Hello. I'm Koelle. I'm Kenna.
And welcome to diagnosing a killer, mental breakdown.
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-breakdown!
Well, well, well, well.
We're gonna try to do these once a week for you guys.
They are going to kind of break down mental disorders and unique needs,
as far as psychology and all that other stuff.
We're usually gonna pick out one from the DSM-5.
So this week's is going to be Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders.
We've been talking about that a lot lately.
Yeah, so I know recently we did an episode about Richard Chase,
who was diagnosed at the time with paranoid schizophrenia.
The latest copy of the DSM-5, it has been reworked a little bit.
It is no longer part of the DSM-5.
They now refer to schizophrenia as a spectrum, much like autism.
They no longer diagnose people with Asperger's syndrome.
It is all on a spectrum.
With that, the topic that we're talking about is going to be Schizophrenia Spectrum
and Other Psychotic Disorders.
This is according to the DSM-5.
It includes schizophrenia, other psychotic disorders,
schizotypal personality disorders.
They're defined by abnormalities in one or more of the following five domains.
These five domains are delusions, hallucinations,
disorganized thinking, including speech,
grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior, including catatonia,
and other negative symptoms.
If you have one or more of the previous, you may in fact be on the spectrum for schizophrenia.
Yes.
You also, I just want to note really quick,
because I'm actually taking abnormal psychology this semester,
and it's been so beneficial with my knowledge of psychology.
I actually bought my own copy of DSM-5, I told you.
It has to do with one or more of the symptoms presenting itself,
that it has to be a reoccurring kind of, like,
frequent, recent kind of realization, I guess, of these symptoms.
Yeah.
So some of the types of schizophrenia,
like we said with Richard Chase's case,
he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
The previous types that were on the DSM-4 were the paranoid type,
disorganized type, catatonic type,
the undifferentiated type, and the residual type.
If you guys want to look up which each of those means,
then be my guest.
I won't go into detail just because it's a lot.
But those are the ones that have been dropped between the DSM-4
and the DSM-5, and that's why it is that spectrum blanket.
And the DSM-4, if I'm not mistaken, was published in 2008,
and the DSM-5 has been revised,
but it was originally published in 2013.
So I think there's a DSM-6 or a DSM-5 R coming out pretty soon.
Yeah, well on its way.
Yeah.
Yeah, but this is the most updated version.
I think the diagnosing criteria is going to be two or more
of each one of these presented, like we said,
the delusions, the hallucinations, disorganized speech,
catatonic behavior, or diminished motor skills,
and then of course those extra negative symptoms.
These are all disturbances that happen within,
can be a one to a six month period depending on the type
of disruption that you're experiencing.
Which is terrifying.
Yeah, and so it's got to be reoccurring, like I said,
two at a time or two of those exuding behaviors
or exhibiting behaviors within a few months.
Yeah.
And you're not going to find a case with all of those.
I mean, it's very unlikely to have all of those
because there's only, there's three different ways
that schizophrenia presents itself.
It's positive symptoms, negative symptoms,
and cognitive symptoms that don't get into later,
but it's very unlikely to have all of those.
It's usually one or the other.
Right, yeah.
Two or the other.
Yeah, for sure.
Just another like little interesting thing about
the schizophrenia spectrum disorder,
the co-warmbidity is substance use.
Like it's, it's, it's the substance related disorders
are super high on schizophrenia.
Over half of individuals with schizophrenia
have tobacco use disorder and smoke cigarettes regularly.
Co-warmbidity with anxiety disorders
is increasingly recognized in schizophrenia.
Rates of obsessive compulsive disorder are high,
panic disorder are high,
and that's in comparison to the general population.
Schizophrenia type or paranoid personality disorder
sometimes precede the onset of schizophrenia.
So you'll see all these little like blitz of paranoia
and that gets a type, type of behaviors
like manic, panic, things like that.
So unfortunately life expectancy is reduced with individuals
with schizophrenia because of the associated medical conditions.
