The Daily Wire caught up with policy analyst and author Carrie Sheffield to talk with her about her new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Motorhome-Prophecies-Journey-Healing-Forgiveness/dp/1546004386/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1MCPY1LY9G6BK&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.U6jLnuG0UcJjuJ69YTShvcQr6Ezo_ux8egpxy3_tX0obBqozBXOQNMUa7_8fEazolWcS-NOWXGIsih85r2eeNz9V1jGTrnR4mSUZ_fIVhexCclFVtHgIjULyOD7pCboqgN_6orCmPsl-M5S082BZjA.v0WeUS8vwaUdtnuSzFCJH91q6PUV9wLYp4UlOmSaUR0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=motorhome+prophecies&amp;qid=1713538529&amp;sprefix=motorhome%2Caps%2C93&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness,</a>&#8221; (CenterStreet/Hachette Book Group).
DW: Let’s start with politics. You’ve served as a policy analyst and columnist for several years now, both in New York and in Washington. Which issues are paramount in your mind as we head into the 2024 presidential election season?
Sheffield: Certainly the economy and immigration are top of mind for many voters, including me. The fact that inflation has ravaged household wages is an ongoing and pervasive problem. The fact that average monthly mortgage payments under Biden have skyrocketed means real pain and the dream of home ownership moves out of reach for more American families. Seeing our border towns and cities like New York and Chicago overrun with sanitation issues and safety problems due to Biden’s failed immigration policies is discouraging and must be stopped.
DW: Speaking of presidents, in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Motorhome-Prophecies-Journey-Healing-Forgiveness/dp/1546004386/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1MCPY1LY9G6BK&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.U6jLnuG0UcJjuJ69YTShvcQr6Ezo_ux8egpxy3_tX0obBqozBXOQNMUa7_8fEazolWcS-NOWXGIsih85r2eeNz9V1jGTrnR4mSUZ_fIVhexCclFVtHgIjULyOD7pCboqgN_6orCmPsl-M5S082BZjA.v0WeUS8vwaUdtnuSzFCJH91q6PUV9wLYp4UlOmSaUR0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=motorhome+prophecies&amp;qid=1713538529&amp;sprefix=motorhome%2Caps%2C93&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Motorhome Prophecies</a>” you write that your father was convinced he was a Mormon prophet destined to become president of the United States. Looking back, how did that influence the way your family lived?
Sheffield: Yes, my dad claimed that he’d be U.S. president one day. He also made some unproven claims, like President Reagan designating MLK Jr. Day because of my dad’s work supporting Dr. King’s messages and that his political essays influenced then-Speaker Newt Gingrich to impeach Bill Clinton.
Politics was in my dad’s blood because his father had been a successful Utah state lawmaker. He was also former chairman of the Salt Lake City Zoning and Planning Commission for 25 years. That his firstborn son would follow him into politics wasn’t too far-fetched.
My dad’s beliefs about his destiny absolutely motivated our nationwide travels in a street musical orchestra attracting listeners and then passing out patriotic and religious brochures. But the proselytizing came at an expensive price — his kids’ mental health and happiness. Multiple siblings have attempted suicide, two developed schizophrenia (it’s well documented that schizophrenia’s onset is exacerbated by childhood trauma), and I struggled with periodic suicidal ideation, depression, PTSD, and anxiety because of our dad’s zealotry.
Despite the negative aspects, dad gave me a deep love of our exceptional country, of intellectual inquiry, and beautiful music. Though we’ve had many disagreements, I know in his heart he has a deep desire to serve others through his work. I think his love of country in some ways blinded him to his personal life’s failures. That is a common fatal flaw for public servants. Children of politicians often experience abandonment problems as adults. Each generation must recognize and heal our own hurts.
<div id="attachment_726119" style="width: 391px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-726119" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-726119" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-381x576.webp" alt="CenterStreet/Hachette book Group" width="381" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-381x576.webp 381w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-199x300.webp 199w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-768x1160.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-1017x1536.webp 1017w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-1356x2048.webp 1356w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/9781546004387-scaled.webp 1695w" sizes="(max-width: 381px) 100vw, 381px" />CenterStreet/Hachette book Group</div>
