Categories
Nonfiction Observations

Trump and Bundy.

When I read what Donald Trump said, it immediately made me think of comments by Ted Bundy.

From today’s New York Times:

“Ownership is very important,” Mr. Trump said as he discussed, with a real estate mogul’s eye, the landmass of Greenland….

When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

From the Wikipedia page about Ted Bundy:

Possession proved to be an important motive for rape and murder as well. Sexual assault, [Bundy] said, fulfilled his need to “totally possess” his victims. At first, Bundy killed his victims “as a matter of expediency … to eliminate the possibility of [being] caught”; but later, murder became part of the “adventure”. “The ultimate possession was, in fact, the taking of the life”, he said. “And then … the physical possession of the remains.”

And further elaboration:

“[Bundy] said that after a while, murder is not just a crime of lust or violence”, [FBI Special Agent] Hagmaier related. “It becomes possession. They are part of you … [the victim] becomes a part of you, and you [two] are forever one … and the grounds where you kill them or leave them become sacred to you, and you will always be drawn back to them.”

When one covets this much, it is no longer possible to recognize the humanity of others.

Categories
Consult-Liaison Observations

Regime Change and Labels.

Not everyone buys into the idea that people have “personalities”. Sure, you may think that your friend acts in predictable ways. But you’ve also seen your friend change their behavior in different settings. In front of their parents they become someone else.

Heck, let’s not talk about your friend. Let’s talk about you. Do you adjust your behavior when you’re at work? (Have you ever peeled off your socks at the workplace and left them bunched on the floor?) Do you use different words when you’re with your parents versus when you’re with your friends? (If you text your parents, look at the emojis you use with them versus the emojis you use with your friends. Are they the same set?)

Maybe not so consistent and predictable, huh.

But for those who do believe in the concept of a personality—”a set of distinctive traits and characteristics“—then the idea of a “personality disorder” seems reasonable. It makes sense that people with personality disorders would have a set of “abnormal” traits and characteristics.

Over the past year(s) and maybe in response to the yesterday’s news, some have wondered if people in positions of power have personality disorders. Their rhetoric, policy decisions, and implementation of regime change via kidnapping—their emotional and behavioral characteristics—all seem abnormal. Our frowns do not turn upside down. They deepen with ongoing and worsening misbehavior.

It is imprudent to diagnose public figures with physical or psychological conditions. I don’t know these people; I will never be in a position to assess them. As an academic exercise, though, let’s look at what it means to have a “personality disorder”. This is how the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual defines a general personality disorder:

A. An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:

  1. Cognition (i.e., ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events).
  2. Affectivity (i.e., the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response).
  3. Interpersonal functioning.
  4. Impulse control.

B. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

C. The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

D. The pattern is stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

E. The enduring pattern is not better explained as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.

F. The enduring pattern is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition (e.g., head trauma).

It is hard to argue that the elected leader of a nation has “impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning”. To achieve that level of power one must be able to navigate (nay, dominate!) social relationships and occupational duties. Maybe the methods they use seem “abnormal”, but “abnormal” and “impaired” don’t mean the same thing.

Consider the history of the United States. It includes ugly events—both distant and recent—of dehumanization, oppression, and exclusion. Aren’t these “expectations of the individual’s culture”? Are we witnessing any actual deviation from these expectations?

It’s true: We don’t know if these Very Important People experience “clinically significant distress”, even as they induce that in others. Maybe they have other medical, mental, or substance use disorders. We just don’t know.

“Personality disorders” are actual clinical conditions. They are not slurs. It’s okay to dislike the totality of someone’s emotional and behavioral characteristics. That doesn’t automatically mean, though, that they have a personality disorder. We can have low approval of someone with high status. They might simply be “a stupid, annoying, or detestable person“.

Categories
Observations Public health psychiatry Seattle

How Atmospheric Rivers Affect People in Jail.

An atmospheric river is a river in the sky.

I don’t remember these from my youth, though they seem to happen most years now on the West Coast.

An atmospheric river that reaches Seattle is often called a “pineapple express” because the long band of moisture in the atmosphere originates around Hawaii. When the pineapple express arrives, the temperatures here become unseasonably warm (mid to high 50s°F / 12 to 15°C) as the rain falls.

The thing about rain in Seattle is that it usually isn’t rain. It’s more like a mist, a quiet visitor that stops by maybe for an hour or two, then slips away. Within the hour the drizzle returns again, just to make sure you didn’t forget about it. This is why most people here don’t use umbrellas. Raincoats are enough; umbrellas are a burden.

In contrast, the rain of atmospheric rivers demands your attention. The droplets are heavy and full. The water falls in sheets. It’s the mob of young people dressed up like Santa who sing Christmas carols off-key on a crowded light rail platform.

A particularly long river in the sky recently passed above Washington State. Grey clouds rushed overhead, churning past each other like currents of a river, dark water soaring through the heavens. Mud slid, highways collapsed, and lakes formed.

Walking around in it was like walking through a warm blizzard: My face stung from all the water droplets slapping against my cheeks. I had to squint to keep the water out. One afternoon, despite only walking for about 30 minutes, the hems of my pants were soon dragging on the ground. The rain had penetrated every thread and the weight of the water stretched everything down.

There is a small city in South King County that operates its own jail. It has only around 100 beds. (Compare this to the main county jail, which operates two adult facilities with around 1500 beds.)

This small city jail is near one of the rivers whose levee failed. Even as of this writing, the major roads on three sides of the jail are closed, one of which is a state highway. At the height of flooding, the state ordered people to evacuate.

What do jails do when the state orders people to evacuate because of a flood?

Reputable word on the street is that this jail took two actions:

Some people were released from jail. I don’t know what system jail officials used to determine who should be released. Presumably there was some consideration about the severity of the alleged crime. Releasing people from jail, though, results in the former inmates themselves holding the hot potatoes: If people have been ordered to evacuate and roads are closed, how do they return to their homes? (What if they don’t have homes?) People leave jail with only the belongings they came in with (and sometimes not even that), so if they didn’t come in with rain gear, oh well.

Other people were sent to a jail on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. This means inmates piled into secured vans or buses and travelled about 150 miles to Central Washington. Again, I don’t know what system jail officials used to determine who to relocate. Jails are meant to serve the local community and people can be released from jail unexpectedly. Will these people get a ride back to this small city? Will they have to figure out their own way back? With the exit of the atmospheric river, a polar vortex has taken its place. There is snow on the pass.

May our federal government stop manufacturing artificial disasters through inhumane policies. Natural disasters are distressing enough.

Categories
Nonfiction

Inconsequential News.

Guys, I am excited to share inconsequential news with you: Something I wrote was published in the New York Times!

Michelle Cottle wrote a poignant essay, ‘We Had No Idea What Was Coming’: Caring for My Aging Father (free gift link). On a whim, I wrote a response in a letter to the editor.

Editors are supposed to edit things, so of course my letter got edited. Here’s what got published:

Michelle Cottle’s excellent essay on the growing caregiver crisis includes the comment, “Never have I been so grateful not to be an only child.”

I, too, cared for my aging father. My mother was already deceased, and I have no siblings. The responsibilities were thus all mine.

As my father disintegrated, I was grateful that there was no ambiguity about next steps in his care. My friends with siblings who were also caring for aging parents experienced otherwise: They disagreed about how to manage finances, where their parent should live and the levels of care and interventions they should receive. As an only child, I was spared those burdens.

My beloved father was liberated this past February. There is a painful realization as the only child: No one else remembers my dad the way I do.

I guess the New York Times doesn’t like Oxford commas. (Probably because they take up valuable space.) And I’m honored to represent only children…?

You can read my beloved dad’s obituary here. That the New York Times chose to publish my letter seems, I suppose, like another gift from him. (Thanks, Dad.)

Categories
Blogosphere Reading

Links Around the World Wide Web.

Some interesting items for your consideration:

Why are people poor? (short video) The intelligent and incisive Jamelle Bouie comments on the recent immoral fiasco surrounding SNAP benefits.

Zohran Mamdani Wants Civilians to Replace Cops. Will It Work?

Civilian alternative programs are controversial—a prominent police abolitionist has lauded Mamdani’s plan, while one retired NYPD sergeant called it “probably the worst idea I’ve heard of in a long time.” But most coverage has failed to ask: what do we actually know about what civilian alternative response does? Are they a brilliant intervention, or a disaster waiting to happen?

The author, Charles Fain Lehman, is a fellow at the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. I recommend his Substack, The Causal Fallacy, where he consistently uses data in a good faith to make his arguments.

Full Days and the Long Walk. Craig Mod continues to walk many kilometers and notes,

The more people with control of their attention, the better our art, music, scientific research, political legislation, and, I believe, the more kindness and empathy in the world. Also, the more prepared you can be to fight. Without understanding and cultivating fullness, you lose sight of the battles worth fighting, and lack the energy to go after them.

And here’s an abrupt transition:

The Goon Squad: Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation. A link to this was in Craig Mod’s essay above. Maybe don’t read this at work.

What are these gooners actually doing? Wasting hours each day consuming short-form video content. Chasing intensities of sensation across platforms. Parasocially fixating on microcelebrities who want their money. Broadcasting their love for those microcelebrities in public forums. Conducting bizarre self-experiments because someone on the internet told them to. In general, abjuring connective, other-directed pleasures for the comfort of staring at screens alone. Does any of this sound familiar?

The Map on the Wall. This essay now seems quaint given the drastic changes in the Department of Defense, but highlights the influence we each have as individuals.

But I can’t control what goes on “out there.” All I can do is try to foster a culture within my hangar — within our squadron — where we address things like race, gender, sexuality, and religious difference in a mature way that reinforces some very basic truths: we’re better because we’re different. We’re stronger because we come from everywhere. And, we’re much more dangerous to any potential adversary because we don’t all approach difficult problems the same way.

I Am a Drug Historian. Trump Is Wrong About Fentanyl in Almost Every Way. (gift link) The author gives a succinct summary of the history of drugs in America, then highlights why the federal government’s current approach (i.e., tariffs, threats of war, and extrajudicial murders) is wrong. He notes more effective strategies:

These successful policies all do one thing: They make drugs boring again. Drugs are not magic, they are not demonic, they are not fundamentally different from all the other problems society faces. They are highly desirable and highly dangerous consumer goods. They are not unique in that regard.

How to Be a Good Neighbor. This is from J Wortham’s Substack, where the writing is more casual and spiritual, though is just as thoughtful and genuine as their essays in the New York Times.

Good neighboring feels like an active term, and clearer to me than the vagaries of community, a noun that gets tossed around with such abandon that it has become semantically satiated and bleached of all intention and meaning. Good neighboring feels like tapping into the actual network of people and place that make up a shared ecology.

We Followed the Rules. ICE Jailed Us Anyway. (video, gift link) What ICE is doing across the nation is already horrifying in its own right. As someone who has worked as a psychiatrist in a county jail, I am sorry to say that the conditions of the detention facilities described in the video are far worse than anything I ever encountered. (To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s okay to detain people for no cause as long as they are held in more humane settings.)