Like weight gain, diabetes, metabolic syndrome,
cardiovascular, pulmonary disease,
they're way more common in people with schizophrenia
than in the general population as well.
Poor engagement in health maintenance,
like cancer screeners are exercised.
That also includes just taking care of yourself physically.
Yeah.
And again, when we were talking about Richard Chase,
he started bathing as often and he was very unkempt.
Yeah.
That also can be a sign of somebody
that is struggling with schizophrenia.
Not to mention you're not going to the doctor
or getting regular checkups when you're so preoccupied
with these other things that's going on in your mind.
Yeah, you have such high anxiety and paranoia.
It's like, why would I go to a doctor?
So poor engagement in health maintenance behaviors,
like cancer screening, exercising, all that stuff.
You're more at risk for chronic diseases
and other disorder factors like medications,
lifestyles, cigarette smoking, diet
are also going to play a role in that.
If you're treating all of these other symptoms
like high anxiety or high paranoia
and you're not actually treating the schizophrenia itself,
you're also increasing your chance for that to become an issue
because you are also now taking things that aren't appropriate
for your brain and it's causing this frustration
within the chemicals.
I was just going to say a lot of people get misdiagnosed
when they are presenting symptoms of schizophrenia
because other symptoms are maybe presenting more.
They're expressing themselves more.
And unfortunately, they do get prescribed the wrong medication
which then heightens their schizophrenic tendencies
or their paranoia symptoms, which is awful.
Yeah, so a shared vulnerability for psychosis
and mental medical disorders may explain
some of the medical comorbidities of schizophrenia.
So yeah, absolutely.
It's going back to Richard Chase
just with the drug abuse and all that stuff.
You're seeking something and nothing is working
and it's only making it worse.
And it's such a case that is really easy to relate that stuff to
because he went through all of the very early on symptoms
and then he tried to get help and then he did get help
and it was working.
The medication he was on but then his mom took him off of it
and all this stuff and then it heightened itself and heightened itself
and then it turned into this horrible, horrible crime.
Not to mention Andre Thomas was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.
I remember by the psychiatrist before they came back
and decided that that was incorrect, which was not true.
Yeah.
But he was the one that...
And he also saw help.
Yeah, he actually tried to self-medicate with marijuana
and that was thought to be the way to quiet the voices that he was hearing.
And then of course, you know, the alcohol abuse
and then unfortunately in his trial and of course he...
I don't believe that he shouldn't have gone to jail or gone through trial
but they used that against him and they tried to say that
because of his drug use and because of his alcoholic behavior
it actually heightened his paranoia and his delusions which it might have
but that's not the reason for the disease.
The disease is there regardless.
He's trying to abuse substances and abuse alcohol in order to help himself
not to make it worse.
Yeah, exactly.
Like to quiet the voices, if you will.
Some famous killer cases, if you will, that include offenders that have schizophrenia
and in no, again, I'm not going to use the terms paranoid schizophrenia or any of that
on the spectrum of schizophrenia.
And we want to be accurate with the current information.
Of course. Ed Gein.
Ed Gein was known as the butcher of Plainsfield.
He's actually inspired many film characters like Leatherface,
terrifying creatures in Hollywood.
He was actually found not guilty by reason of insanity due to his schizophrenia.
Bizarre to me.
I mean that makes sense when you say it out loud
but the insanity plea is so hard to come by
and it's so hard to get, like that sounds about to get
but like unfortunately, we saw it on Jay Thomas's case,
it's so hard to prove to the court system that you're insane.
Yeah.
And the legal definition of insane is not the definition of normative people
or people that aren't struggling with these illnesses, how they would define insane.
Insane, yeah.
And that's very unfortunate.
Richard Chase as well.
He went for that plea and didn't get it.
According to psychology today, I believe it was,
it's 1% of all murder cases have that plea,
that have pleaded that, and only 25% of that 1% are actually found not guilty by reason of insanity.
So that's like min school.
Yeah, it is a micro, it is a decimal.
Yeah.
Like it is so rare.
So I don't think a lot of people knew that, I didn't know that,
that Ed Gein never saw the inside of a jail cell, he never went to prison.
