, which supports the finding he was too sick to know what he was doing was wrong. "This is a good relationship. Things only began to go wrong when he was delusional," she said. aseymour@ottawacitizen.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Thinking about the unthinkable BY JANICE KENNEDY, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 16, 2010 7:51 AM They're gearing up again. With stubborn optimism, the good folks at the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health are gathering again this fall -- in the company of such dedicated community supporters as Ottawa Senators star Daniel Alfredsson -- to continue their promotion of awareness and destigmatization. If you've followed the foundation's "You Know Who I Am" campaign, you know that the message is about knowledge, understanding and hope. The initiative is a valuable one, given recent reports on the terrible costs of mental illness ($51 billion a year to the Canadian economy), and its critical needs in the health field. But the campaigners face daunting challenges. Despite decades of education, mental illness remains underestimated and misunderstood. Societally, we still don't get it, still can't quite accept it as bona fide illness. We nod, pretend and honour all the politically correct positions with politically correct jargon, but we still can't shake off the old fears, prejudices, cruelties. Institutionally, our inclination is to not take it seriously. How else to explain the chronic underfunding? The persistence of a million nudge-nudge jokes? Our default cultural position that the ill-fitting behaviour of a person tormented by mental illness is somehow an act of volition? That's an incredible thing, since mental illness affects one in five Canadians, so it clearly reflects the stigma. In spite of various campaigns' heroic sensitization efforts, most sufferers and their families still prefer to stay silent about their nightmare experiences. Part of the problem is that mental illness, in its myriad incarnations, is so unpredictable and inconsistent. Here today, gone tomorrow, back the next, it doesn't follow the logical progression of physical illnesses we know. That's unnerving. It's also scary, especially if your knowledge of it is shaped by media's classic hopped-up portrayal: psychosis as the cause of heinous crime. (If it bleeds, it leads. Who wants to know about the far more common fears and anxieties that keep someone in hell, though far from any criminality?) On television once, the late William Styron, one of the 20th century's finest writers, described the debilitating clinical depression from which he suffered as "unbelievable torment ... an experience I wouldn't wish on (and he paused in the interview, searching for the name of someone terrible) Heinrich Himmler." But depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and any number of other toxic psychological conditions remain in the realm of the willingly unknown. Unless it roars through our lives like a runaway locomotive, we don't want to know about it. Better to stop up our ears. Or marginalize the victims. There are other reasons for our medieval prejudices. Almost archetypally, "mental illness" is sometimes viewed as a crutch, an excuse for weak-willed louts looking to justify laziness or bad behaviour. (This is not helped, of course, by actual weak-willed louts who concoct very useful, if sham, self-diagnoses of mental illness.) Nor do our own human instincts help. Though relatively rare, crimes are sometimes committed by those in the grip of a psychotic breakdown. When they subsequently seem to go unpunished by courts rendering "not criminally responsible" decisions, our deepest, most atavistic sense of justice is offended. You hear the reaction in those media commentators who thunder on about criminals "getting away with murder." All these subconscious currents, gut reactions and cultural formations shape our entrenched ignorance. A century after Freud, we still don't want to believe that bad things can happen to the minds of good people. We don't even learn from literature, whether it's Shakespeare's Lear or mad Mr. Kurtz at the heart of Conrad's jungle darkness. Perhaps we need more portraits that are quieter and less dramatic, depictions of day-to-day struggles by people sometimes in the abyss, sometimes on top of things, sometimes teetering on the edge. Would it be useful to reflect on all the famously accomplished sufferers of mental illness who have made our world better? Should we consider the great writers, thinkers, artists, scientists and leaders who did what they did in spite of (and sometimes, frankly, in collusion with) their demons? Should we remember that Winston Churchill often suffered from the crippling "black dog" of his depression, as did Abraham Lincoln? Maybe we can simply start trying to realize, if we ourselves have not suffered clinical mental illness, that sufferers are not freaks. That they are as accomplished, or as capable of accomplishment, as anyone else. That they are people we know, people all around us in our community. That, except for a million unknowable reasons resulting in something they wouldn't wish on their worst enemies (think Styron), they could be any one of us. Mental illness is not glamorous, and the people behind the Royal Ottawa's ongoing community awareness campaign deserve our thanks. But maybe this year we can give them something else as well. Maybe this year we can also give them our attention. Janice Kennedy writes here on Thursdays. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Gift funds mental health program Women's resource centre established at Royal Ottawa BY PAULINE TAM, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 29, 2010 Margaret Trudeau, who has battled bipolar disorder for more than three decades, delivers a speech on Tuesday during the opening of the Shirley E. Greenberg Resource Centre for Women at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group on Carling Avenue. A women's mental-health program has been established with a $1.5-million donation -- the single largest ever made to the hospital -- by philanthropist Shirley Greenberg, a retired lawyer and matriarch of the family behind the Minto real-estate empire. The milestone gift comes at a time when many foundations are struggling to raise funds. "I have a vision of a community composed of independent, confident, competent women, ready to exercise leadership in areas wherever their skills and abilities direct," Greenberg said Tuesday at the opening of the centre that bears her name. "They cannot do that if they're suffering mental illness. By