DW: “Motorhome Prophecies” is written in the vein of famous memoirs like “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance, “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, and “Educated” by Tara Westover, all stories of young Americans growing up in very broken families. Yet each author is somehow able to escape and overcome their childhood trauma and find success as an adult. What were some factors that helped you overcome your childhood?
Sheffield: Necessity is the mother of invention. I knew that if I wanted a better life than the dark, dangerous one around me I needed to be resourceful, pragmatic and humble enough to ask for help. The bravest thing I&#8217;ve done took place when I was 18. In terms of the initial departure, here&#8217;s a passage from the book, it was actually my schizophrenic brother&#8217;s sexual assault and attempted rape that spurred me to start the process of leaving:
<blockquote>It would prove a long winding path, but Peter’s assault eventually became a catalyst for me to scrutinize my faith, to pray for God’s protection and guidance, and, eventually, to reject Ralph’s false prophecies and run away from home. I’m the fifth oldest sibling, but I was the first to escape the clutches of The Mission. That harrowing night back in 2000 taught me a lesson that would be reinforced time and again: life’s most wrenching crucibles can propel us to our greatest moments of growth and freedom.</blockquote>
I pushed myself to achieve in my career and work in public policy because I wanted a better life for myself than remaining trapped in a violent and impoverished environment. Also, as a woman, I wanted to bask in the freedoms denied my mother and myself as the first girl with four older brothers.
Early on, I also felt a sense of jaded insecurity that fueled my ambition. I wanted to prove my dad wrong. He prophesied that I&#8217;d be raped and murdered if I left the cult. I decided I&#8217;d soar to career heights surpassing his own. It’s a toxic, unstable motivation, to prove someone wrong, and it eventually comes crashing down.
Another reason I left was that I&#8217;d undertaken a long-term investigation into my dad and found his handwritten prophecies were in direct opposition to the teachings of the official LDS Church&#8217;s hierarchy.
For many years I struggled. I would paint myself in these absolutist black and white terms, that my dad was evil and that I was a hero for escaping. Today, though, I know I am not the hero of this book, but I am also not the villain. God is the hero, and though I thought my father was the villain, I now see he was crushed by severe religious zealotry sparked by mental illness after suffering sexual assault as a toddler. He also suffered through the death of his childhood best friend which led to enduring isolation. He’s just as deserving of God’s mercy and compassion as I am. I love my father and am sorry I waited so long to forgive him. I believe forgiving him earlier would have stopped me from some toxic self-sabotaging that I did to cope with the trauma.
<div id="attachment_726171" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-726171" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-726171" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-480x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Carrie Sheffield." width="480" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-480x576.jpg 480w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-250x300.jpg 250w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-768x921.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-1280x1536.jpg 1280w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/Carrie-Sheffield-1-scaled-1-1707x2048.jpg 1707w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" />Credit: Carrie Sheffield.</div>
DW: Your book deals a lot with mental illness. Authors like Abigail Shrier and Jonathan Haidt have also written books this year on young people struggling with mental illness. It seems to be a growing problem. Why do you think it&#8217;s a common thread and what are the broader takeaways found in &#8220;Motorhome Prophecies”?
