What I Teach My Son When I Say I Am Fat

I saw this great article going around Facebook again this week called When Your Mother Says She's Fat by Kasey Edwards. It is a letter by Edwards to her Mom about what she learned from her mother when her mother insulted herself due to her weight. What Edwards learned struck a cord for me and the many women who have been sharing this article because these are the same things we learned from our own beautiful mothers who never thought that they were beautiful

As the mother of a boy, I then thought about what mothers teach their sons when we speak badly about our own weight and appearance.

What particularly struck me in Edwards' article is where she writes that as a child she looked forward to the day when she would be like her mother, until:

"But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, ‘‘Look at you, so thin, beautiful and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly and horrible.’’

At first I didn’t understand what you meant.

‘‘You’re not fat,’’ I said earnestly and innocently, and you replied, ‘‘Yes I am, darling. I’ve always been fat; even as a child.’’

 

In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that:
1. You must be fat because mothers don’t lie.
2. Fat is ugly and horrible.
3. When I grow up I’ll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly and horrible too."

In that article I heard two voices from my own life. 

I heard my own voice, just a few weeks ago when I was talking to my husband, in front of my son, about going to my husband's annual Christmas party. I told my husband: "I don't want to go. I am fat, disgusting, and you deserve someone who looks good like you." 

I heard my son's voice who so often has said "No Mommy, you are pretty" at the many times I have made comments like I did about this Christmas party. 

I bet almost daily I say something negative about the way I look and I know my son hears it. It has become a daily part of my life, natural for me. As natural as the girls in grade school who told me I had to be at the bottom of the pyramid because I was so fat the rest of them could not hold me up. As natural as the people who made fun of me for having fat legs. As natural as the people who told my husband when we were dating that I was not pretty enough for him. It seems totally normal to me to feel required to never let myself forget that I am fat and ugly.

The comment I made to my husband about the Christmas party- "I don't want to go. I am fat, disgusting, and you deserve someone who looks good like you," told my son a lot about me, about himself, about his father, and about women in general. 

These are the potential lessons I taught my son that day:

• Body weight is a sign of beauty and thus there is one universal idea of beauty that we all must conform to.
• Fat is disgusting.
• His idea of beauty is wrong (because he thinks I am pretty and I am telling him this is not true.)
• A wife must look a certain way for her to be good enough to be seen with her husband.
• I am worth less than my husband.
• I am not someone that anyone would want to be seen with in public, and thus maybe even my son should not be seen in public with me
• Men should not love women who do not fit the cultural ideas of beauty.
• A person's self worth is based on their weight.
• I do not practice what I preach. I preach body acceptance and self-love, but I do not practice it. 
• To practice self-loathing rather than self-compassion and love. 
• To judge other's worth by their weight.
• To judge himself by his weight.

Since this type of body hatred is so normal for me, I do not even realize I am doing it. It was not until I saw this graphic going around Facebook today that I realized how often, every day, and every year, I talk about my weight and how much I hate my body. This comes from a Facebook page called Grrrl:

So, rather than resolving to loose weight again this year I resolve to not talk about weight loss or worth being attached to weight and looks in front of my son. Eventually I want to never talk about it to anyone again, but I know I am not able to do that yet. However, I can take the step now to not expose my son to seeing his own mother hate herself because of her weight. 

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

P.S. After I wrote this post, I took a break to have dinner with my family and noticed that in order to follow through on this resolution I already had to stop myself from saying things I typically would have said before. Such as "I can't believe I ate that much. I should stop eating because I ate too much already today. I feel disgusting that I ate this."

Also, I should add that "fat" is not in itself a bad word. When we add qualifiers to it like "disgusting," or when we use it in a negative way, that is when it becomes a problem.

How I Discovered the Brain/Gut Connection

There is a news article going around from NPR called "Gut Bacteria Might Guide the Working of Our Minds." Quite a few people have contacted me about this article asking if I have seen it since they know I use diet rather than medication to manage my bipolar disorder. For me, the article is not new information. I heard about the brain/gut connection many years ago but it has not been widely accepted or talked about in main stream medicine so few people know about it. However, this information is saving my life so I wanted to let you know how I found out about it and give you some resources for your own research.

The NPR article only talks about gut bacteria and how they have found that the bacteria in our gut effects our brain. For instance, in one study with mice, they put the gut bacteria of non-anxious mice into mice with anxiety and the anxiety in those mice decreased. They then reversed it and gave non-anxious mice the gut bacteria of anxious mice and the non-anxious mice developed anxiety.