establishing this women's centre facility at the Royal Ottawa, it is my hope that any woman in need of assistance will be aware of where she can get it." The centre, located on the second floor of the Royal Ottawa on Carling Avenue, is designed to be a calm, safe place where women can seek support, learn about their illnesses and find professionals who can help them navigate the mental-health system. Greenberg's donation will also support public lectures, education campaigns and research into women's mental health. Because of differences in biology and social roles, women experience mental illness differently than men do -- a reality that is gaining wide acceptance among mental-health professionals, said Dr. Alison Freeland, the hospital's associate chief. Certain mental illnesses, such as mood disorders, are far more common in women that in men. For example, one in 10 men suffer from depression or anxiety, but that rate jumps to one in five among women. Likewise, nine out of 10 cases of eating disorders occur in women -- a grim statistic given that the disorders lead to death more often than any other mental illness. Schizophrenia follows a different course in women than men. Freeland, who specializes in treating the disorder, says a number of patients end up in emergency rooms because they hear more voices or become more paranoid at certain times of the month. "When you start doing hormonal tracking and doing a chart with them around their (menstrual) cycle, that's their expression of (premenstrual syndrome)," said Freeland. "And instead of saying, 'Oh my goodness, your schizophrenia is getting worse,' you could integrate (PMS) into the treatment structure." Women's hormonal systems also play a role in determining the effectiveness of certain treatments, said Freeland. Pregnancy and menopause can affect how anti-depressants work, yet women are under-represented in clinical trials of such medications. Women are also more likely to be victims of sexual violence, leading to emotional scars that can affect their mental health and trigger addictions or destructive behaviour. And given that most women are still the primary caregivers, their children, spouses and elderly parents can suffer the consequences when they become so distressed that they can't take care of their families. "For women in general, there are some very specific things that mental-health professionals need to be aware of," said Freeland. "We need to ask questions about hormonal or reproductive issues, relationship issues that are specific to women. We need to ask about trauma. We need to be very clear about their cultural background and ... the role women play in keeping a family together." Margaret Trudeau, who has battled bipolar disorder for more than three decades, understands the frustrations of having mental-health services that don't factor in the unique experiences of women. She was first diagnosed during her marriage to prime minister Pierre Trudeau, shortly after she had given birth to their second child. "Pierre and I went to the doctor, and the doctor was far more interested in talking to the prime minister than he was to me," Trudeau said in an interview Tuesday. "He just dismissed me. It was just 'baby blues.' And it was something that would pass. But it didn't pass, and I flung into mania. I had my first bout of mania, but back then, I didn't know what was happening to me." Over the years, as she has learned to cope through a combination of medications and cognitive behaviour therapy, Trudeau has learned more about the role hormones can play in a woman's mental health. She once asked a leading expert on post-partum depression to explain the relationship. "And she said, 'Margaret, whoever discovers the definitive answers ... will win the Nobel Prize -- but not for medicine, for peace,' " Trudeau said, bursting into laughter. She has experienced relapses, such as in 2000, when she was hospitalized at the Royal Ottawa following the deaths of Michel, her youngest son, and her former husband. Since then, Trudeau, 62, has spoken publicly about her struggles and written a memoir, Changing My Mind, which is scheduled to be in bookstores next Thursday. - - - View Margaret Trudeau's visit to the new facility at ottawacitizen.com /City © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Changing her mind Margaret Trudeau's third memoir reframes her life through the prism of mental illness BY DENISE RYAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS OCTOBER 17, 2010 In the basement, there was a ski suit. The old-fashioned kind, one piece. The woman fumbled to get it off the hanger, pulled on and zipped up, then unlatched the basement door and fled into the swirling snow of a bitterly cold December day in Ottawa. Upstairs, a psychiatrist and a young man, her son, were waiting for her to get dressed and come with them, sensibly, to a psychiatric institution for treatment. They were waiting for her to comply. She was determined to escape. Weighing just 117 pounds, rambling incoherently, heart thudding, body shuddering in the cold, she ran as far as she could. If you had seen that woman, stumbling madly, blindly, jaggedly that December day 10 years ago, you probably wouldn't have recognized her as Margaret Trudeau, the former wife of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the dynamic Canadian prime minister -- and one of the most beautiful, electric and infamous women in Canadian history. A woman famous for always doing the wrong thing. When the police and paramedics finally cornered her and forced her on to a gurney, she fought. A police woman shoved her hand under a sheet, grabbed Margaret's thumb and snapped it back, hard, dislocating it. She was sedated, taken to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and incarcerated under an involuntary committal order. She would stay for months. In an interview over the phone from her home in Montreal, Margaret Trudeau explains why she isn't afraid anymore: of her past, of what the future holds, of the mistakes she's made. She is who she is: a woman with a private life, grandchildren -- and a mental illness, bipolar disorder, that she's committed to managing. Chastened by decades of emotional highs and lows, she says she had to learn to "comply" with her doctor -- and take her medication. She also had to set boundaries. "I know what I love, I know what makes me happy, I know what my triggers are." With the release last week of her third memoir, Changing My Mind (HarperCollins), Trudeau explains why she spent two years working on a book that reframes her life through the prism of a mental-illness diagnosis. The