Successful and Schizophrenic / The Psychology of Gang Rape: Dissecting Stuebenville

Frans Tassigny

Description

THIRTY years ago, I was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia. My prognosis was “grave”: I would never live independently, hold a job, find a loving partner, get married. My home would be a board-and-care facility, my days spent watching TV in a day room with other people debilitated by mental illness. I would work at menial jobs when my symptoms were quiet.
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Sex Crimes and Small Town Exaltation of Athletes in an Era of Anonymous by Darrah Le Montre
On August 11/12th of last year, a 16-year old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, was allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulted by members of Steubenville High School’s almighty Big Red Football team. When the story subsequently broke worldwide, it divided a small town and forced us to question the future of our men.
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Informations

• Publié par: Une-Universite-de-la-Psychanalyse
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English

Extrait

Successful and Schizophrenic

Angie Wang

THIRTY years ago, I was given a diagnosis ofschizophrenia. My prognosis was “grave”: I would never live independently, hold a job, înd a loving partner, get married. My home would be a board-and-care facility, my days spent watching TV in a day room with other people debilitated by mental illness. I would work at menial jobs when my symptoms were quiet. Following my last psychiatric hospitalization at the age of 28, I was encouraged by a doctor to work as a cashier making change. If I could handle that, I was told, we would reassess my ability to hold a more demanding position, perhaps even something full-time.

Then I made a decision. I would write the narrative of my life. Today I am a chaired professor at theUniversity of Southern CaliforniaGould School of Law. I have an adjunct appointment in the department of psychiatry at the medical school of the University of California, San Diego, and am on the faculty of the New Center for Psychoanalysis. The MacArthur Foundation gave me agenius grant.

Although I fought my diagnosis for many years, I came to accept that I have schizophrenia and will be in treatment the rest of my life. Indeed, excellent psychoanalytic treatment and medication have been critical to my success. What I refused to accept was my prognosis.

Conventional psychiatric thinking and its diagnostic categories say that people like me don’t exist. Either I don’t have schizophrenia (please tell that to the delusions crowding my mind), or I couldn’t have accomplished what I have (please tell that to U.S.C.’s committee on faculty aairs). But I do, and I have. And I have undertaken research with colleagues at U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. to show that I am not alone. There are others with schizophrenia and such active symptoms as delusions andhallucinationswho have signiîcant academic and professional achievements.

Over the last few years, my colleagues, including Stephen Marder, Alison Hamilton and Amy Cohen, and I have gathered 20 research subjects with high- functioning schizophrenia in Los Angeles. They suered from symptoms like mild delusions or hallucinatory behavior. Their average age was 40. Half were male, half female, and more than half were minorities. All had high school diplomas, and a majority either had or were working toward college or graduate degrees.

They were graduate students, managers, technicians and professionals, including a doctor, lawyer, psychologist and chief executive of a nonproît group.

At the same time, most were unmarried and childless, which is consistent with their diagnoses. (My colleagues and I intend to do another study on people with schizophrenia who are high-functioning in terms of their relationships. Marrying in my mid-40s — the best thing that ever happened to me — was against all odds, following almost 18 years of not dating.) More than three-quarters had been hospitalized between two and îve times because of their illness, while three had never been admitted.

How had these people with schizophrenia managed to succeed in their studies and at such high-level jobs? We learned that, in addition to medication and therapy, all the participants had developed techniques to keep their schizophrenia at bay. For some, these techniques were cognitive. An educator with a master’s degree said he had learned to face his hallucinations and ask, “What’s the evidence for that? Or is it just a perception problem?” Another participant said, “I hear derogatory voices all the time. ... You just gotta blow them o.”

Part of vigilance about symptoms was “identifying triggers” to “prevent a fuller blown experience of symptoms,” said a participant who works as a coordinator at a nonproît group. For instance, if being with people in close quarters for too long can set o symptoms, build in some alone time when you travel with friends.

