Just You Five months ago, the town buzzed with rumours of the infamous serial killer dubbed ‘The Skull Crusher’. Police officials have apparently tracked him down and lead them to the small town of Strongwater. This was about the same time you moved into town, hoping to start a new life. At that time, you thought nothing of it, but now you think that maybe this was a terrible idea. You are sitting on one of the park benches, skimming through the local newspaper. Your eye catches an article talking about ‘The Skull Crusher’. This is interesting, you think and so you read it. As you near the end, the journalist concluded with a quote from a local resident saying, “The perpetrator is a deranged lunatic, suffering from severe mental illness that has been left untreated.” She was different; she liked you. You could have been together; you could have been happy for once in your miserable life. It was a shame she had to snoop around and get involved in a case she knew nothing about. Maybe you didn’t have to kill her. Maybe, just maybe, you could’ve just confessed. But now it’s too late, she’s dead; you killed her. You got her blood on your hands. The only person that ever loved you is dead. You stare at her. She is still beautiful, you think. Then you realise that you loved her and still do. You ask yourself what drove you to do this and you respond, “She was trying to get away… I did it on impulse… an accident…” You kneel down in front of her, and lift her limp body off the ground. The mush doesn’t bother you. Then, without thinking, you pull her close and cradle her in your arms. You feel your heart pounding as if it was trying to hammer its way out. This is the last time you are ever going to see her again. Soon after, you feel a tickle upon your cold, dry cheeks. You try to hold it back, but to no avail. Your sobs echo through the empty warehouse and before you know it, you are crying, as if the entire world and all of its beauty has come to an
The Secret of Skull Mountain” is the 27th volume of the original ‘The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories’ which were published in 1948 by Grosset & Dunlap. This book was written for the Stratemeyer, Stratemeyer Syndicate was the producer of a number of thriller series for children, which included Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and many others.
On January 20, 2016, a Newfoundland Provincial court Judge Colin Flynn ruled that Nicholas Layman, a 20-year-old man who was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, is not criminally responsible due to his mental disorder. On September 25, 2014, an 11-year-old boy was playing soccer on a soccer field with more than 20 other kids, with their parents watching, and Layman ran out to the field and stabbed him several times in the chest and neck with a kitchen knife. Layman then took off in a vehicle after jumping over a fence, and was arrested 90 minutes later near his mother’s house. Layman’s parents said that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia a year before the stabbing, but the mental health professionals did not give them clear information about his treatment and thus he could not get the help he needed.
What is madness? Is madness a brain disorder or a chemical imbalance? On the other hand, is it an expressed behavior that is far different from what society would believe is "normal"? Lawrence Durrell addresses these questions when he explores society's response to madness in his short story pair "Zero and Asylum in the Snow," which resembles the nearly incoherent ramblings of a madman. In these stories, Durrell portrays how sane, or lucid, people cannot grasp and understand the concept of madness. This inability to understand madness leads society to fear behavior that is different from "normal," and subsequently, this fear dictates how they deal with it. These responses include putting a name to what they fear and locking it up in an effort to control it. Underlying all, however, Durrell repeatedly raises the question: who should define what is mad?
Andrea Yates’ life started out completely normal. She graduated number one in her high school class, became a registered nurse for the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and met the love of her life and got married. Her life sounds as normal as anyone’s does. Four months after she gave birth to her fourth child, something changed. She tried her first suicide attempt by swallowing 40-50 sleeping pills. She was hospitalized to a psychiatric facility and diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Her doctor’s attempt to medicate her was unsuccessful. She was discharged due to insurance restrictions and according to Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and attorney who wrote the book Insanity, Murder, Madness, and the Law “her family contracted to keep a close eye on the patient.” Several months following her hospitalization, her mental health declined. She lost 13 pounds, had no energy, slept all day, and had memory and conce...
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
Did you know that crystal skulls were to supposedly be able to hold knowledge regarding the history of the human race and our civilization?! You’re probably all wondering how and why this is, right?
A tampering rod through the head is how 25-year-old Phineas Gage became the most notable case of Traumatic Brain injury of the 19th century. With more than 1.7 million people each year who sustain an injury, why does this one case become so interesting? The reason behind this is the result of the injury. When Gage had the tampering rod penetrate his skull it completely changed his personality. From a once mild mannered individual to a foul mouth and persistent person, Gage became interesting cases in history. Gage starts us off with our topic of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) because in the US there are around 50,000 deaths, 270,000 hospitalizations, and 1.36 million who are treated and released to go home (Alzheimers Organization, 2014). A TBI is defined when an external mechanical force causes brain dysfunction.
We all hugged one last time before jumping I could not believe that this would be the last time I would ever see my family. Dominique and I went to the edge of the Freight car and we counted down, “1...2...3!” As we jumped the only thing I could hear was the shot of a rifle and a short cry from Dominique. Once I got up from the frigid snow I looked to my left and saw the dead corpse of my brother Dominique. I broke down crying
Creeping around the shadowy house, the predator found its prey waking to strange sounds. The victim lay facedown, with a sweating forehead pressed fearfully into the pillow, silently praying the noises would just go away. Suddenly the victim found himself straddled and pinned to the bed. He was unable to scream for help due to the pressure of the handle of a pick-axe against his throat, preventing any breath from escaping, much less any sound. The victim struggled beneath the weight of the assailant. The scant light from the sodium-arc street light outside cast a peculiar silhouette on the walls of the darkened room, projecting an image that looked oddly like that of a cowboy saddled upon a bucking bull at a rodeo. Struggling to dismount the attacker, the victim felt the piercing blows of the sharp point of the pickaxe, succumbing to death only after receiving eleven stab wounds to the chest and throat. The thrill of the kill was stimulating enough that, when interviewed later, the murderer reported “popping a nut,” that is, becoming so sexually aroused by the event, to the point of having an orgasm (Pearson, 1998).
Saying Goodbye To Someone You Love : Your Emotional Journey Through End Of Life And Grief. New York: DemosHealth, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 25 Feb. 2014
The sickness of insanity stems from external forces and stimuli, ever-present in our world, weighing heavily on the psychological, neurological, and cognitive parts of our mind. It can drive one to madness through its relentless, biased, and poisoned view of the world, creating a dichotomy between what is real and imagined. It is a defense mechanism that allows one to suffer the harms of injustice, prejudice, and discrimination, all at the expense of one’s physical and mental faculties.
I hug her knowing that this will be our last. Tears are streaming uncontrollably down my cheeks, staining her shirt. I'm not ready to say goodbye. I don't understand why this is happening. Out all of the 7.28 billion people in this world, why did it have to be her?
Your lit up, elated smiling faces made me happy even in the darkest days. Although it broke my heart all at once when I turned all that happiness into misery. How I broke our family the way I broke myself. I can’t live with what I did to you all. I felt bad and guilty because you loved me when I was so bad for you. I tried numerous times to push you away, to make you un-love me so I could take the plunge quicker and so I couldn’t hurt you anymore. My attempts always failed. Your compassion pained me as much as it consoled me. I often wished that having you in my life, and all the other privileges I had was enough, but I could never find what I was looking for. Perhaps it didn’t even
... but the torment of being labelled insane. The eventual anxiety attack, characterized by irrational behaviour such speaking frequently, and later foaming, raving, swearing and violent actions towards his chair, which is, ironically, the typical behaviour of the insane.
This was her first response to the news of his death. She would not had grieved over someone she did not love. Even in the heat of her passion she thinks about her lost love.