book, written in marathon sessions with more than one professional writer, was an emotionally risky venture -- but not a reckless one, she feels. "The tears, the tears came out on the table," she said. "Part of the therapy is leaving your past behind, not dwelling on it ... but I was working. I felt I had purpose. I knew how to bring myself out. Sometimes I would get way too high, so I would bring myself down." Bringing herself down when she gets too high has taken a lifetime to learn. "Pierre would say, 'Get hold of yourself, Margaret.' I wish I could have, but without medical help, I couldn't do the battle." The "battle" was not only between her nature ("passion") and Trudeau's ("reason"), it was not just youth and age, discipline and unconventionality, private dilemmas and public expectations -- it was the highs and lows of extremely polarized emotions. For those who mistake the wild abandon of her youth (dancing the night away at Studio 54, hanging with the Rolling Stones, hyper-charged love affairs with American politician Ted Kennedy and actor Jack Nicholson) as some kind of thrilling feminist break for freedom, she wants to set the record straight. "I was deeply affected by the feminist movement, yes, of course." But the frustration and repression of being "barefoot and pregnant" and married to a powerful man 30 years her senior were not the only things at play. She zeroes in on the major postpartum depression she suffered after the birth of her second child, Sacha, as the moment "the lights went out." It would take three decades, and the harrowing loss of her third son Michel, who drowned in an icy lake in B.C. during an avalanche, to plunge her into waters so deep and dark, she had no choice but to surrender. She was lucky. She was rescued. Trudeau hopes this book will serve as a "dire warning" for others suffering from mental illness, for those "suffering the consequences and breaking up their worlds." Changing My Mind is riddled with references to the shame she has felt over the years for behaviour that stemmed not from circumstances, she stresses, but from the manias and sloughs of bipolar disorder. "There's a tremendous amount of guilt, a tremendous amount of shame, because you're constantly letting people down." "There is something different about Margie," her parents would say. In Changing My Mind she confesses she was "capricious and temperamental" as a child, ferocious, a "drama queen." Her mother used to wonder: "Margaret, how are you going to get through life if you take things so badly?" She was the fourth of five exuberant sisters born to Kathleen and James Sinclair, a former federal cabinet minister. Raised in North Vancouver, the girls were known as the "brawling Sinclairs." She was the tomboy, and by the time she was 16, she was determined to grow up and "have a serious working life of my own." Work, and dedication to a purpose, would be one of the tools she required for recovery of balance 40 years later. But balance wasn't a word, or a concept, that had much meaning to the young Margaret. As a student of political science at Simon Fraser University in the 1960s, she became violently, emotionally anguished about the war in Vietnam and social injustice. Her anguish over the suffering of others was exacerbated by a fragility she wasn't yet aware she had to manage. She smoked dope, tried mescaline, ate cafeteria food, didn't get enough sleep and tried to "expand my consciousness." It was around this time, in 1967, when she was just 19, that she met Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then the Canadian justice minister, during a family Christmas holiday in Moorea, Tahiti. "I observed a man slalom-skiing in the bay, and I followed his progress idly, impressed by his grace and skill and the huge walls of water he was casting up as he cut back and forth across the wake of the boat. Later, he joined me on the raft and we started to talk." Her first thought, once she was closer to him, was that he was old, she writes. Although they flirted, snorkelled and talked, she wasn't particularly interested. A year later, after she had finished university and drifted around Morocco, where she smoked hashish, had love affairs and hung out with Leonard Cohen, she returned to North Vancouver. Trudeau came calling. "I picked him," she says. "Where the error came in, was that Pierre picked me." They were two beautiful people, deliriously in love. "He loved my freedom," she says, wistfully. But like so many love affairs, it was an irrational match. Freedom -- emotional or spiritual -- even the freedom to push her first baby, Justin, down the street in a pram, was impossible as wife of the prime minister. Her first depression struck after the birth of Sacha, their second child in two years. A psychiatrist, star-struck to see the prime minister in his office, brushed off her depression as the "baby blues." Valium helped her regain some functionality, but the reality of being 25, with "no voice," no meaningful work, and no way out of the rigid routine of a political wife suffocated her. She had no money of her own. Pierre was frugal to the point of being domineering (the water in the glass by their bed at night would freeze to ice). She was doubly imprisoned -- by her role as the wife of the prime minister, and an untreated mental illness. Finally, she was quietly hospitalized in Montreal. She was afraid. She was medicated -- the first round of what she calls the "chemical lobotomy" of heavy drugs that would put a ceiling on her moods, her personality, her heart. After her return from the hospital, it was impossible to salvage the relationship. Obsessed with Ted Kennedy, with whom she had fallen in love before her hospitalization, she describes her life at 24 Sussex Drive as "sad and desperate." From a passionate lover, Pierre became someone who tolerated her -- as long as she behaved. She gave up her obsession with Kennedy and became a good mother. But the love was gone and her spirit was broken. "I was isolated and alone," she says. "At home, Pierre's pirouettes were few and far between." - - - Changing My Mind With Margaret Trudeau Where and when: Southminster United Church, 15 Aylmer Ave., Monday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m. Tickets: $15/$10 for students and seniors. Free for Carleton students and Ottawa International Writers Festival members © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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I went cycling to the Champlain Lookout of the Gatineau Park for the 16th time this year, probably the last time for this season. The lifetime count is 92 times.