He lived the rest of his life in a hospital and died at 77.
I actually didn't know that and he's one of the ones that I want to cover as well.
Yeah.
He's been on my list for quite some time.
It is unfortunate though because some big, big, big name serial killers,
like I know you're probably going to mention them, Charlie Manson and Ted Bundy,
they, and we'll talk about them of course because we have to, they're just, you know.
They're on a different type of spectrum.
They are.
They are technically not paranoid.
They are, but they both tried to plead insanity as well as trying to say,
and it was hilarious because they're like, yeah, get fucked.
Charlie and Ted.
Charlie get fucked.
No, no.
So another really famous case, David Berkowitz, the son of Sam.
Oh yeah, son of Sam.
He had believed that his neighbor's dog was actually the one that commanded him to take,
to do these killings, which you would consider part of the cognitive,
because it was definitely his brain almost thought closing in on himself.
Absolutely.
And him lashing out was out of necessity in his mind.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And it's also, if I'm not mistaken, and please correct me if I'm wrong,
it's your own internal monologue that they're hearing,
but they're interpreting it as somebody talking.
It's not like, as far as I understand, it's not like it sounds like somebody,
like if you and me are sitting here talking, it's not like it sounds like an outside person talking to you,
but you hear it and you think it's somebody else even though it can be your internal one.
It's like an inflated conscience.
Yes.
Yeah.
So the last one I'm just going to touch on just as far as Schizophrenia goes,
James Holmes, the Batman, what they call him, the Batman killer or the Aurora theater shooting.
Oh yeah.
I was like, I don't think I know who that is.
Yes, I do.
Yes, it's very recent.
I mean, it's probably in the last eight years.
I remember that.
James Holmes has been diagnosed schizophrenic by 20 different doctors.
Oh my God, before or after this?
After the killings.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean, sorry, but after the first like three, why did you need 17 more doctors?
You know what?
I think it's probably because they want to believe that this man did this out of malice.
Yeah.
And I think that with that diagnosis, I feel like maybe it kind of makes people feel like,
like almost like he hasn't taken accountability.
Yeah.
And I see that.
Yeah.
And I think that's why they've done so many diagnosis with him.
I can see that.
I mean, it's amazing.
But I thought that was really interesting.
20 doctors.
Yeah, that's wild.
I don't even know 20 doctors.
Right?
I haven't even gone to 20 doctors.
So I'm briefly going to talk about, and I wasn't, I wasn't planning on talking a lot
during this episode, but I got this really amazing document from school.
I said I'm taking abnormal psychology, and I really wanted to share it with everybody
because it is the top 10 myths about schizophrenia that people think are true, but are actually
true.
Okay.
Shout out to Dr. Kahnbach for giving it to me.
This is actually from WebMD, so you can find it, and I'll put the link in the show notes.
So like I said earlier, schizophrenia can present itself in three different ways, positive,
negative, or cognitive.
Positive does not mean something good.
It means that it heightens something.
So it's going to heighten your paranoia.
It's going to heighten your anxiety or your delusions.
Negative is going to decrease them.
So it's going to make you monotone.
It's going to make you catatonic, like we said earlier, things like that.
And then cognitive is when those voices come into play.
And that's not, that's just a broad spectrum of what can happen is also a lot of other
things that do happen.
Now myth number one, it means you have multiple personalities.
A lot of people confuse schizophrenic disorder with multiple personality disorder.
They are definitely different.
It's one of the biggest misunderstandings.
So one poll actually found that 64% of Americans believe this.
So not to be confused with multiple personality disorder, like I said, or more accurately,
disassociative identity disorder if you've ever seen the movie Split.
That is what the main character suffers from.
So a person with schizophrenia doesn't have two different personalities.
Instead, they have false ideas or have lost in touch with reality.
Now myth number two, most people with schizophrenia are violent or dangerous.
That is also not true.
And they really portray that in movies and TV shows, the crazed killer is always psycho
and they're schizophrenic.