Sheffield: Certainly depression and suicide are rising, and this is troubling. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last year released <a href="https://thedispatch.acemlna.com/lt.php?s=b497b0dace4b29102719b273346a3dbb&amp;i=2147A2461A1A75103" target="_blank" rel="noopener">provisional data</a> showing nearly 50,000 people committed suicide in the United States in 2022. This nearly 3% increase from 2021 is the highest number ever recorded and the highest rate since 1941 — the aftershocks of the Great Depression. It’s nearly 17 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Gen Z is far more secular than their parents were when they were young, and I think it’s no coincidence Gen Z is also suffering far greater isolation and mental illness. This is a trend we can and must reverse. People who attend religious services at least weekly are significantly less likely to die “deaths of despair”— suicide, drug overdose, or alcohol poisoning, <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/regularly-attending-religious-services-associated-with-lower-risk-of-deaths-of-despair/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to 2020 research</a> from Harvard University’s School of Public Health. A literature review appearing in Psychiatric Times <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/religion-spirituality-and-mental-health">reported</a>: “Of 93 observational studies, two-thirds found lower rates of depressive disorder with fewer depressive symptoms in persons who were more religious. … a review of 134 studies that examined the relationships between religious involvement and substance abuse [concluded that] 90% found less substance abuse among the more religious.”
Ironically, research from the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-50618-001">Psychology of Religion and Spirituality</a> found atheism correlates with <a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychological-research-links-atheism-to-emotional-suppression/">emotional suppression</a>. Psychology professors (along with biologists) are least likely among all disciplines to believe in God, <a href="https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2007/07/faculty-faith-html#:~:text=A%20professor's%20field%20of%20research,%2C%20economists%2C%20and%20political%20scientists.">Harvard reported.</a> The journal Sociology of Religion <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/epiphenom/2009/05/psychologists-are-least-religious-of.html">similarly found</a> that psychologists are the least religious of American professors. This is a troubling combination. The same trained experts ordained to heal mental disorders are sometimes the very ones who are skeptical of rescuing balm.
A recovered agnostic, I experienced the power of faith to heal my own mental health, as I recount in my book. The biggest hurdle I needed to overcome was comprehending the difference between man-made abuse and healthy faith in God.
DW: Eventually you went to college and ended up at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. How did your worldview change while in Cambridge?
Sheffield: I became more aware of the narratives around “privilege” being crafted at places like Harvard. I gained a sense of understanding perhaps their altruistic impulse — indeed, our country had sexism, slavery, and Jim Crow as stains in our history. But eventually, I came to realize that good intentions do not equal good outcomes.
At Harvard, I also became more entrenched as an agnostic, which is sad because Harvard was founded to help clergy grow their intellectual capacity to teach the mind of God. Around 7 years after I graduated, during my Christian conversion process, the more I studied science, including metaphysics, history, anthropology, and other disciplines, the more my faith in God and my confidence in Christianity grew. Studying Christianity felt like uncovering buried treasure discarded by intellectuals at places like Harvard who had discounted its scientific and philosophical heft.
DW: You’ve written many articles over the years for various periodicals, but this is your first time writing a full-length book. What was the process like for you?
Sheffield: Writing a 90,000 word book is indeed a far heavier lift than a news article. I tell people who ask advice for writing a memoir to begin a journal today if they don’t already. This memoir genre was made far easier for me because I’ve got a stack of journals to assist. I’ve kept a journal since age 8 because journaling is strongly encouraged in the LDS Church and Mormon diaspora community due to strong cultural appreciation of genealogy and family history — the LDS Church has more than 2 billion records in its genealogy database. Also, as a newer faith, we know many things about its early origins due to contemporaneous journals. As a journalist, the personal journals made the process far easier for accuracy — I didn’t have to make up what I was thinking, I knew directly.