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Schizophrenic deemed fit to stand trial on stalking charges BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN OCTOBER 30, 2010 A paranoid schizophrenic who killed an Ottawa police officer in a 1977 shootout is now fit to stand trial on charges he criminally harassed a female neighbour. Fred Koepke, 56, will be back in court on Nov. 8 to potentially resolve the charges, said his lawyer, Ken Hall. Koepke was ordered into the custody of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre in June after a psychiatrist who examined him testified he had refused to take his medication, believed his lawyer was a jail inmate and didn't believe he had a mental illness requiring treatment. Koepke, who is facing two counts of criminal harassment in connection with a stalking incident involving a former neighbour in 2009, is now doing better after more than four months at the hospital. In 1978, Koepke was found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting 21-year-old Const. David Kirkwood to death while he executed a search warrant on Koepke's home on Gladstone Avenue. Seven other officers were wounded in the incident. Koepke was released from hospital in 1988 after a review board of doctors and clergy found he no longer posed a threat to society. In the most recent allegations, police and prosecutors accused Koepke of repeatedly showing up at the former neighbour's door. When the woman told him to leave her alone, he refused. He also parked his car across the street to spy on the woman and once visited her parents' home, demanding that she come outside to talk with him, police allege. On Friday, Ontario Court Justice Lise Maisonneuve ordered Koepke returned to the custody of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre while awaiting his next court appearance. aseymour@ottawacitizen.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Mentally ill man back in custody Arrested 5 years ago, after stabbing deaths of parents, sister BY MEGHAN HURLEY, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN NOVEMBER 6, 2010 An Ottawa man found not criminally responsible for the stabbing deaths of his parents and sister five years ago was apprehended by police early Tuesday morning after he walked around his street naked and then locked himself in his home. Daniel Maxheleau, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, was arrested March 13, 2005, after the deaths of his parents, Gerald and Louise, and sister, Michelle. He was found not criminally responsible after court heard he suffered from delusions, including that he was pregnant and his family had killed and eaten his babies. Police were called to Maxheleau's Findlay Creek home this past Tuesday morning after they received complaints. Once Maxheleau saw officers, he ran inside his home and refused to come out. Maxheleau returned outside once police left, still naked, and began screaming. Police eventually returned and apprehended him. He was taken to the Royal Ottawa hospital. Maxheleau had previously spent time at the Royal Ottawa hospital. In 2005, the Ontario Review Board ordered Maxheleau transferred to the Brockville facility, which is more conducive to long-term treatment. Maxheleau began living in the community in 2007. Last year, an Ontario Review Board disposition stated Maxheleau could receive travel passes for up to 14 days with the permission of the person in charge of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Care Group. Maxheleau checked back into hospital in January, but it's unclear when he was released. He had first been taken out of a mental hospital against doctors' advice by his parents because they believed he wasn't sick. mhurley@ottawacitizen.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Killer faces assessment for stalking charges BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN NOVEMBER 9, 2010 A paranoid schizophrenic who killed an Ottawa police officer in 1978 has been ordered to undergo a 30-day psychiatric assessment to determine if he is capable of having been criminally responsible for allegedly harassing a female neighbour. Fred Koepke, 56, was found fit to stand trial last week and appeared prepared to resolve the charges against him Monday. Instead, a prosecutor asked a judge to return him to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre to undergo the assessment. Assistant Crown attorney Carl Lem requested the assessment in light of several doctor's reports outlining Koepke's "progress and struggles" since being charged. Koepke has been at the hospital since June after a psychiatrist who examined him testified he had refused to take his medication, believed his lawyer was a jail inmate and didn't believe he had a mental illness requiring treatment. Koepke is facing two counts of criminal harassment in connection with a stalking incident involving a former neighbour in 2009. In 1978, Koepke was found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting 21-year-old Const. David Kirkwood to death while he executed a search warrant on Koepke's home on Gladstone Avenue. Seven other officers were wounded in the incident. Koepke was released from hospital in 1988 after a review board of doctors and clergy found he no longer posed a threat to society. Koepke's next court date is Dec. 6. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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My youngest daughter, who is 17 now, disclosed to me in tears that the condition of her mother (my ex-wife) is pretty bad. She said that her mother's psychosis started about 3-4 weeks ago. Until then, her conditions seemed to be stable for a few years.

She hears voices through ventilation, believes that there is a police surveillance video camera in a street lamp post, suspects that her colleagues and her parents as well as strangers in the bus are spying on her, etc. She is even suspecting her children, too. She is constantly making links among these events in her head, and she is talking about committing suicide. In other words, she has the very same symptoms that she had back in 2005 when she unilaterally abandoned the happy family...

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Legal process 'rigorous' for mentally ill But when violent crimes recur, the system is once again under scrutiny BY DON BUTLER, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN NOVEMBER 15, 2010 Three decades ago, Fred Koepke shot and killed Ottawa Police Const. David Kirkwood. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. A review board released him from hospital in 1988, saying he no longer posed a threat. A year later, he attacked his wife. Then he assaulted his mother. Now the 56-year-old paranoid schizophrenic is before the courts again, facing charges of criminally harassing a female neighbour. He's undergoing a 30-day psychiatric assessment to determine whether he's criminally responsible for his actions. Koepke's is only one of several recent cases that have some wondering whether Ontario's forensic health-care system -- which treats, monitors and decides whether to release those judged not criminally responsible for their acts -- is properly protecting the public. Even if cases such as Koepke's are exceptional, says Irvin Waller, a University of Ottawa criminologist, "I think they are very disturbing exceptions. "If somebody was convicted of murder and released from a federal penitentiary and recommitted a serious crime, there would be an outcry." Sue O'Sullivan, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime, says victims have told her they want more accountability in the system. "They don't want what has happened to their loved one to happen to someone else." Most who work in the forensic system, or observe it closely, say it works well. "It's not a perfect system, but it's a pretty damn good system," says Gary Chaimowitz, president of the Canadian Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Provincial review boards, mandated by the Criminal Code, have jurisdiction over those deemed not criminally responsible for their acts, officially known as "accused," as well as people judged unfit to stand trial. Michael Davies, an Ottawa criminal lawyer who often represents mentally ill clients, says the process is rigorous. "The board's job is a difficult one in balancing the safety of the public and the liberty of the accused, and I think by and large they do a really good job." Even in the best system, errors are inevitable, says James Stribopoulos, a professor at Osgoode Hall law school. "Predicting future dangerousness is just fraught with uncertainty at the best of times. You just can never know for sure." Yet it's the rare mistakes that dominate the public consciousness, he says, in part because of the perception that those deemed not criminally responsible got a free pass. "The reality is, if