Other techniques that our participants cited included controlling sensory inputs. For some, this meant keeping their living space simple (bare walls, no TV, only quiet music), while for others, it meant distracting music. “I’ll listen to loud music if I don’t want to hear things,” said a participant who is a certiîed nurse’s assistant. Still others mentioned exercise, a healthy diet, avoiding alcohol and getting enough sleep. A belief in God and prayer also played a role for some.

One of the most frequently mentioned techniques that helped our research participants manage their symptoms was work. “Work has been an important part of who I am,” said an educator in our group. “When you become useful to an organization and feel respected in that organization, there’s a certain value in belonging there.” This person works on the weekends too because of “the distraction factor.” In other words, by engaging in work, the crazy stu often recedes to the sidelines.

Personally, I reach out to my doctors, friends and family whenever I start slipping, and I get great support from them. I eat comfort food (for me, cereal) and listen to quiet music. I minimize all stimulation. Usually these techniques, combined with more medication and therapy, will make the symptoms pass. But the work piece — using my mind — is my best defense. It keeps me focused, it keeps the

demons at bay. My mind, I have come to say, is both my worst enemy and my best friend.

THAT is why it is so distressing when doctors tell their patients not to expect or pursue fulîlling careers. Far too often, the conventional psychiatric approach to mental illness is to see clusters of symptoms that characterize people. Accordingly, many psychiatrists hold the view that treating symptoms with medication is treating mental illness. But this fails to take into account individuals’ strengths and capabilities, leadingmental healthprofessionals to underestimate what their patients can hope to achieve in the world.

It’s not just schizophrenia: earlier this month, The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry posted a study showing that a small group of people who were given diagnoses ofautism, a developmental disorder, later stopped exhibiting symptoms. Theyseemed to have recovered— though after years of behavioral therapy and treatment. A recent New York Times Magazine article described a new company that hires high-functioning adults with autism, taking advantage of their unusual memory skills and attention to detail.

I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna about schizophrenia; mental illness imposes real limitations, and it’s important not to romanticize it. We can’t all be Nobel laureates like John Nash of the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” But the seeds of creative thinking may sometimes be found in mental illness, and people underestimate the power of the human brain to adapt and to create.

An approach that looks for individual strengths, in addition to considering symptoms, could help dispel the pessimism surrounding mental illness. Finding “the wellness within the illness,” as one person with schizophrenia said, should be a therapeutic goal. Doctors should urge their patients to develop relationships and engage in meaningful work. They should encourage patients to înd their own repertory of techniques to manage their symptoms and aim for a quality of life as they deîne it. And they should provide patients with the resources — therapy, medication and support — to make these things happen.

“Every person has a unique gift or unique self to bring to the world,” said one of our study’s participants. She expressed the reality that those of us who have schizophrenia and other mental illnesses want what everyone wants: in the words ofSigmund Freud, to work and to love.

A law professorat the University of Southern California and the author of the memoir “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 27, 2013, on page SR5 of the National edition with the headline: Successful and Schizophrenic .

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/schizophrenic-not- stupid.html?_r=0

The Psychology of Gang Rape: Dissecting Stuebenville

Published on January 16, 2013 byGirlieGirlArmy ·

Sex Crimes and Small Town Exaltation of Athletes in an Era of Anonymous by Darrah Le Montre

On August 11/12th of last year, a 16-year old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, was allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulted by members of Steubenville High School’s almighty Big Red Football team. When the story subsequently broke worldwide, it divided a small town and forced us to question the future of our men.

If you have already read details of this case, you may have also agonized through a video which was shot on the night in question and prominently features Michael Nodianos, an 18-year old Steubenville High School alum who played for the Big Red team. If not, allow me to oer a *trigger-warning* now before I outline some of the most pertinent details:

A self-described member of a group that call themselves the “Rape Crew,” Nodianos, or “Nodi” as his teammates call him, starred in an incriminating, vile smart phone video that was posted to YouTube on the night of the alleged assault, then taken down, then reposted to the web by KnightSec and Commander X, who are both aïliated with the Anonymous hacktivist hive.This videofeatures “Nodi” – who clearly borders on sociopathic – maniacally laughing and apparently providing a play-by-play of the repeated gang rape of the 16-year old female victim. During the course of his commentary, he frequently refers to her as the “dead body.”