I first discovered at least a connection between what you eat and mental illness when I was a child. As early as I can remember, I would constantly overeat sugar in order to make myself feel better. I actually ate spoonfuls of sugar out of a 5lb. bag. Throughout my childhood I was anxious, scared, sad, manic, angry, and seeing things that were not there. Somehow I discovered when I ate large amounts of sugar, these things got better. Of course, at that age I had no idea what was really happening and I did not make the connection that eating large amounts of sugar only perpetuated the problem, making me more manic if I did not keep up with eating copious amounts of sugar daily. I first read about this and how sugar increases serotonin in the brain when I was in my 20's and found the book "Potatoes, Not Prozac." This started my journey of researching how food and gut bacteria effect the brain.

Brain food snack. Photo copyright Jeff Norris.

I think the hardest part about using dietary and lifestyle changes to manage an illness, any illness, is that most of the researchers never work together and they only focus on one part of the problem. For instance, "Potatoes, Not Prozac" does tell you to eliminate sugar but there is no research in there about gut bacteria and brain health. Basically, you need to do a lot of your own research and put together the information all of the scientists have discovered and find what works for you.

My next step was a psychiatrist who told me that cutting out sugar and increasing my daily amount of animal protein could help with my ADD and mania. He said he read a few papers on it but usually did not recommend it because medication was easier, "no one wants to change their diet," he said. As I did more research, it was not surprising to me that more animal protein helps with mania. There is a lot of research about using a ketogenic diet to manage epilepsy and the drugs used for epilepsy control bipolar disorder so it seems to make sense that for some reason a diet that helps epilepsy would also help bipolar disorder. But again, two fields of research working independently of each other and thus information is rarely shared.

Every time I implemented one of these dietary changes, I got better. After a few weeks of sugar withdrawal, not eating sugar made my depression better, but I was still angry all the time (mania). Increasing animal protein got rid of the anger. The biggest issue with any of this though, at least in my experience living in the midwest, is that few doctors, even if they have read the research, really ever use diet to treat mental illness so none of them can help guide you find out what works for you. I will write a full post on this issue, but this has been for me and the people I work with, the biggest reason it is so hard to stick with dietary and lifestyle choices, it is just not supported in our culture, especially by society in general. Try going to a dinner party and not eating dessert or drinking and you will find just how difficult it is to eat what is best for you. I also developed a binge eating disorder from the sugar addiction and then trying to follow Weight Watchers which got me to be militant about food rules. So for years I have gone back and forth with what I eat.

Then my husband, who has always had a iron stomach, got very sick. He could not keep any food in him and his immune system was shutting down. He had all the tests done and was told he had Irritable Bowl and there was nothing they could do for him. We could not imagine that his whole life would be like this and a friend told us to try cutting out gluten (wheat) even though my husband did not test positive for a wheat allergy. He got better right away and since I was eating the same as him, I noticed my moods evened out. From there I went back to researching the link between food and mood and then found the Paleo diet which cuts out all grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes and I felt even better.

Photo copyright Jeff Norris.

Through the Paleo community is where I found a wealth of information. Books explaining why I had Irritable Bowl since I was a child, as well as eczema and a whole host of other issues. There were many stories from people who said their moods improved on the Paleo diet and then I found all of the research on bacteria and gut health. It was amazing. All of these things completely made sense to me and just a week into a Paleo diet I start to feel remarkably better.

Over these many years, my eating disorder has gotten worse and today that is still the thing that makes it hard for me to stick to eating Paleo. Not only will people argue, shame, and pressure you not to eat this way, but any way of eating that seems to have a lot of rules can trigger your eating disorder if you have not worked through the eating disorder with a therapist. However, more people are writing about this and talking about how to ease into a Paleo diet and find the foods that work with your body and help you recover from an eating disorder. That might mean you eat some dairy or none at all. You might tolerate white rice, or not. However, no where have I found that people with mental illness do well eating wheat, sugar, or artificial sugars. Sugar and wheat easily allow detrimental bacteria to grow like wildfire in your gut.

I will not say this has been an easy path because it has not been for me. I will write more about the journey in future posts. Basically, I have been Paleo for over a year now and when I can be 100% Paleo, my moods even out within a week and I am very stable. It works better and faster than any medication I have ever tried, with none of the side effects. As I work through my eating disorder I am confident I will be able to stick to this better and better as time goes on.