you speak to anyone close to the criminal justice system, these are hard defences to advance. I think judges and juries view them with skepticism," Stribopoulos says. To be declared not criminally responsible -- which replaced the old "not guilty by reason of insanity" defence -- an accused must be unable to appreciate the nature and quality of his act, or know that it is wrong. Most mentally ill fail the test. In his annual report this month, Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers said Canada is "criminalizing, incarcerating and warehousing the mentally disordered in large and alarming numbers." At least one-in-four new admissions to federal prisons display some form of mental illness, Sapers said. And many institutions lack the resources to meet their needs. Canada's current system dates from 1992, when Criminal Code amendments mandated that provincial review boards should oversee people found not criminally responsible until they are deemed no longer a threat. Ontario's review board has more than 150 members, including active and retired judges, psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers and members of the public. At hearings held at least once a year, five-member panels of the board consider whether an accused should be given an absolute discharge, a conditional discharge or be subject to a detention order. If the board issues a detention order, someone who committed a violent offence might initially be placed in a maximum- or medium-security mental hospital. "It's not like you're in the hospital one day and then we open the doors and the next day you're out in the community," says Karen De Freitas, a member of the Ontario Review Board. "You have to prove that you can handle each step of the increased freedom along the way." A 2006 study by Justice Canada provided a snapshot of those under review board jurisdiction. Though most have committed violent crimes, including murder, nearly half had not previously been convicted of a criminal offence. About three-quarters have been diagnosed with schizophrenia or illnesses such as bipolar disorder or major depression. One in five gets an absolute discharge after their first hearing. But almost one-quarter spend at least a decade in the review board system, and some much longer. "I'm aware of many cases where people have been in Penetanguishene (mental health centre) for the last 40 years," says Stribopoulos. "They can never be released." The board deliberations have been shaped by court decisions, most notably a 1999 Supreme Court decision known as Winko. It found that unless an accused poses a "significant threat," the board must give them an absolute discharge, which puts them outside the board's control. The court also removed any onus on the accused to establish that they're not dangerous, saying there must be clear evidence of a real risk of physical or psychological harm to the public, and the potential harm must be serious. In the wake of Winko, the number of absolute discharges soared. In Ontario, they tripled to 134 between 1998-99 and 2000-01. They've since settled into a range between 75 and 90 per year in the province. Many who receive absolute discharges remain in treatment voluntarily, says John Bradford, associate director of forensics at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group. "I've got patients who have been absolutely discharged more than five years. I think that says something about the work that we put into their rehabilitation and recovery." Fears the Winko decision might put more dangerously ill people into the community do not appear to have materialized. De Freitas, now medical director of the forensic program at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby, studied the issue a few years ago. She looked at 76 not-criminally-responsible accused who received absolute discharges before the Winko decision. They'd been in the community an average of 71 months. Twelve per cent had been charged with a criminal offence, and eight per cent had been convicted. "Most of the charges were quite minor," De Freitas says. "I think the most serious would have been assault, and there was an arson." She also examined a group of 68 people who received absolute discharges after the Winko ruling. They'd only been in the community for 26 months on average. Three per cent had been charged and two per cent had been convicted. Again, the charges were relatively minor. De Freitas readily admits her findings likely underestimate the extent of recidivism. However, "I don't think we're missing any really serious offences." De Freitas' research is rare. That's a problem, Waller says. "We're not collecting the sort of data we should be collecting so we can put this in perspective." One thing is clear: the demands on the review board system are growing rapidly. In 2008-09, the latest year for which numbers are available, the Ontario Review Board had jurisdiction over 1,419 people declared not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial -- an increase of about 40 per cent in the past four years. That same year, it added 255 new accused and held 1,775 hearings. Some suggest the increase reflects a growing awareness of mental health issues by judges and lawyers. Or it could be that strains in the civil mental health system are diverting more people into what Chaimowitz calls the "platinum card" forensic system. So far, the system appears to be coping, says Bradford. But "if it continues to rise at five-to-10 per cent a year, obviously there's going to be a point where the strain on the system is going to start showing." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Koepke Not the Only Person Released to Exhibit Alarming Behaviour Fred Koepke isn't the only recent example of someone who has exhibited alarming behaviour after being found not criminally responsible for a serious crime and released into the community. In 2005, Daniel Maxheleau, in the grip of acute paranoid and delusional schizophrenia, killed his parents and sister. He was found not criminally responsible, and was later conditionally discharged into the community. Earlier this month, police returned the 35-year-old to the Royal Ottawa Health Care Centre after he was spotted naked and screaming in the street. Daniel Skahan, 29, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder, was found not criminally responsible in September after setting a fire on the sidewalk outside Prime Minister Stephen Harper's residence. Just three months earlier, he'd been granted a conditional discharge by the Ontario Review Board after he was found not criminally responsible for a 2007 knife attack on a stranger. Then there's Jeffrey Arenburg, the paranoid schizophrenic who shot and killed CJOH sportscaster Brian Smith in 1995. The Ontario Review Board granted him an absolute discharge in 2006 after finding he no longer posed a significant threat to public safety. A year later, Arenburg, 53, punched a U.S. customs officer in the head, earning a two-year sentence in an American jail. Last year, he was released and returned to Canada. His present whereabouts are unknown. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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WIFE LOBBIES FOR AMENDMENT TO HUSBAND'S LAW OF EQUALITY DEAR ABBY: I have been married to "Leon" for 3 1/2 years. We have a 2-year-old daughter and are, for the most part, happy. However, one issue comes up frequently and seems to be the basis of all of our disagreements. Leon is hung up on things being "equal." This can range from whose "turn" it is to do the dishes, change the diapers, put our daughter to bed -- to exactly how many days we spend with each set of parents. If we travel to see my parents, we must also travel to see his. This "equal" obsession drives me nuts. I'm fully in support of "fair," but if I'm busy making dinner, it seems to me that he could change the baby's diaper even if it's my "turn." As for visiting the in-laws, he became upset with me when I wanted to plan a trip to see my parents without simultaneously planning one to visit his. He felt shortchanged -- until we added it up, and it turned out we've spent five weeks more with his family than with mine. A marriage is a partnership, and I believe in picking up the slack when Leon is overwhelmed, sick or tired. Why can't he do the same for me? -- UNFAIRLY EQUAL IN PHOENIX DEAR UNFAIRLY EQUAL: Because, for whatever reason, your husband is obsessed with the idea that he's going to get the short end of the stick -- if you'll forgive the vernacular. Either that, or he's obsessive-compulsive and also counts steps, turns and other meaningless minutiae. That he would expect you to stop preparing dinner to change a diaper is, to put it mildly -- yech! However, he isn't going to change until he realizes he has a problem. The incident involving visiting your parents should have been his first clue.