Events like this force people out of their copacetic, paciîed state of separateness, and push us to admit we are all connected. Transgressions like these beg questions about social responsibility, technology’s role in our lives, who is teaching what to our children, what it means to be a father and mother, and why we are even debating whether unconscious means consensual.

If you are a woman, you may have been advised that if you are attacked and need help to scream “FIRE!” instead of “RAPE!” –– because people run from rape. People are overwhelmed, confused, scared and paralyzed by the idea and consequence of rape. So much so, that they oftenblame the victim. As a woman, it’s scary to read about a violent rapist that was sentenced to a few years in prison, then released. Or how, in many cases, trespassing, burglary, and hacking carry a longer prison term than a sexual assault. There is, what can be perceived

as, sexual terrorism going on in the world, including in India and the United States, and we’re too scared to talk about it. But if we can’t talk about it, how can we prevent it, understand it, heal from it and help others who have suered at the hands of it?

There was a time when domestic abuse cases were blamed on female victims. They somehow provoked the men into hitting them. That myth has, for the most part, been dispelled. It’s sad to me that “fault” or “blame” is placed upon women in rape cases still. It seems that whenever a battle of the sexes takes place –– especially when sex is involved –– we can expect immaturity at best, insanity at worst.

When small football towns like Steubenville exist for a long period of time inside a protected bubble, exalting a few to the detriment of others, it’s hard to know whom to blame when a crime like this is shown to the world. Given that youth are involved, and given that adults provided said youth with their foundation, ethics, morals and copious amounts of alcohol, many believe the parents are just as culpable as the boys and young men may be.

Staring Down The Demon: What Rape Culture Looks Like in Steubenvile

Two sixteen-year-old Big Red football players: Trent Mays, a sophomore quarterback, and Ma’lik Richmond, are so far the only boys to be charged with rape stemming from that evening of hard partying and barbarism. Mays is also facing a charge involvingillegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. Previous kidnapping charges against the pair were mysteriously dropped, along with charges against Cody Saltsman. Many suggest this was part of a cover-up that was taking place prior to Anonymous stepping in.

Ex-boyfriend of the victim, Saltsman was present for part of the alleged assault. Furthermore, Anonymous believe he may have even been responsible for orchestrating the attack, which may have involved a date rape drug. Saltsman chivalrously live-tweeted about his ex-girlfriend’s condition, describing her limp

body as “sloppy” and calling her a “whore.” He posted a shocking photo to his Instagram account that is now widely circulated of the victim being carried seemingly unconscious by her hands and feet by Richmond and possibly Mays. It is unveriîed whether the photo captures the teen in this case, or another possible victim of the “Rape Crew.” Web analyst and true crime blogger Alexandria Goddard published Saltsman’s tweets along with the photo to Prinnieîed.com before Cody had the chance to delete the evidence. He subsequently îleda defamation suit against her that was later dropped. Richmond and Mays are scheduled to be tried February 13th in a juvenile court in Steubenville, however, a change of venue has been requested by Mays’s attorney, Alan Nemann.

Like his buddies, Mays also took to the internet the night of August 11th. Referring to one of the bashes that evening, Mays tweeted: “Huge party!!! Banger!!!!” His tweet was innocuous when compared to the more colorful ones penned by his friends. One such post leads prosecutors to believe the victim was urinated on after the alleged gang rape. At least one witness gave testimony indicating that this in fact happened. Aside from watching, laughing, tweeting, and snapping photos and video, these boys and men were otherwiseaction-less witnessesthat evening. Nobody helped the girl escape from their teammates’ clutches that night.