I would like to link you to some resources that you might find helpful in doing your own research about the brain/gut and food/mood connections. These are just a few of the resources I have, but I think it is enough to get you started!

Blessings,
Rev. Katie

General Resources:
Blog: Evolutionary Psychology by Emily Deans, M.D. This is the place to go for all the real research and studies about food/mood and the brain/gut connection.  Seriously, fantastic. This is the place to start your research!

Blog: i bee free - Fantastic blog by Courtney who has been able to really stick with the Paleo diet with modifications that fit for her. From i bee free: "Under a doctor’s care for hypothyroidism, Courtney Rundell ended up in a mental hospital and was misdiagnosed bipolar. A year later, she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune thyroid disease that causes both hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. Neither her psychiatrist or endocrinologist reconsidered her bipolar diagnosis...Improperly treated Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Adrenal Fatigue were the cause of decades of suffering. After a lot of trial-and-error, she’s found the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol, minor supplementation, a regular sleeping schedule, yoga and meditation to be much more powerful than handfuls of pharmaceuticals."

Book:  Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia. by Natasha Campbell-McBride, M.D.


Paleo Resources:
Website & Books : Balanced Bites by Diane Sanfilippo, BS, NC. Diane's website is a wealth of information but so are two of her books, Practical Paleo and The 21 Day Sugar Detox. She has information about the connection between food and your gut and all different illnesses.

Website:  Paleo Parents by Matt and Stacy. They have two cookbooks as well as chronicle living Paleo with kids. Stacy has lost over 100 pounds and talks about finding the diet that works best for you and loving your body as it is. This is a great resource for anyone with an eating disorder to start to learn how to eat even if you have health restrictions but not turn to eating disordered militant rules and body shaming.

Podcast: The Paleo View. Podcast featuring many Paleo experts covering all kinds of topics, including eating disorders, food and mood, and the brain/gut connection.

Website: The Paleo Mom by Sarah Ballantyne, Ph.D. Sarah is a wealth of information about using Paleo to heal autoimmune disorders and she explains the science behind the Paleo diet.

Website: Chris Kresser L.AC. Lots of science about the brain/gut connection.

Go-to Books about Paleo and all the science behind it:
The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf. If you want a book with all the science but that is easy to understand, this book is for you.

The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain, Ph.D. Considered the first book about Paleo that really got the movement started. There is a lot of science in this book and on his website with tons of published research papers.

Paleo and Eating Disorders Information:
Paleo and Eating Disorders from Paleo Diet Lifestyle by Sebastien Noel
Can the Paleo Diet Cure Bulimia? from Paleo Healing by Doron Dusheiko
Disordered Eating from Paleo Pepper.

Mental Health Awareness 2013: 4 Points to Consider

It's Mental Health Awareness week (Oct. 6 - 12, 2013), and it is sad to know of all the people who have died due to mental illness, such as actor Lee Thompson Young. His story, like all similar stories, is tragic. I noticed that his particular story brings to light many of the things people are not aware of with mental illness.

Here are 4 points I think we need to consider in raising awareness regarding mental illness and suicide. (Reading this article first will help you see why I am raising these points in connection with Young's story.):

1. Medication does not fix everything. It is a myth that medication fixes mental illness in everyone. Young was on medication for bipolar and it was even found in his blood that he was actually taking it. Medication works great in some people, helps a little for others, may not help at all in some, and for others it actually makes them worse. We need to be aware and look at all aspects of a person's life if we are to help people treat their mental illness. We can't just put people on med's and think they will be fine. In fact, almost all of these medications have warnings on them that they can all cause suicidal thoughts and actions.
2. Being religious is not an illness. In the article about Young's death, it states that the coroner had made a point to report that Young had an altar in his house, implying that his religion had something to do with his mental illness. Then other news outlets have been saying his faith caused his depression, almost insinuating that the religion was cult-like. It is not weird to have an altar in your house. If someone had a wall of crosses in their house (many Christian's do), no one would even think to say this had anything to do with their illness. Can I also say that there is clearly a race and culture issue here as well? The only time religion should be considered a factor in mental illness is if the person was treated badly, shamed, or bullied in their faith due to their illness or any other reason. This could happen in any faith. There is not reason to think that Young's faith was a result of mental illness or a cause of it. When I first went into ministry and people found out I was bipolar, I often was asked "Are you sure you are not just experiencing hyper-religiosity? You know that's a symptom of bipolar."
3. Not all people with mental illness look "unstable." A lot of this article focuses on how Young never exhibited symptoms of illness. He was stable, he had a stable family, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. What people don't realize is that mental illness is ordinary. We live and work in your communities. It is an invisible disability and we should not be so shocked to find out someone who seemed "normal" has a mental illness. Mental illness does not always mean visible instability. Also, those of us with mental illness know we are not allowed to have a voice because of the stigma around our illness, and so we often hide our illness.
4. Believing "If only we knew, if only we paid more attention" does not always stop a suicide. No matter how hard we try, we can not stop death due to any illness 100%. There is no benefit in engaging in collective or individual guilt over a suicide. Young's story shows that we may never be able to adequately see the severity of a person's illness. True, we always need to do the best we can to help keep people safe, within the confines of the actual knowledge we have. In some cases though, there really are no visible signs, at least not ones that most people would recognize, before a suicide. In fact, many people seem to have a decrease of symptoms of their illness a few days or weeks before a suicide. Young saw his doctor on August 14 and he appeared fine. He died by suicide just days later on August 19, 2013. I recommend taking a Mental Health First Aid class in order to know how to properly asses a potential suicide, to the best of your ability, knowing that we can't predict everything.  

