Charles Manson And Mental Health

“The murders were probably the most bizarre in the recorded annals of American crime. I’ve often said that if these murders had never happened and someone had written a novel, with the same set of facts and circumstances, you’d probably put it down after a couple of pages. Because to be good fiction, as I understand it — unless it’s science fiction — it’s got to be somewhat believable, and this is just too far out.”

– Vincent Bugliosi (1934-2015), Los Angeles County District Attorney, Chief Prosecutor in the Charles Manson trial, to NPR in 2009

Some years ago, during Mental Health Clinical Rotations, I was impressed with the insidious nature of severe mental health problems, which often masquerade as mere quirks, eccentricities, or peculiarities of character. In that sense, I think Southerners are more adept at denial of mental health problems than others in regions throughout the United States. We often laugh and joke about “Old Spinster Miss So-And-So,” “the Crazy Cat Lady,” or “Old Man Mozz” who for years has lived by himself.

And yet sometimes, we’re shocked at what we do NOT see, which when given opportunities to see “behind the scenes,” observation provides confirmation and undeniable proof-positive of mental health problems.

I recall in particular some time ago in which a friend and his wife had invited me to their house. We had made each others’ friendship through a moderately-sized not-for-profit service organization to which we all three belonged, and had known each other from our association there for at least 4-5 years. When invited one evening to their house, and I walked inside, I was aghast to see – quite literally – magazines, newspapers, and other detritus stacked throughout the house, wall-to-wall, so much so that there was practically no room to sit down on the sofa… which itself was piled high with detritus of myriad kinds. The kitchen was similarly amassed with only inches on the countertops for food preparation. And the cats which freely roamed the house were atop everything… including the food preparation area, which is where the aluminum pie pans that served as their food trays were located. In short, it was filthy, and quite frankly, unfit for food preparation for human consumption, much less human habitation. After a few kind words, I politely made a rapid exit.

In one clinical setting, my clinical classmates and I were in a state-run mental hospital, and that day we were going to be on the floor with some of the patients whose cases were more severe. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, schizoaffective disorders, paranoid and other psychotic disorders, were just a few of the more severe type diagnoses from which the patients suffered. Diagnosis is made based upon symptoms exhibited, and the extent to which the condition adversely affects their life.

Some had been abandoned by their family, while others were adjudicated and wards of the state. No one was there by choice. The patients were all fed, clothed, housed, had their medical needs attended to, and were otherwise cared-for by state employees. Because it was a locked-down unit, we were limited to what personal possessions we could bring onto the floor, which was essentially a note tablet and writing utensil. Our ID badges, because they had pins in them, were not allowed. Our assignment was to select a patient, and with their permission, to interview them – to “get to know them,” in a sense, or at least obtain a glimpse into their conditions and how it affected them.

The patient with whom I spoke at first seemed rational, and coherent. But after a few moments, the symptoms exhibited themselves when he said, “I have a plan.”

“Oh?,” I asked.

“Yes, I do,” he replied.

“Tell me more,” I said.

My questions were sincere, and open-ended enough to allow him “free reign” to go wherever his mind would take him. He then proceeded to describe in somewhat lucid terms (though only barely) an absurdly concocted idea which he THOUGHT, and was convinced, would “save the world.” From what the world needed saving, he was never clear. Now, to be certain, he wasn’t suffering from a Messianic complex as apparently did Charles Manson, but the hallmarks were unmistakable. Often, those with severe mental health disorder exhibit extreme behaviors, some of which is “religious,” meaning that they are excessive in their expression of it, or in other ways, disassociated from reality. Again, Southerners, which surveys consistently show tend to be “more religious” than their brethren in other regions of the nation, are more forgiving, in a sense, of those whom exhibit such bizarre behavior precisely because it is cloaked in their favorite flavor… Evangelical Christianity – which also reminds me of a certain former two-term Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice.

In my estimation, it’s like a chocolate coating on a turd – looks good on the outside, but on the inside, it’s just a bunch of stinking shit.

Being a man of faith as I am, I have no misgivings about the unseen. Like the Ancients, I remain convinced that there IS something beyond this momentary mortal existence, for there remain, even today, numerous examples of things which are for science, entirely, wholly, and fully inexplicable – such as resurrections after confirmed death (recalling one case in particular of a cardiac surgeon who himself had such an experience).