Unfortunately, that's a very bad stigma.
And the substance abuse that we're talking about, alcohol or drug abuse is actually what
causes them to become violent.
But the disorder alone does not make you physically aggressive.
Myth number three, bad parenting is the cause.
I would say that in Richard Chase's case, maybe because of the interest.
It's not the best moment.
Richard Senior was definitely terrible.
Yeah.
But it's also hereditary, right?
Yes, it is.
But mother is actually in particular often get blamed.
And because schizophrenia is a mental illness, it does have many causes, including drug abuse,
trauma and the gene transfer, like I told you earlier.
But scientifically proven mistakes that you've made as a parent will not cause your child
to get this condition.
It's not something that you can get.
It's something that you are susceptible to and you either have outside trauma or you
don't.
And that determines whether or not you tumble over or you don't.
And it seems like there is a bit of a guide, right?
I mean, it's not necessarily a black and white situation.
Yeah, no.
And like I said, I think I said it in the last episode that schizophrenia is transferred
through genes.
It is genetic.
However, it's not the disease that's genetic.
It's the predisposition to the disease.
And bad parenting can make it come over to the edge.
But this is saying that you're not...
A child that is not predisposed to have this disease is not going to get it if you are
making mistakes.
It's not contagious by bad parenting.
Yes.
Now, myth number four, if a parent has schizophrenia, you'll get it too.
Unfortunately, genes do play a role.
But just because one of your parents has a mental illness does not mean that you're destined
to get it.
However, you have a slightly elevated chance.
If one of your parents has schizophrenia, you have a 16% chance of getting it, which
is definitely not...
It's not low, but it's not high.
If both of your parents have it, you actually jump up to about 45%, which is still low.
Less than half.
And this is super interesting.
If twins get it, if one of the twins gets it, it's less than a 50% chance that the other
twins are going to get it, even if they're identical twins.
Wow.
That's science.
Now, myth number five, people with schizophrenia aren't smart.
That is simply not true.
There is just a lot of people just have trouble taking tests like memory and skill tests.
And they have trouble with attention, learning and memory.
But that does not mean they're not intelligent.
They just simply can't put forth the thoughts that they are capable of having because they
have all these things that are barriers to them.
Now myth number six, if you have schizophrenia, you belong in a mental hospital.
There was a time where people believed that there's a time now that people still believe
that however, people can live very, very full lives with schizophrenia as long as they're
properly medicated and they stay on their treatment.
Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen because having medical and health treatment
is a luxury, unfortunately, in America and it sucks, but it is.
And that's why you see a lot of transient people that are suffering with schizophrenia
and because they do not have the money to get it treated.
Myth number seven, you can't hold the job if you have it.
Again, like I said, you can live a very normal life as long as you have treatment.
Myth number eight, schizophrenia makes people lazy.
The illness can make it harder for them to do their daily things such as dressing and
bathing, but that doesn't mean they're lazy.
They just need help.
Myth number nine, it comes on with a sudden psychotic break.
I thought it was really interesting because it doesn't.
You don't just all of a sudden break and then you have it develop.
There might be some type of trauma that happens that makes that more forward presenting to
people around you in the way that you exhibit your behavior, but I don't think it's one
thing that creates schizophrenia.
The fact of this one is that some people do have a big mental event that leads to the
diagnosis but not to the disorder.
And symptoms can appear over time and they're actually really hard to notice.
So that's why people think that it comes on all of a sudden when it really doesn't.
Early symptoms of schizophrenia include being less social, showing less interest in normal
activities and withdrawing from everyday life, but other symptoms like acting out delusions
and hallucinating can show up later, which is why actually I think it's somewhat of like
75 or 80% of people that were diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia didn't know there was
something wrong for the first while of their diagnosis, of their illness because it doesn't
present itself so abruptly and so aggressively where you're like, whoa, there's got to be
something wrong with that person.
And that's another thing that they say is like, though the cases of schizophrenia, it
has a one present prevalence rate in the United States, which is a shitload of people.
