David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Stigmatizing bipolar disorder
September 18, 2006
By Mindelle Jacobs, Edmonton Sun
The recent high-profile case of a Grande Prairie nurse with bipolar disorder who drugged her co-workers has the unfortunate potential to stigmatize the mentally ill.
Combine a crime that terrorized hospital staff with a mental ailment that isn't well understood, and you risk undermining efforts to educate the public about mental illness.
So let's be crystal clear right off the bat: there is no systematic cause-and-effect relationship between mental illness and crime. All kinds of people commit offences, including those with mental problems.
But just because you're mentally ill doesn't mean you're criminally inclined.
Unfortunately, Sarah Bowes committed a series of bizarre and disturbing crimes while she was suffering from then-undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
Mental illness sometimes leads to aberrant behaviour. When such activity is criminal, however, it gets media coverage and becomes fodder for conversation around the water cooler.
And experts worry that the Bowes case will fuel myths about mental illness.
"We work with hundreds of people who are dealing with bipolar and they are not doing this crime," says Jan Neumann, supervisor of the outreach program of the Edmonton branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.
"This (incident) does have some potential to cause that stigma," she adds.
Over the course of about a year, between 2004 and 2005, Bowes' behaviour at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital escalated from practical jokes - sending food and flowers to co-workers with anonymous notes - to the theft of ID used to obtain credit cards to spiking colleagues' food with a tranquillizer.
The 28-year-old licensed practical nurse was arrested in March and pleaded guilty a week ago to 12 charges, including four of administering a noxious substance.
She was given a two-year conditional sentence and three years' probation.
The sentence was immediately denounced by some of Bowes' co-workers. Readers, too, vented about the case.
"I'm very disappointed in the justice system," said one of Bowes' colleagues. "She showed no mental illness to me." But mental illness isn't necessarily glaringly obvious.
One Sun reader wrote a letter to the editor saying she was "bewildered and appalled" at the conditional sentence.
"This verdict has set our cause of education and removing the stigma back about 20 years," wrote the woman, who says she has bipolar disorder.
Bowes should have gotten help for her mental illness instead of using it as an excuse for her crimes, the woman suggested.
"I live with (depression), knowing that I am always responsible for my own feelings and actions. As should Sarah Bowes," she wrote.
While she's right to point out that the mentally ill are no more prone to criminal activity than anyone else, she mistakenly assumed that Bowes knew she had bipolar disorder.
In fact, Bowes wasn't diagnosed until after her arrest. And, as her lawyer D'Arcy Depoe points out, it can be terribly difficult to get the mentally ill to acknowledge they're sick.
"Mentally ill people engage in strange behaviours," says Depoe. "Some of them happen to be criminal but that doesn't stigmatize everybody who has mental illness."
Bowes began exhibiting symptoms of bipolar disorder - alternating periods of depression and hyper behaviour - at age 21 and started taking a sedative, benzodiazepine, to control her mood swings. She eventually became addicted to the medication.
While she wasn't completely unaware of the nature of her actions, her mental state affected her judgment, according to the forensic psychologist who assessed her.
Bowes is now off the benzodiazepine and has been stabilized under the care of a psychiatrist - precisely the right outcome.
Jail would have derailed her.
September 18, 2006
By Mindelle Jacobs, Edmonton Sun
The recent high-profile case of a Grande Prairie nurse with bipolar disorder who drugged her co-workers has the unfortunate potential to stigmatize the mentally ill.
Combine a crime that terrorized hospital staff with a mental ailment that isn't well understood, and you risk undermining efforts to educate the public about mental illness.
So let's be crystal clear right off the bat: there is no systematic cause-and-effect relationship between mental illness and crime. All kinds of people commit offences, including those with mental problems.
But just because you're mentally ill doesn't mean you're criminally inclined.
Unfortunately, Sarah Bowes committed a series of bizarre and disturbing crimes while she was suffering from then-undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
Mental illness sometimes leads to aberrant behaviour. When such activity is criminal, however, it gets media coverage and becomes fodder for conversation around the water cooler.
And experts worry that the Bowes case will fuel myths about mental illness.
"We work with hundreds of people who are dealing with bipolar and they are not doing this crime," says Jan Neumann, supervisor of the outreach program of the Edmonton branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.
"This (incident) does have some potential to cause that stigma," she adds.
Over the course of about a year, between 2004 and 2005, Bowes' behaviour at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital escalated from practical jokes - sending food and flowers to co-workers with anonymous notes - to the theft of ID used to obtain credit cards to spiking colleagues' food with a tranquillizer.
The 28-year-old licensed practical nurse was arrested in March and pleaded guilty a week ago to 12 charges, including four of administering a noxious substance.
She was given a two-year conditional sentence and three years' probation.
The sentence was immediately denounced by some of Bowes' co-workers. Readers, too, vented about the case.
"I'm very disappointed in the justice system," said one of Bowes' colleagues. "She showed no mental illness to me." But mental illness isn't necessarily glaringly obvious.
One Sun reader wrote a letter to the editor saying she was "bewildered and appalled" at the conditional sentence.
"This verdict has set our cause of education and removing the stigma back about 20 years," wrote the woman, who says she has bipolar disorder.
Bowes should have gotten help for her mental illness instead of using it as an excuse for her crimes, the woman suggested.
"I live with (depression), knowing that I am always responsible for my own feelings and actions. As should Sarah Bowes," she wrote.
While she's right to point out that the mentally ill are no more prone to criminal activity than anyone else, she mistakenly assumed that Bowes knew she had bipolar disorder.
In fact, Bowes wasn't diagnosed until after her arrest. And, as her lawyer D'Arcy Depoe points out, it can be terribly difficult to get the mentally ill to acknowledge they're sick.
"Mentally ill people engage in strange behaviours," says Depoe. "Some of them happen to be criminal but that doesn't stigmatize everybody who has mental illness."
Bowes began exhibiting symptoms of bipolar disorder - alternating periods of depression and hyper behaviour - at age 21 and started taking a sedative, benzodiazepine, to control her mood swings. She eventually became addicted to the medication.
While she wasn't completely unaware of the nature of her actions, her mental state affected her judgment, according to the forensic psychologist who assessed her.
Bowes is now off the benzodiazepine and has been stabilized under the care of a psychiatrist - precisely the right outcome.
Jail would have derailed her.