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Did Sinead O'Connor Slut-Shame Miley Cyrus?

This is my second post about the whole Miley Cyrus/Sinead O'Connor issue, you can read the first one here. (Basically, I think both of them did things that were inappropriate.)

Many people on the internet are applauding Sinead for advising Miley not to pimp herself out for men and the music industry who do not care about her. While I understand the message Sinead was trying to go for, namely not to let other people use you, it does come dangerously close to being slut-shaming.

Slut-shaming is when a person publicly or privately calls out a woman for being "too sexual" (in action, dress, or for any other reason) and not conforming to societies ideas of what is acceptable for a woman. Read a few excerpts from Sinead's letter to decide for yourself if you think it fits the definition of slut-shaming:

"I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping."

I think this could have been worded better. I am not a fan of the whole "Don't dress or act like that or other people will hurt you message" because I believe no ones dress is responsible for another person's bad actions. Also, saying Miley pimped herself out is basically publicly calling her a prostitute. That sounds like shaming to me.

Sinead goes on to say:

"This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them prey for animals and less than animals, a distressing majority of whom work in the music industry and it’s associated media."
 
This part is especially concerning to me. Men walk around all the time in nothing more than boxers and no one says anything. A girl puts on a bikini and the whole country gets upset. We hold men to a different standard than women, assuming women need to cover themselves up so as to not incite "prey" to hurt us. What?! If a naked body incites you to harm another person, that is your issue, not the problem of the naked person. And, can we please remember that our American issues with sexuality and nakedness are not shared by the whole world.

Copyright: Katie Norris

We also, as a society, seem to think that because we all saw Miley grow up in front of us on the Disney Channel that we all have a say in her choices. This is exemplified by Sinead's comment: "So this is what I need to say… And it is said in the spirit of motherliness and with love." Motherliness and love, the two words we use just before we shame someone. We think that if we say something we are doing is done out of "good intentions" that what we are about to say is justified. America, we are not Miley's mother and I do not believe mother's (or parents) have the right to shame their children anyway.

I think the underlying message in Sinead's letter was meant to be that women claim their power and sexuality for themselves, not because they think it will sell more records. It could have been said without the slut-shaming language which not only effects Miley but every other woman who wears a bikini, dances in a certain way, or falls out of our social norms. Maybe we should seek to understand before we judge. By creating a national scandal out of Miley's actions, we only brought out her defensiveness rather than anyone asking her what she wants from her career and what she wants from her life. I am not saying we do not address consequences of our actions. We can talk about the realities of being judged in our society by what we do and how much of that judgement we are willing and able to take on at this point in our lives. We can help people discern what is right for them rather than telling them what is right for them. Maybe we should also consider the power dynamic here. The power of a male industry and older male directors over a young woman. Could you imagine being put in her position? To even think that you have the ability to make your own choice when those with so much power over you probably say you do not? Just something to consider.

I don't care if Miley is naked on a wrecking ball, I don't care what she wears, and I don't care how she dances, as long as she does these things for herself, with intention, and not because she thinks it will cause a scandal or to be rebellious, and especially not if she feels powerless to make her own choice. I don't have the right to judge what she wears or if she licks a wrecking ball, and really, why do I care anyway?

