Oddly, I’ve been giving some thought today to reports that John Mark Karr, the man who confessed to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, may have deep-seated psychological problems stemming from childhood trauma. I say “oddly” because I really haven’t paid much attention to this story. I believe that a murder not involving a public figure, while tragic, is a local story, not a national one, regardless of how titillating or sensational.
Nevertheless, my interest was piqued when I heard on the radio that someone close to the Karr family claims John’s mother, now deceased, was mentally ill and once tried to kill her son by burning him to death.
Oh, yeah, I can see it coming from a mile away: we’ll have bleeding-heart advocates for the mentally ill on one side urging compassion for Karr, and conservative bloviators on the other side shouting the mantra of “personal responsibility!”
Ugh.
I tend to get angry with people on both sides of this debate. The issue of brain chemistry and its impact on behavior and the ability to make moral choices is an excruciatingly complex issue. Yet so many choose to reduce it to easily digestible sound bites.
This is an issue near and dear to me because I am taking medications to control unipolar disorder, more commonly known as clinical depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These are both conditions believed to be rooted in chemical imbalances within the brain.
It is with some reluctance that I divulge these conditions, particularly the depression that I once suffered. But reading an interview in which Mike Wallace of CBS News discussed his battle with depression led me to seek treatment. That article may have saved my life. So I now speak openly in an attempt to “pay things forward.”
In the interests of brevity I will simply say that my depression left a smoking crater where three years of my life should be. I spent that time in a black pit of sadness that felt like a butcher’s knife lodged in my heart. My mind had become a black hole of hopelessness, a singularity with an irresistible gravitational pull that consumed all light and left me with only the bleakest of thoughts. I dwelled on and planned ways to end my own life that to this day leave me shuddering.
ADHD renders me distractible and impulsive. I have difficulty sustaining effort over any period of time. I talk out of turn, and dominate conversations without realizing it. My emotional dial goes way the hell past 11 (tip of the hat to anyone who gets that reference), and I have trouble keeping those emotions in check. I reveal too much about myself, and by the time I realize it, it’s too late. It’s as though the barrier most people possess that protects their inner self from the rest of the world is for me just the thinnest piece of tissue paper, easily torn to shreds.
Medication has helped in the treatment of both of these conditions. I have not had a major depressive episode in more than a decade. ADHD has in my case proven harder to treat, but with the medicine I am able to at least sustain attention a little more easily.
The fact is, our thoughts and feelings are produced by an organ of the body known as the brain. It is made up of matter. Chemicals, electricity and brain tissue combine to form a complex and fragile piece of biochemical machinery. Things can go wrong with it. When they do, things can go wrong with our thinking.
I remember an edition of Bill Maher’s political discussion show, “Politically Incorrect,” during which one of the guests was discussing what was then a new advertising push for Prozac or some other antidepressant drug. She opined, in the finest sound-bite tradition, “We used to take responsibility, now we just take a pill.”
I remember my jaw hitting the floor in response to the sheer stupidity of that statement. As though people with severe depression used to merely pull themselves up by their bootstraps and “snap out of it” before the advent of antidepressants. Had it not occurred to her that many such people likely suffered throughout their entire lives because back then there was no treatment for them?
“Personal responsibility” has been parroted to the point of meaninglessness. It’s something we say when we point our fingers at others. Yet, if it’s personal, shouldn’t we apply it to ourselves first and foremost? But I digress.
My lovely girlfriend, Jeannie, is going to graduate school to earn a master’s in social work. She recently related to me some things she read about the affects of trauma on the brain. Trauma can actually affect the way the brain develops in children. It can change the chemistry and structure of the brain. Therefore, if John Mark Karr really did suffer childhood trauma, it could indeed have damaged him psychologically. It’s possible that a different upbringing might have produced a different man.
Am I saying, then, that our character, our choices, our very soul are defined by nothing but biology? That we are incapable of choosing, that we cannot be held responsible for our choices?
No, I am not. I refuse to believe, even with the disorders with which I am forced to live, that I am incapable of self-determination. Even when depression or ADHD “made me do it,” I have always believed my behavior to be my responsibility and on one else’s. I am not merely a collection of chemical processes. I am more than the sum total of my biological components. I am capable of knowing right from wrong, and choosing one over the other.
That’s why I believe that John Mark Karr should be imprisoned if he indeed killed JonBenet Ramsey. He should not be free to do the same thing to someone else.
I am forced to wonder if abandoning the idea of personal responsibility in so many respects isn’t the cause of many ills in today’s society. Oftentimes, when someone does something wrong, we look at how society, rather than the individual, failed. We blame external forces for warping the mind of the individual, for failing to instill the proper values in that person. We act as though they are as blameless as a coffee cup that is empty because no one bothered to fill it with coffee. We do not expect the cup to fill itself, just as we do not expect the individual to control him or herself.
So there you have it. Our thoughts, our essences, our very selves are at the mercy of chemical reactions that can go awry. And yet the basis of any sound society is the idea that each individual must be responsible for his or her behavior under most circumstances.
So where do we draw the line? Where does biology end and moral choice begin? When should we take into account the ravages of mental illness, and when should we bring the hammer down on poor behavior?
The discussion is well worth having. I would submit, however, that anyone who believes they can enter into or come away from such a discussion with all of the answers is fooling him or herself.
But I was pulling some late nights working out the kinks in my Web site, and that left little time for blogging. Rest assured, though, blogging is in my blood and I will get back on that horse.