And, being Catholic (I wasn’t born that way, but converted several years ago), I have come to understand some of the positions the Church espouses, particularly as they touch upon science, which would surprise some Evangelicals to know that the Church does NOT teach that evolution is contrary to Scriptural account of Creation, and that it was Georges Lemaître, a Harvard/Cambridge educated Catholic Priest/Astrophysicist whom first hypothesized the “Big Bang” theory of the origin of the universe, and who was two years before before Edin Hubble in creating the formula which is now termed the “Hubble Constant” which describes a shift in the color spectrum according to the distance of the observed object, in correlation to an ever-expanding universe.

In fact, logically, if one holds that the Almighty is omniscient and omnipotent, it would make perfectly good reason to imagine that it would be entirely possible for the Almighty to create a plan, and a process, by and through which the Earth and its inhabitants were made. To hold or assert that PRESTO! CHANGE-O! POOF! that God waved some “magic wand” and VIOLA! the Earth and all its contents were created in a literal 24-hour period in 6 days is so absurdly preposterous, that it defies imagination.

Nevertheless, that is not to say that I agree with everything the Church teaches, such as forbidding priests to marry, forbidding women to enter the priesthood, their stance upon birth control (“artificial” birth control is forbidden), forbidding the divorced to remarry, and other aspects of their teachings that touch upon the practical nature of humanity. I am, however, in agreement with the exceeding majority of their social teachings, about how we are to treat our fellow human beings, and how we are to love, and serve one another without regard to any other factor.

Now that we’ve chased that rabbit into it’s hole, let’s return to our original topic, Mental Health.

Mental health STILL has a taboo surrounding it, and for years, was thought to be a form of “demon possession,” or some other ludicrously preposterous absurdity used to explain the then-unexplainable, such as the story told in the Gospel of Mark of the child being “cast in to the fire” by a “spirit.” From the description given, most today would describe that event as an epileptic seizure. Fortunately, there is medicine to treat that condition, and as we’re now learning, CBD (a non-psychoactive component of cannabis) is especially helpful – even “miraculously” so – in treating the symptoms to virtual elimination of seizures so severe they are life-threatening.

Point being, is that we are poised upon the precipice of being catapulted into a new era of learning, and understanding, and in means of dealing with problems which in this nation have plagued us for years. And yet, it is not the diseases, per se, which are the problem, inasmuch as it is our ignorant response to them, to forbid treatments, to literally “kick to the curb” those whom are in many instances “the least of these My brethren” whom suffer from serious mental health problems. In other nations, mental health is not viewed as a “taboo” subject, and concern for the well-being of those afflicted is front-and-center.

Our prisons and jails have, for the greatest part, increasingly become warehousing for those diagnosed with mental health problems. It was in 1980 that the de-institutionalization of patients with serious mental health problems began – first as California Governor, and then from the White House. Funding cuts that altered policies were among the many changes made to increase corporate profitability. That changes to ways in which mental health was treated coincided with efforts to change them, was, for the business community, fortuitous, since it didn’t directly assault the laws written to protect the mentally ill, but was subversive to achieve their objectives. And between 1970-1984, beds for the mentally ill declined 40% in public and private hospitals, most of which was in public hospitals, while private, for-profit hospitals increased. In short, there were substantial profits to be made in mental illness, assuming that the patient had adequate health insurance. However, those without medical insurance frequently did not receive adequate care. Cast in the light of making “streets safer,” those who had lost jobs because of mental health conditions found themselves homeless, destitute, without health insurance or the ability to pay for treatment, were part of an increasing problem which motivated states’ legislators to rewrite commitment laws. And instead of committing the SERIOUSLY or DANGEROUSLY mentally ill, the laws made it generally easier to commit those who were merely considered a threat.

Since that time, our prisons have exploded, our courts, judicial, and law enforcement costs have precipitously skyrocketed in cost, and the incarceration of those with various types of mental illness has become a warehousing system for the mentally ill. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, in states’ prisons, 73% of female, and 55% of male inmates have at least one mental health problem, while the figure is 75% and 63% for local jails. And in response to that process, a Wall-Street-traded, for-profit prison industry was birthed.

We cannot continue Federal “slash and burn” policies and laws which have continuously demonstrated themselves to be deleterious, costly, ineffective, and designed for the benefit of corporations rather than human beings. To continue to do so is not only inhumane, it is contrary to good public policy, budgetary principle, and principles of a vibrant free market economy.

Those who espouse such ideas cannot be considered friends of health in any sense, but instead, are shills for corporations who masters love money, rather than people. And, as we’re told, it is “the love of money [which] is the root of all kinds of evil.”