I am far more concerned about the disgusting message of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines song than Miley's dancing. In fact, it is not Miley's sexuality and dress that bothered me the most about the Video Music Awards, but other more important issues. Such as Miley sharing the stage with Robin Thicke in singing about dominating women. (Do we really think Miley had a choice in that decision? And why is she the only one being blamed for it?) Then there are the issues of race in Miley's performance when she uses African American women as props. Miley also culturally misappropriated twerking. This has resulted in a judgement of twerking as inappropriate and it sends a terrible message to the African American community for whom this is their dance form. Again, I will reiterate that while I say Miley did these things, we have to understand that "Miley" is not one woman but a whole industry of people telling her what to do and I don't know how much power I would feel I had in that situation at 20 years old. Heck at 34 I don't know if I could stand up to the people she had to deal with.

While these issues mainly concern two people, I think it illustrates a much bigger issue in our society. We think we can tell people who they are and who they can be, and then we assume they will be healthy of body and mind. That's just not true. We destroy people by shaming them. And, one act of shame creates another, such as how Miley then responds to Sinead by shaming her for having mental illness. How is this cycle healthy for either one of them?

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Miley Cyrus Shames Sinead O'Connor for Having Mental Illness

This is the first of two posts on the Miley and Sinead issue. Please see my other post here. (Basically, I think both of them did things that were not all that helpful.)

Some of you may be following the Miley Cyrus/Sinead O/Connor debacle. Basically due to concern over Miley's recent performance on the Video Music Awards, her Wrecking Ball video, and then Miley saying that she was inspired by Sinead's work, Sinead wrote an open letter to Miley. Sinead voiced her concern that Miley was allowing the music industry to exploit her. Miley replied immediately by shaming Sinead for having mental illness.

First of all, I can't even believe I wrote the paragraph above. I feel like I am in high school with a bunch of petty girls who don't know how to communicate directly with each other.

Second, I believe both Sinead and Miely behaved poorly in this encounter. Indirect communication almost always ends in fighting and slander. I do understand the greater purpose in open letters and possibly why Sinead made that choice. Open letters are not only for the person you are writing to, but they are a social commentary, written to bring larger issues to light to society. Sinead's letter was not really just a message for Miley, but for the music industry as well and to raise awareness in our society about the industry and how it exploits people. I think it was also a message to young women who might idolize Miley and want to act like her.

Copyright: Katie Norris

 Miley's response to Sinead's letter was to post old tweets from Sinead when she was in the middle of a mental health crisis, asking for help. Miley tweets these by first shaming Amanda Bynes by tweeting "Before Amanda Bynes...There was..." and then posting the old tweets from Sinead about needing mental health care. (Amanda Bynes was recently in the psychiatric hospital.)

This whole thing is a great example of why every person with mental illness knows it is not safe to tell our story and it is not safe to ask for help when we need it. In her last tweet Sinead says "I realize I will be in trouble for saying this but...Ireland is a VERY hard place to find help in. So having tried other ways first, I'm asking."

She was right. She did get in trouble for asking for help and being proactive about her treatment. Two years later it is being used against her.

While I am not thrilled with the indirect communication between these two women and the vitrol with which both of them communicate, I do think that this whole ordeal brings up a few of the issues people with mental illness struggle with.

First is that we are not free to ask for help or tell our story because other people will not only judge us negativly in our time of need, but also for the rest of our lives.

Second it shows how if you talk about your mental illness, few people ever take your seriously again and they will use your illness against you if they have a disagreement with you.

Third it points out just how hard it is for people with mental illness to find work. Sinead came out with another open letter to Miley stating: "If you cannot apologize I will have no choice but to bring legal precedings against you since it is extremely hard to be given work when people think one is suffering from mental illness."

Fourth, Sinead's statement quoted above shows a deeper issue in society. We tend to promote a myth that mental illness goes away, that you recover from it and it never effects you again. We like this myth because it is convenient for society to think it's an illness that can be cured. For those of us living with it we play into the myth as well because we know society cannot handle the reality that mental illness is a chronic illness so we cover up the fact that we live with it every day. For some people yes, the illness is something they completely recover from, but this is rare. In order for people to hire you, listen to you, even think you deserve a family or a life at all, you have to pretend like you are fine most of the time. I find it sad that even those of us living with mental illness have to pretend like we don't have it because society does not understand that even in the midst of pretty severe illness we can work and be reliable.