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Journalists the bane of Russell Crowe's existence  Grumpy actor may actually like his latest movie, The Next Three Days   BY JAMIE PORTMAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS NOVEMBER 18, 2010 Russell Crowe is a gifted actor who can also be his own worst enemy. That's why his short fuse got him into trouble earlier this year when he was grudgingly giving interviews at the Cannes Film Festival on behalf of Ridley Scott's darkly revisionist take on Robin Hood, a film that needed all the help it could get. The first lesson any journalist learns about Crowe is that his brawling Aussie image can be for real, the negative side of a Jekyll-Hyde personality, and that the media often bring out the devil in him. So it was in Cannes, when BBC radio reporter Mark Lawson made an innocuous observation about Robin Hood's Irish accent in the film. Crowe objected. "You've got dead ears, mate -- seriously dead ears if you think there's an Irish accent," Crowe grunted. The Oscar-winning actor shifted briefly to a lucid discussion of the historical basis for a movie that ended up disappointing at the box office, but he remained riled by the suggestion that he sounded Irish. He returned to the subject, throwing in the F word to express his annoyance. He abruptly left the interview, complaining, "I don't get the Irish thing, I don't get it at all." If you listen to the actual conversation, it's obvious that Crowe was upset, but it doesn't really sound like he's storming out. But that's what the news reports said the next day. An exaggeration? Probably. But Crowe has the reputation of being someone who does storm out of things. The outcome of this Cannes exchange was that Crowe's purported tantrum started generating more attention than the movie itself. So it didn't help Robin Hood's fortunes. But now, Crowe has a new movie about to open -- a suspense thriller called The Next Three Days, in which he plays a staid college professor driven to the desperate decision to try to bust his wife out of prison after she's wrongfully convicted of murder. It's written and directed by Paul Haggis, the Canadian who guided the controversial Crash to an Oscar victory. And so far -- touch wood -- Crowe has been making nice about the movie, which arrives in theatres Friday. Crowe presided over a recent news conference on the film's behalf and was reportedly on his best behaviour with those journalists who were allowed to attend. Furthermore, during actual filming, Crowe praised Haggis's script, not only for its suspense, but for its complexity. "If you're going to take on a thriller like this, you have to have a mind and eye for a complex narrative," he asserted earlier this year. "It's clear from Paul's work that this complexity is one of his specialties. So I knew we could make a great film." When Crowe misbehaves in public, he does so with a bang. Whether it's furiously heaving a telephone at a hapless New York hotel employee or throwing a British television producer against a wall in misplaced rage, Crowe makes headlines. That volatility certainly extends to the press. Once, when he was discussing the imminent birth of his son, he was asked if there were any trait he hoped his child wouldn't inherit from him. "Yeah, not having to talk to journalists," he said gruffly. During interviews for A Beautiful Mind, in which he played a schizophrenic genius, he accused journalists of trivializing the word "schizophrenia." But if his manner leaned to the objectionable, it also revealed his own thorny integrity. "Schizophrenia is a really, really serious disease, OK?" he said, eyes smouldering, the implication being that his media questioners were treating the issue frivolously. "The social understanding of schizophrenia is that it's about split personality, whereas, in reality, it's about thinking on totally different planes of reason. ... I wouldn't want anyone to think we were stepping away from treating it as seriously as it needs to be treated." Crowe may enter a news conference with the swagger of a barroom brawler, but he can shed the rough diamond image when he wants to and is capable of thoughtful, articulate answers. But given his track record, the media keep expecting the worst, and sometimes he's ready to oblige with statements that end up giving him the kind of headline he loathes. So yes, you can find arrogance in his blunt assertion that talking to the media is the "worst" part of the film business, and in his rantings about "the mind-numbingly inhuman experience of being the centre of a press junket." On the other hand, there's something refreshingly honest about this, even when he can be patently unfair. He's even been known to rebuff friends who come to his defence. When director Ron Howard told reporters Crowe is "misunderstood," the actor was quick to take exception. "I don't think I'm misunderstood," he harrumphed. "But I definitely think I'm misconstrued. I think it's very easy to offend people with the truth, for some reason." Still, no thinking person would ever accuse Crowe of not taking his craft seriously, even though his ego does get him into trouble. He is an actor who is repelled by formula material and who is able to explain why. In the case of The Next Three Days (which is based on a French thriller called Pour Elle) he sees not only a superior thriller, but an unusual love story. "This man has an undying love for his wife and would do anything to save her. Yet to achieve what he has to achieve, he must turn into somebody she may not love. To me, that was an interesting journey to take." Furthermore, Haggis knows what the terrible-tempered Russell can bring to a project he believes in: "Russell is the type of actor who cracks open his chest and lets you stare right into his heart -- deep into the dark corners of his soul." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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When a woman hits her man 'The whole system is a disaster for men' BY YVONNE DICK, POSTMEDIA NEWS NOVEMBER 29, 2010 Real men don't hit women, but sometimes women hit them. Jason Chivers (whose name has been changed to protect his family) is a middle-aged Calgary teacher of average build. At home, his wife would engage in sporadic episodes of violence that Chivers won't talk about even now that he has left the marriage. At the time, despite the violence, he says he didn't want to leave because of his kids. Research into the area of domestic abuse targeted at men indicates that men fear going to jail on false charges, the loss of their children and having to pay for both the family house plus an apartment on just their income. Yet when Chivers and his wife sought help, the counsellor's first advice was to just get a divorce. "I spent a lot of time in the office, living there ... for weeks at a time," says Chivers. "Eventually, I