But they're estimated to be a lot higher if people just recognize the signs and symptoms
early and they are able to get themselves treatment and diagnosis.
And lastly, the last myth is that you can never recover from it.
Again, it can be hard to treat, but it's not impossible.
There's no cure for it, of course, but anti-psychotic medications can help stabilize people that
are suffering with this and lower the risk of future symptoms, as well as talk therapy
and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Those are helpful tools as well that can show you how to handle stress better and live life
well.
And then with the right medication and therapy, about 25% of people with the disease will
recover completely and another 50% will see improvement in their symptoms, but many people
again can live full and productive lives.
And thank you for reading that honestly because every mental breakdown we do want to tackle
some type of a diagnosis from the DSM-5 and again, bring light and awareness to these
disorders and these unique needs that people have.
We're not saying that people on the schizophrenic spectrum are killers.
No, that's definitely not what we're saying.
We're not saying that all killers have schizophrenia.
We just, again, want to bring awareness.
And like I said, people can live very productive lives.
In fact, I wrote down a few famous people that have schizophrenia, very successful people.
Albert Einstein's son had schizophrenia.
Really?
Yeah.
Edward Einstein.
Sid Barrett from Pink Floyd.
And Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac.
Wow, I did not know that either.
Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's wife, had schizophrenia.
And one of the coolest ones I think is Vincent Van Gogh.
How cool, not cool, but like how interesting.
So like clearly people with schizophrenia have been leading very successful lives.
And these are, I mean, other than Peter Green and Sid Barrett, and I looked up when they
were diagnosed, it was unknown when they were diagnosed.
I mean, this is before medication existed for this and these people lived fully functioning
lives.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it is, it's incredible.
I would hate to think that just because you feel like someone doesn't understand what's
going on in your head that you would hate to reach out.
And like that's it.
It's like clearly now we've had two cases where they've tried to reach out and get help.
And it wasn't received properly, it wasn't taken care of and it wasn't maintained.
And again, it's not that you have it and you don't take it, even if you don't take
care of it, does it not mean that you will harm someone?
Yes.
Look for the warning signs, especially that overuse of substances, alcohol, your depression,
like all of these things can be triggering factors into you not being able to get help
or getting to the point of no return.
So all we ask is you take care of yourself.
It really brings it into perspective when you say that thing about the well-known people
having it because you know, how many times have you seen a situation on TV in real life,
whatever it may be, where if it's a famous person, whatever, like they're not going to
know, the media is not going to let you know about that, especially nowadays.
But if you see a transient person on the side of the road that's yelling at apparently nobody,
then you're going to judge that person.
When they have the exact same diagnosis, mental illness, however, the person that has a celebrity
has the money and the power and the secrecy to get the treatment and the person that is
living on the street, unfortunately, it's not.
It's the exact same thing.
It's just two different lifestyles.
So that's just, you know, try not to make that assumption based and don't fall into
one of those myths either.
You know, it's not, it's not, there's a big stigma around mental illness, but schizophrenia
spectrum especially.
Yeah, I think so.
It's considered to be a very unpredictable disease.
It's really not.
Bottom line, one person that you may not even know that struggling is a celebrity and you'll
never know that, but you will unfortunately come across people that are on the street
that have the exact same illness.
So don't be so quick to judge that one person simply because they don't have the resources
to care for themselves.
And that's very unfortunate, but it does happen.
Yeah, I think that my last point here might be give people the space to let them talk
to you about it.
You know, as long as you give people, like know that that's an open door, like between
you and someone, if you see somebody exhibiting these behaviors, just let them know if they
ever want to talk to you about it that they can and you won't judge them and you'll be
able to receive that information.
And maybe it is just a friend that needs somebody to talk to.
But for me personally, I would hate to think that I ignored these warning signs and still
didn't give someone the benefit of the doubt and the space to communicate what they're
going through just so that they can get help.
So be an open door for your friends.
And also, just wanted to quickly say thank you guys if you listen to this mental breakdown.
We of course are very heavy on the true crime, but we are also very passionate about advocating
for mental illness and mental illness awareness.