I think this whole Cyrus vs. O'Connor thing has gotten way out of hand. They are just both shaming each other back and forth. When we use shame tactics to "teach" others, it never works out well. Shame destroys people and I think we can see how this is happening to both of these women.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

If you cannot apologize I will have no choice but to bring legal proceedings against you since it is extremely hard to be given work when people think one is suffering from mental illness. - See more at: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-04-miley-cyrus-third-open-letter-from-sinead-oconnor-facebook-feud#sthash.Wxj4Id8H.dpuf

If you cannot apologize I will have no choice but to bring legal proceedings against you since it is extremely hard to be given work when people think one is suffering from mental illness. - See more at: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-04-miley-cyrus-third-open-letter-from-sinead-oconnor-facebook-feud#sthash.Wxj4Id8H.dpuf

If you cannot apologize I will have no choice but to bring legal proceedings against you since it is extremely hard to be given work when people think one is suffering from mental illness. - See more at: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-04-miley-cyrus-third-open-letter-from-sinead-oconnor-facebook-feud#sthash.Wxj4Id8H.dpuf

Halloween Tip: How to Dress Like a Crazy Person!?

Halloween. A fantastic holiday where you can be anyone you want to be and eat tons of candy. Some of my favorite costumes through the years have been Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Bright, a girl from the 50's, Belle, and some really great spiderweb eye makeup one year. I love to dress up like other people, but did you know that for around $30 you can dress up this Halloween like me?

Apparently, according to Sears Department Stores, I look like this:

 

There are quite a few options on Amazon, including this one here, but you really need to get the "crazy eyes" down to make it look authentic:

If you spend $50 apparently you can get the sexy version of "Goin' Out of My Mind":

Oppressive, and stigmatizing costumes abound at Halloween. Please choose your costumes wisely.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

P.S. Good news from the UK, "mental patient" costumes were taken out of stores recently! 

Another Shooting, Another Discussion of Mental Illness

After the shooting at the Navy Yard this week, of course the media turns to mental illness as a cause. Unlike many of the other recent shootings, there is documentation that the shooter, Aaron Alexis, probably had some form of mental illness. He did report hearing voices and other paranoid beliefs weeks prior to this event. However, for me, the key is not that there was documented possible mental illness (he had never been officially diagnosed) but that he also had documented past gun offenses and more importantly, he received poor mental health care. (I wonder why a person with previous gun offenses even had a gun, and those offenses apparently occurred before he ever reported experiencing paranoia or any mental health issues.) It is not the mental illness alone that causes an event like this, it is a combination of factors.

Apparently Alexis had spoken to police weeks before about hearing voices through the walls and the police reported it to the Navy and nothing was done. Then Alexis went to the Veterans Affairs ER twice for insomnia but did not mention the paranoia, and he was given sleeping pills. To give sleeping pills to someone with possible mental illness is just wrong. Clearly there is something wrong in the system that Alexis was given those pills, on two separate occasions, even though police had reported that he was experiencing paranoia. Some sleeping pills can increase risks of suicide and depression. Many medications can interact with mental illness negatively, such as how antidepressants trigger manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder. You have to correctly diagnose the mental illness before you start perscribing medications. To me it seems that previous issues with violence and gun offences combined with poor regulation of medicine is more of a possible cause of this shooting than just blamining it on mental illness alone.

When we just look at mental illness in general as a cause, we promote the idea that all people with mental illness are as much of a risk to society as Alexis was on that day. We assume if we never let anyone with a mental illness have a gun, there will be no more shootings. This is not true, especially since most shootings are not committed by people with mental illness. There are many factors which go into creating the perfect storm that lead to an event like this, and possible mental illness is one factor for this particular situation. However, I know many people who hear voices, think they are being followed, and have paranoia who are not violent, have never used a gun, and have never committed a crime.

I think we also need to look at the fact that the stigma against mental illness is terrible in our society, but especially bad in the military. This means most people do not even seek treatment for mental illness. We know that people in the military are not able to ask for help with mental health issues for fear of loosing their job, even for very mild mental health issues. Maybe Alexis could have gotten help earlier if he would have felt safe enough to get mental health care much earlier when mild symptoms probably presented themselves months ago, if not years ago. 

I just wish we would look at each of these cases individually and not lump violence and mental illness into a category together which stigmatizes all people with mental illness. We need to look at each person individually.

Clearly we need better mental health care, not only because of events like this where poor mental health care is very likely to be a factor, but also for the 1 in 4 Americans with mental illness who need better care- and most of them are not violent. The need for better mental health care is not because of violence, it is because people with mental illness deserve good care and a chance at the best life possible.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie