The rash of murder-suicides in the Washington area in recent days might be a reflection of growing pressure from a faltering economy and career stresses that push people already teetering emotionally over the edge, mental health professionals said. “It’s not surprising to see this many murder-suicides,” said David Reiss, a California psychiatrist who specializes in character and personality dynamics. “There’s increased stress and increased despair combining with a lack of availability in good mental health services. It’s not a really good prognosis.”
On Sunday, a 33-year-old Anne Arundel man shot and killed his wife and her twin teenagers, then killed himself. Last week, a psychiatrist mother in Montgomery County shot and killed her autistic son, then turned the gun on herself. Last month, an accomplished scientist killed her psychiatrist and then herself in Fairfax County.
| Mental health blues |
| The country’s mental health system has taken a turn for the worse as providers focus on medications over full-family therapy to treat patients, psychiatrist David Reiss told The Washington Examiner. “Providers are missing the signals of people in distress because no one is looking for them and no one has time to look for them,” Reiss said. Often assessments are too narrow, he said, and focused only on a patient rather than a whole family. In the absence of strong care, communities should step in. “Simply talking in a 12-step program can be a big help,” Reiss said. – Freeman Klopott |
Kelly Brian Thompson’s was struggling under mounting debt of more than $10,000 when he killed his 34-year-old wife, Nina Thompson, and then her two 15-year-old twins outside of Baltimore on Sunday. He then killed himself. Neighbors told the Baltimore Sun that he had recently lost his job and had tried to sell his motorcycle. What wages he earned had been garnished since 2008, court records show.
“All the stresses that we’re going through as a country — the economic insecurity — is taking people already on the edge and pushing them over,” Reiss said.
Psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold said in her suicide note that “debt is bleeding me,” her sister, Susan Slaughter, told the Associated Press. Last week, Jensvold took her own life after killing her 13-year-old son, Ben Barnhard. Debt and concerns about the boy’s future in school may have added to Jensvold’s fears of leaving her son behind. In her note, she reportedly wrote that she had seen how a traumatizing a parent’s suicide could be to a child “and she didn’t want to do that to Ben.”
“In moments of such despair, the things you worry about are not the things normal people worry about,” said Carl Lejuez, a clinical psychologist at the University of Maryland. “A mother may have decided to kill herself but doesn’t want to worry about the people who are left behind.”
Mental health professionals said sometimes a murder-suicide can also be a case of displaced rage.
Colleagues of McLean psychiatrist Mark Lawrence told the Washington Post that his patient Barbara Newman had begun blaming Lawrence for all her woes not long before she killed him and then herself on July 23.
Colleen Byrne, who heads the University of Maryland’s psychology clinic, said understanding murder-suicides requires comprehending the depth of hopelessness people feel before taking their own lives.
“People often have a sense of relief when they decide to commit suicide, and they relax and plan,” said Colleen Byrne, who heads the University of Maryland’s psychology clinic. “Once you’re that hopeless, the murder-suicide can become a practical decision.