got the divorce, but not until I had tried everything else first ... . The whole system is a disaster for men." Although it's not often talked about, abuse against men happens, in numbers and types nearly the same as women: according to Statistics Canada, in 2005, seven per cent of women and six per cent of men experienced abuse, but men don't tell. Maybe that's not surprising when you consider that men often try to be the strong, silent types, raised to respect women, to rescue them from danger. Chivers said they don't how to handle it when the woman is the danger. According to an Alberta government booklet on preventing male abuse, it can take many forms, including pushing, blocking doors, threats, financial control, insults, lies intended to confuse, blaming, isolating, monitoring phone and email communication, making fun of a person's body, forcing or pressuring him into sexual activities he doesn't want, and many others. Cheryl Krneychuk-Waddy of the Calgary Counselling Centre says you can help the man in your life who tells you he's being abused or whom you suspect is being abused. For a start, don't confront his abuser, no matter how tempting it might be to do so. Do, however, talk to the man involved. "Offer them a safe place ... validate what they're saying." © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Schizophrenic man absolved of murder 2 Dec 2010 Ottawa Citizen MANITOBA Lawyers are recommending that a mentally-ill Winnipeg man be found not criminally-responsible for murdering his 16-year-old cousin just months after she underwent a life-saving bone marrow transplant for leukemia. Daniel Jesse James Munroe, 19, was suffering from untreated schizophrenia at the time of the May 2009 attack. His symptoms included auditory hallucinations and delusions. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Man heard 'evil laughter' before shooting Schizophrenic was trying to stop voices in head before confrontation with police BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, OTTAWA CITIZEN DECEMBER 7, 2010 7:48 AM OTTAWA - A paranoid schizophrenic shot by police told a psychiatrist he was hearing "evil laughter" and trying to stop the voices in his head shortly before confronting officers while armed with a pellet gun and a knife in an Ottawa apartment building. Ryan Charles, 20, was shot twice on June 22 after emerging from a garbage chute room on the ninth floor of an apartment building on Van Lang Private -- and lunging toward Ottawa police Const. Shane deHartog with a knife. Charles pleaded guilty Monday to a number of charges, including assault with a weapon on the officer who shot him, criminal harassment by threatening conduct toward two officers, using an imitation firearm, possession of a dangerous weapon and breach of bail conditions. He also pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon for a March incident in a convenience store in which he was caught holding a sharpened poker. According to an agreed statement of facts, Charles had been hiding in the garbage room after fleeing an earlier incident in which he had pointed a black handgun at two female officers on Churchill Avenue. DeHartog had been searching the apartment building and had his gun drawn when he opened the garbage room door and saw the shoes of someone hiding behind the door. The officer then kicked open the door in an attempt to pin Charles behind it when Charles reached around and pointed the firearm in deHartog's direction. The door then struck Charles, knocking him off balance and causing him to lower his arm. Believing the gun wasn't likely real, deHartog continued to order Charles to drop what turned out to be a pellet gun and put his hands up. But when Charles emerged from behind the door, he lunged and thrust a knife that was in his left hand toward deHartog, who was standing about a metre-and-a half to three metres away. DeHartog shot Charles once in the upper torso. When Charles remained standing and still held the knife, de-Hartog fired a second shot, causing Charles to fall to the ground and allowing officers to kick the weapons from his hands. The SIU cleared de-Hartog of any wrongdoing in the shooting. It was the second time Charles had confronted officers with the pellet gun that night. Two officers were sent to the corner of Lanark Avenue and Royal Avenue at about 10 p.m. after people called 911 to report a man in a red hoodie and carrying a bottle standing in the middle of the street screaming that he wanted to kill somebody. When one of the officers exited her vehicle, Charles asked, "What? What?" before advancing on her. The officer ordered him to put down the bottle, which he did, but while he was still partially crouched he reached across his body to pull out a black handgun. He then started walking toward the officer, who, fearing for her life, drew her gun and twice ordered him to drop what he was carrying. Charles ignored her instructions, and continued to walk toward them pointing the firearm. The officers retreated behind their cruiser as Charles walked past saying, "You get on the ground, bitches." Charles then fled to the Van Lang apartment building where his mother lives. Charles had tried to kick in her door, as well as knocked on a neighbour's door, before being shot. Charles later told a psychiatrist that he didn't like police because he was tired of dealing with them. Charles also said he believed police "sensed" where he was hiding because of his schizophrenia and that he could get away if he had a pellet gun. A sentencing hearing is set for Monday, where he faces at least a one-year mandatory minimum sentence for the firearm charge. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Police attacker 'not a violent person' Mentally ill convict sentenced to a year on weapons chargeMentally ill convict sentenced to a year on weapons charge BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, Ottawa Citizen 17 Dec 2010 A mentally ill man shot by police after brandishing a knife and pellet gun at officers told a judge Thursday he wasn't normally a violent person. "The only time I messed up and was violent was when I was schizophrenic," Ryan Charles told Ontario Court Justice Lise Maisonneuve in a barely audible voice from the prisoner's box. "I just want you to know I'm not really a violent person." Maisonneuve sentenced him to the mandatory minimum of one year in jail. Charles, 20, was shot on June 22 after emerging from a garbage-chute room on the ninth floor of an apartment building on Van Lang Private, wielding a knife. Charles, who also had the pellet gun, had earlier pointed the imitation firearm at two female officers on Churchill Avenue before telling them to "get on the ground, bitches." But in court Thursday, Charles denied lunging toward the officer who shot him, despite admitting that was the case when he pleaded guilty last week to charges including