Mental illness fact and fiction

Recently, as I was standing in a checkout line in my local IGA, I overheard two women discussing Carlie Brucia’s horrible death. They called the alleged killer “psychotic,” “insane” and a “murderer.” Since I have a big mouth and a lot of opinions, I wanted to join the discussion and say to these obviously upset women that “that” man is really not “psychotic” or “insane.” Yes, he may be a killer, but definitely not “crazy.” How can somebody do such a thing and not be crazy you may ask? The answer to that is very complex and almost impossible to understand unless you have been insane, and since I have been “insane” myself, I see a tremendous difference and I do not like being labeled the same as “that” man.

First off, insanity and a personality disorder are two very different things. Ted Bundy, for instance, was not insane. He understood exactly what he was doing and he knew that it was wrong. He made a conscious choice to kill knowing what pain he was causing; and he admittedly felt no guilt afterward. He even got a sadistic thrill from making his victim’s suffer. That is what makes him a sociopath – having no conscience, which is a personality disorder not insanity.

To date, a sociopath cannot be treated with therapy or medication; the person is permanently lacking the ability to feel normal human feelings such as empathy, guilt or remorse. The man who killed Brucia appears to fit that profile based on his actions. The murder was sadistic and he knew what he was doing because he hid the crime and denied it afterward.

When someone is insane, on the other hand, the ill person actually loses touch with reality. A typically “insane” person has normal human emotions and feelings and he or she can function appropriately in society with medication. He or she may have what we often refer to as a “breakdown,” which is precipitated by many things, such as stress, mismanagement of medicine or just that his or her brain chemicals are not working properly. When a person becomes psychotic or “insane,” he or she may see things that are not there or believe things that are completely false, and thus the person reacts and does some often humiliating and crazy things based on his or her faulty beliefs and vivid visions.

For instance, let’s say that you truly believe that God is telling you to do something, regardless of how outlandish it may be, you are going to 100 percent believe what God says to be true and thus react; after all, in your mind it’s God. Nobody can convince you otherwise. Or, let’s say that you actually saw and felt a tarantula crawling up your arm, wouldn’t you react by screaming and swatting it off? How odd that would seem to the person standing next to you who is not hallucinating.

Mentally ill people may behave irrationally when they are ill (and when they are no longer ill they can still have a hard time accepting that their prior delusions and hallucinations were false because they seemed so real) but their behavior is certainly not their choice; a mentally ill person during an episode cannot not react to his or her distorted reality – that’s the horrible result of the cruel illness.

Without proper treatment or hospitalization, a mentally ill person may, but not usually, become violent during psychosis due to the tremendous fear and paranoia that can often accompany hallucinations, haring voices or delusions. Yet, an “insane” person’s odd behavior isn’t premeditated. What happened to Carlie Brucia wasn’t the result of some hysterical and paranoid man suffering psychosis; it appeared cold-blooded and calculated.

I am not ashamed to say that I have a mental illness; it certainly wasn’t my choice. Still, I do resent being regarded on the same level as a cruel killer with a sociopathic personality disorder. There are many people in this state who have mental illness, but because people are often afraid of the mentally ill based on an erroneous belief that a mentally ill person is dangerous, a mentally ill person lives in secrecy. You may even be unaware that a neighbor or good friend has a mental illness because he or she fears your reaction. So, please try to understand what a mental illness is and what it certainly isn’t. Do not equate what happened in the tragic Brucia case with someone with temporary psychosis or insanity.

Tell it like it appears to be – a brutal, senseless murder of an innocent child by a man seeming to lack compassion or concern for other’s lives.

Pamela Correale of Fort Fairfield, who has a degree in medical psychology, is currently raising her four children and is working on a book about her own experiences with mental illness.