So thank you for sticking with us.
And I hope that you learned something in this episode because I learned something and I'm
just listening to you.
I know.
So we're going to be doing more of these.
If you have a specific diagnosis that you'd like us to talk about, please by all means,
we're probably going to for now at least stick to diagnosis that are prevalent among killers.
But I'm totally happy to talk about that tobacco one that you were talking about sounds super
interesting.
Like I always have anything to do with murder or any true crime.
But still an interesting thing to talk about.
And it's a little palate cleanser with the heavy heavy.
The content.
Richard Chase case that we just went over.
I hope this can be a little small palate cleanser on your way to work or something different.
And it's something that again, like kind of said, we're huge mental illness awareness
advocates.
So it's something that we're super passionate about.
And it's something that we enjoy talking about literally in our everyday life.
So when we find something interesting, we want to bring it to you guys.
So I'm so excited.
This is our first mental breakdown.
I think we like actually had to stop ourselves from talking to each other last night about
this.
We did.
I don't want to see you for the next 24 hours.
Right.
And I like that idea of maybe the next time we do a mental breakdown, like the other person
doesn't know what it's about, like what we're going to cover.
And I like the idea of or I like that we've been doing the cases.
Like I don't tell you what case I'm going to cover and sitting down.
And then it's like, oh yeah.
I like doing it that way because I'm finding out when the audience is finding out.
I mean, really.
Real time.
You think about it.
Well, thanks for joining us again.
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So if you feel so inclined to donate to help us out so we can get the ball rolling on some
merch and some different different content and all that good stuff.
I actually really quickly just wanted to shout out while we were recording the Richard
Chase case.
We got an email from somebody that we didn't know.
Someone emailed us and it wasn't someone that we were poking and telling to listen to.
Oh my gosh.
That's so cool.
I'm not going to say his name because he didn't give me permission to, but I will say
that the content of the email says, hey ladies, I just heard your story about 10ing.
I happened to have grown up near Schenectady and lived a bunch of my adult life there.
I remember it while hearing about it as a teen.
Schenectady is just west of Albany about 170 miles from New York City.
So super nice email.
Thank you for the information because it was very clear on the podcast.
I didn't know where Schenectady was.
So thank you for that information.
If you want to, I mean seriously, that made my entire night.
I ran into the living room and told mom, I was like, someone that we don't know emailed
us.
I was so excited.
So please, please reach out to us.
We want to hear what you'll have to say and we want to hear your thoughts on the case.
If we left anything out, please correct us.
If we did something that offended you, tell us so we can do better for next time.
Seriously, anything.
Yeah.
If you love us, tell us.
If you hate us, tell us.
I don't care.
What is it?
Bad publicity is still publicity.
Yeah, bad attention.
Any attention is good attention.
Yeah, no, totally piggybacking off of that.
Even if it's something that just crosses your mind or you want to add to a case or you just
want to just say your piece about it, love it.
Also any personal cases that if you know, my godmother actually suggested like three
cases.
First of all, she knows about a lot of cases that were like real close to her like location
wise and also like a friend of a friend of a friend.
I'm like, how do you know?
I just randomly connected to all these parts of the family is what it is.
But she did suggest a couple for us and so I'm going to start researching those.
They might be minis because they're not really big cases, but oh my god.
Interesting.
I think that I think right now is the moment where I'm starting to get really optimistic
because I told everyone at work of course and like a lot of people, you know, the friends
of mom and dad have been listening and stuff like that.
So thank you all so much for listening to us.
Oh, and I told Sassar this guy that plays baseball with Casey that I'd shout him out.
So hey Sassar, hey Karina.
Good to see you.
Glad you're, hopefully you're listening.
He was talking shit about the echo in the first episode.
Oh god.
It's been solved.
It has.
Well, we hope you guys keep listening to us and thanks so much for joining us today.
Yeah, thanks for coming to the mental breakdown.
We'll see you next time when we break down another mental.
That didn't work.
I thought it was going to be something clever.
All right.
Love you.
Bye.
Bye band.