The boys and men who attended the parties observed the atrocities and did nothing to stop them. To add insult to injury, they victimized the teen girl, and in the subsequent weeks have forced their families into shock, shame, and denial. According to the New York Times, which broke this story back in December 2012, “Richmond’s grandmother, Mae, said the charges surprised her because Ma’lik had been so focused on sports and school, with hopes of leaving Steubenville for a better life than that of his father, who has served time in prison and had been charged with many crimes including manslaughter. “Me and Coach Reno was talking, and he said Ma’lik was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. But since Nodianos’s damning video surfaced it’s impossible to shrug Ma’lik’s behavior o with such a cliché.

Now that the proverbial shit has hit the very real public fan, Michael “Nodi” Nodianos issorry about the tape. He’s “ashamed” of his comments. He “regrets” them, his lawyer, Dennis McNamara reported in a statement released Monday. Especially given thatNodi lost his scholarship at Ohio State, where he planned to study engineering. According toKent Patch, Kent State University has also said it is reviewing the scholarship of an incoming Steubenville High School football player who may have hosted one of the several parties at which the girl was allegedly raped.

Sources at Anonymous also suggest that the “Rape Crew” may be a clan of sexual criminals –– teens and young men who drug, rape and take photos and video of their victims –– that has existed in dierent incarnations, since 1975. Scarier still, is the adult protection these perpetrators may have received.

After The Agony: Now What?

KnightSec set up a page on LocalLeaksto keep the public up to date on emerging details of the case. This exhaustive resource called “The Steubenville Files” provides a timeline of the alleged events on and surrounding August 11-12th and background on those involved. It catalogs tips they’ve received from Steubenville High School students and others, as well as evidence they’ve ascertained via hacking.

In response to the LocalLeaks site, which has received massive amounts of traïc, the City of Steubenville and its Police Department launched their own website calledSteubenville Facts. This sterile site, created to level the emotional intensity surrounding their town and the synonymous rape case, lists Ohio laws and doles out mental health resources. It also questionably links to Fox News’ coverage of its launch.

On Wednesday,Steubenville High School’s websitehomepage reported news of a security threat –– later found unviable –– that shut the school down for over an hour. It now features a media statement that says they’ve added “education programs to further raise awareness of sexual harassment, bullying, date rape and substance abuse.” It’s obvious that Steubenville, population 18,000, is under nationwide scrutiny, and pleading with itself and the country to repair its damaged reputation.

Speaking of reputations, one of the most stomach churning after eects of a reported rape is the character assassinations slung against the alleged victim. Shortly after the rape was reported, Big Red volunteer coach Nate Hubbard, 27, accused the victim of covering up a night of partying with a fake rape charge. He said, “The rape was just an excuse, I think. What else are you going to tell your parents when you come home drunk like that and after a night like that? She had to make up something. Now people are trying to blow up our football program because of it.”

Walter Madison, Richmond’s lawyer, claimed that before that night in August the victim had posted provocative comments and photographs on her Twitter page over time. He contended that those online posts demonstrated that she was sexually active and showed that she was “clearly engaged in at-risk behavior.”

Yes, because no rape case would be complete without making damn sure everybody knows that that slut was wearing something slutty, tweeting about her sluttiness, and – gasp – engaging in slutty sex. We can all go home folks. She asked for it. By having a vagina and having used it at least once, she tempted those vulnerable boys. Wait, it doesn’t matter if she was near unconscious. It doesn’t matter that virgins are raped. This girl –– like countless others –– should be held accountable for having recreational sex in the past, or at least the XX chromosome, to stay true to the banner double standard for which this îne world remains oxygenated with comments like Madison’s.

Defense attorneys have gone back and forth about whether any sexual activity took place that night. According to the New York Times story, which ran in December, Nemann, Mays’s lawyer, said “The whole question is consent. Was she conscious enough to give consent or not? We think she was. She gave out the pass code to her phone after the sexual assault was said to have occurred.” A month later, according to CNN, “Lawyers for both defendants have said their clients are not guilty. ‘We deny the accusations completely. We deny the lack of consent. We deny that there was sexual activity. We deny that there was a rape. And we steadfastly maintain that,’ Nemann said.” Scrambling to explain awaythis picture, which shows a limp and seemingly unconscious victim being carried to a party by at least one suspect, one defense attorney claims, “it was staged.” These desperate attempts to show that the alleged female victim was, in fact, coherent enough to give consent, is insulting to all women and a ghastly example to boys and men everywhere.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose

There are so many layers and players in this case and everyone appears entangled in this tight-knit community. It has been reported that Prosecuting Attorney for Jeerson County, Jane Hanlin tried to convince the victim and her family not to report the rape. Hanlin is the mother of a Big Red football player not charged with a crime.

