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Originally Posted by Xerxys
The_Jazz, could you expand a bit more on violent behaviors? Could he have possibly been so far gone that he calmly walked the aisle up to the pulpit and shot the man? I can believe the self stabbing thing could have been caused by the illness but maybe not the shooting. I think premeditation.
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I am related to someone with brain lesions caused by organic means (not by Lyme Disease but another vector). Between the ages of 18 and about 28, he grew increasingly eratic and violent. He was diagnosed with both schizophrenia and manic depression, which are supposed to be on the opposite ends of the mental illness charts from what I understand. There were numerous fights, several instances of stalking and some situations that probably could have been lethal had the other party not backed down. Medication was completely ineffective, unless you could lethargy and weight gain as positive effects. It took a brain scan of some sort (I guess an MRI but I really don't know) to reveal the brain damage, and that was after about 10 years of misdiagnosis. In the end, he just sort of "grew out of it" and is a relatively normal person with no real violent tendancies.
Interestingly enough, my relative was very anti-religion for a time and rants about the Babtists and Catholics were both par for the course from him.
I think that you're confusing the two issues here in terms of premeditation. I think that this was most definitely premeditated, which in no way rules out mental illness. When my relative would get in one of his "spells" (as my grandmother called them), they would last weeks and he really didn't know right from wrong where violence was concerned. Interestlying, he wouldn't steal or lie or otherwise be dishonest, he would just overreact to seemingly innoccuous events in an inappropriately violent way.