assault with a weapon on the officer who shot him, criminal harassment by threatening conduct toward the two female officers, using an imitation firearm and possession of a dangerous weapon. The imitation-firearm charge carries a one-year mandatory minimum sentence. However, after a brief meeting with his lawyer, Charles agreed after all that he had come out of the room and moved toward the officer. He didn't realize that he could be guilty of an assault by gesture, said his lawyer, Doug Baum. "I think the confusion I had was you guys were saying I was attacking him," said Charles, who repeatedly had to be asked to speak louder by Maisonneuve. "I just want to make it clear I did not assault anybody and I was not attacking anybody." Baum said his client is clearly mentally ill and knows now that he needs help. Charles told a psychiatrist he heard "evil laughter" and was trying to make the voices in his head stop before confronting police. He thought he was being bugged and told the doctor he didn't like police because he was tired of dealing with them. Charles also said he believed police "sensed" where he was hiding because of his schizophrenia and that he could get away if he had a pellet gun. "He is aware he has a problem, he is aware he had a very close call that night. He wants a better life for himself," said Baum, who asked Maisonneuve to recommend that Charles be sent to a jail near Brockville that offers psychiatric treatment. But Crown prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham said Charles' mental illness makes him "unstable, unpredictable and dangerous." Cunningham said officers are routinely subjected to abuse and accept it as part of the job, but being threatened with a knife or a pellet gun "goes above and beyond" what they should have to put up with. Charles, who has spent nearly six months in custody, including being handcuffed to a hospital bed after the shooting, should receive an additional 15 months to condemn his conduct, she argued. Noting Charles's difficult childhood, before sentencing him, Maisonneuve said people who suffer from mental illness should be jailed for the lowest possible amount of time. She also placed him on probation for three years and ordered him not to possess weapons for life. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Lawyer to seek publication ban in case of mentally-ill patient Man was found not criminally responsible in family deaths BY KRISTY NEASE, OTTAWA CITIZEN DECEMBER 19, 2010 An Ontario Review Board hearing Friday morning into the liberties of Daniel Maxheleau -- who was found not criminally responsible in the stabbing deaths of his father, mother and sister in Ottawa in 2005 -- has been adjourned until February to allow his lawyer time to prepare a full submission requesting a publication ban. Maxheleau has been living in detention at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre since Nov. 3, when he was arrested after neighbours of his Findlay Creek home in south Gloucester spotted him walking naked along the street and called police. When Maxheleau saw police arriving, he ran back inside his home and refused to come out. Once police left the scene, Maxheleau returned outside, still naked, and began screaming. Police eventually returned and apprehended him. At the Friday meeting, Marni Munsterman, Maxheleau's lawyer, asked for a publication ban on any evidence, submissions and the board's eventual decision. The board deals with the cases of people found unfit to stand trial or not criminally responsible for otherwise criminal acts. In 2005, Maxheleau was charged with the deaths of his father, Gerald Maxheleau, 66, his mother, Louise, 60, and his sister, Michelle, 25. He was found not criminally responsible because he suffers from paranoia and schizophrenia and stayed in mental-health facilities until 2007, when he moved back into the community. Another sister, Marie-Elaine, attended the Friday meeting but said nothing. As Munsterman argued for the publication ban, Marie-Elaine Maxheleau only nodded. Dr. Helen Ward said she had spent time with Maxheleau since he had come back under the care of the mental health centre, and said the 30-year-old had made the "wise decision" not to attend because he was "feeling pretty overwhelmed." She has previously described him as a model patient. Munsterman argued the board should issue a publication ban because the well-being and care of the accused is the board's mandate. Board chair William Donaldson said appropriate care and research would need to go into making such a decision. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Probation for man who punched hospital exec Outpatient angry over medication's side effects hit Royal Ottawa president BY ANDREW SEYMOUR, OTTAWA CITIZEN DECEMBER 23, 2010 A schizophrenic man who punched the Royal Ottawa Health Group president because he was angry over side effects from his medication was placed on 18 months probation Wednesday. Gianni Rizzo, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault in August, admitting he burst into the hospital boardroom on June 9 and asked who George Weber was before proceeding to punch the hospital executive in the head. When the director of clinical support, Gregory McLeod, came to Weber's aid, Rizzo scratched and kicked him. Rizzo, who had been an outpatient at the hospital for 14 years, said he committed the assaults because he was frustrated with painful and severe side effects from his medication that caused his head to roll back violently. Rizzo's lawyer, Karen Ann Reid, told Ontario Court Justice Judith Beaman Wednesday that her client has since become one of the first users of a new medication and is experiencing less of the harmful side effects. Rizzo, who had once bitten off the fingertip of a fellow patient and described himself to a probation officer as a "madman" when he was off his medication, told the judge things were "all right" now and he would follow his treatment plan. "You have done a lot of things that have frightened a lot of people," said Beaman, who warned Rizzo that any future frustrations should be discussed with his doctor directly. "It is not appropriate to take it out on other people." As part of his probation, Rizzo was placed on conditions to follow whatever treatment his doctor prescribed. He was also ordered not to possess any weapons for the next five years. "I don't want to let Mr. Rizzo leave with the impression his schizophrenia was an excuse for this," said Assistant Crown attorney Walter de Venz, who labelled Rizzo's actions as "an intentional act of defiance." "He's frustrated with his medication, he doesn't like the side effects. That's just the way it is," said de Venz. "He has to understand he has to take this medication." aseymour@ottawacitizen.com © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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