A LocaLeaks post states: “When the family of the victim went to île the charges, Jane Hanlin [the prosecutor] was present. She strongly discouraged them from îling. Hanlin frightened not only the victim, but the parents as well. Telling them that her name was going to be dragged through the mud, she will be in and out of court for well over two years, the press wouldn’t leave any of the family alone once the crime was made public. Scared out of their wits, the parents said they didn’t want that and Hanlin then said not to worry just leave it up to her and the detectives on the case.”

Big Red friend and webmaster of a fansite for the team, Jim Parker, may have known about the “Rape Crew” and may have even helped them secure the date rape drug. At the very least he condoned the boy’s abhorrent actions. Indecent photos of underage girls were discovered on his computer by Anonymous, some may even be of the “Rape Crew’s” victims. Big Red Coach Reno Saccoccia, whose alleged motto is “lie till you die,” testiîed as a character witness for the defense and failed to bench alleged members of the “Rape Crew” even after news of the alleged assault broke and the incriminating pictures went viral online.

The New York Times reports: “Approached in November to be interviewed about the case, Saccoccia said he did not ‘do the Internet,’ so he had not seen the comments and photographs posted online from that night. When asked again about the players involved and why he chose not to discipline them, he became agitated. ‘You made me mad now,’ he said, throwing in several expletives as he

walked from the high school to his car. Nearly nose to nose with a reporter, he growled: ‘You’re going to get yours. And if you don’t get yours, somebody close to you will.’”

If you aren’t a Friday Night Lights fan and you didn’t grow up in a small town that revolves around athletics, you’ll be surprised to learn that after 30-plus years of coaching, Coach Saccoccia has a status not unlike that of the late-Joe Paterno at Penn State. Coach Reno has so much power, in fact, that Steubenville High School’s principal and superintendent relied upon him to discipline the players.

The New York Times reports, “Shawn Crosier, the principal of Steubenville High, and Michael McVey, the superintendent of Steubenville schools, said they entrusted Saccoccia with determining whether any players should be disciplined for what they might have done or saw the night of Aug. 11. Neither Crosier nor McVey spoke to any students about the events of that summer night, they said, because they were satisîed that Saccoccia would handle it.”

Furthermore, Saccoccia may have even told his team to delete any evidence still remaining on their cell phones such as pictures and video. No longer at the helm of the investigation, Saccoccia’s friend, Jeerson County Sheri Fred Abdalla, is now receiving death threats as anger rises at the apparent collusion among prosecutors, coaches, teachers, parents and police.

An aside: In case you were wondering, as was I, why the victim was asked for the passcode to her phone, it was later reported byCNN’s Anderson Cooperthat “she sent a text to one of the people saying she wasn’t raped or ‘I know you didn’t rape me.’” CNN reports that this text is one that the defense plans to use in court. However, according to “KY”, the leader of KnightSec, he uncovered tweets indicating that the alleged victim lost her phone right after that evening and it is possible that, if that text indeed exists, someone else sent it using her phone. So much cover up, so much conspiracy, it’s hard to keep track.

Let’s return to the infamous video and what “Nodi” said in the twelve minute long tape, îlmed at 2 AM after the victim was allegedly dragged, lifeless after one assault to another party, then another.

“She is so raped right now. There won’t be any foreplay for a dead girl. It ain’t wet now, to be honest. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

McNamara, the attorney for “Nodi” said, “He was not raised to act in this manner.”

But, how was he raised? How were any of these boys raised?

Who’s Responsible? Raising Rapists – or Princes, Magicians and Lovers