Camper Touring the American Southwest Monument Valley

Author Carrie Sheffield Recounts Harrowing Childhood In New Book ‘Motorhome Prophecies’

Author Carrie Sheffield Recounts Harrowing Childhood In New Book 'Motorhome Prophecies'

Books

family

Harvard

interview

Mental Illness

Mormonism

Psychology

Readers Pass

Sexual Assault

A Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children before attempting to kill herself allegedly researched “ways to kill” prior to the deaths.
Lindsay Clancy, 32, reportedly kept two notebooks discussing the medications she was on and her “suicidal expressions and thoughts,” according to a search warrant <a href="https://www.insideedition.com/lindsay-clancy-search-warrant-murder-trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reviewed by Inside Edition</a>. She reportedly wrote that she “confides in friends” about her mental state.
The warrant was filed on March 15 but only recently <a href="https://www.insideedition.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/679857984-Lindsay-Clancy-Sw-Court-Docs-Pt-2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unsealed</a>. Police hoped to use the search warrant to access Clancy’s cell phone and tablet.
In September, Clancy was charged on three counts each of murder and strangulation for the deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and Callan, who was only eight months old, Inside Edition <a href="https://www.insideedition.com/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-indicted" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. Clancy was previously indicted in Plymouth District Court on two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation or suffocation, and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The newer indictment, however, moves her case out of the district court and into Plymouth Superior Court.
After allegedly strangling her children, she attempted to kill herself and was hospitalized. She is now receiving psychiatric care at Tewksbury Hospital and is expected to remain there until November.
Clancy&#8217;s attorney, Kevin J. Reddington, said his client suffered from postpartum depression and was overprescribed medicine.
Clancy used her cell phone to check the time it would take for her husband to return from errands so that she could strangle the kids and try to kill herself, prosecutors <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/massachusetts-mom-accused-of-strangling-children-timed-how-long-husband-would-be-away-prosecutors-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in February.
She allegedly sent her husband to pick up dinner and medications from a CVS store so she could kill their children and herself, the Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/moms-searches-show-she-plotted-to-strangle-her-kids-prosecutors-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. While he was out of the house, she allegedly strangled her children with exercise bands, killing the older children in the home and sending the youngest to a hospital, where he died later.
“The defendant did not take advantage of the situation when her husband left the home that night,” Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said during Clancy’s arraignment on Tuesday. “She created the situation. And she used Apple Maps to make sure she had enough time to strangle each child before her husband returned from where she sent him.”
Sprague added that it took at least four minutes to kill each child and that Clancy told a psychiatrist she “killed the kids because she heard a voice” and had “a moment of psychosis.”
During the hearing, Clancy’s husband, Patrick, said that his wife only used the word “psychosis” after speaking with a doctor hired by her defense attorney, the Beast reported.
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Clancy appeared at her February arraignment from her hospital bed, where she had been left paralyzed from the waist down after jumping out of a window in a suicide attempt after allegedly strangling her children. She also cut her wrists and neck before she jumped.
Patrick reportedly returned home and found the house quiet. He searched for the children and found Clancy lying injured in the backyard.
“What did you do? Where are the kids?” the prosecution said he asked.
His wife allegedly responded, “In the basement.”
Patrick then called 911 and allegedly found the children in the basement with exercise bands still around their necks.
Clancy reportedly had “suicidal ideations in December of 2022 … and on one occasion had thoughts of harming her children,” the prosecution said, <a href="https://people.com/crime/mass-mom-3-lindsay-clancy-allegedly-strangled-kids-heard-voice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to People magazine</a>. She committed herself to a Boston psychiatric hospital on January 1, prosecutors added, but was released on January 5. On January 24, she allegedly killed her children and attempted suicide.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to <a href="http://speakingofsuicide.com/resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources</a> for a list of additional resources.

Lindsay Clancy

Massachusetts Mom Researched ‘Ways To Kill’ Before Strangling Her 3 Kids, Search Warrant Reveals

Massachusetts Mom Researched 'Ways To Kill' Before Strangling Her 3 Kids, Search Warrant Reveals

Children

Crime

Massachusetts

Murder

U.S.

Dozens of U.S. states filed a lawsuit against <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/meta" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meta</a> and its Instagram social media platform on Tuesday, accusing the multinational technology conglomerate of contributing to the mental health crisis in American youth by making them addicted to its products.
Attorneys general from 33 states, including California and New York, filed the complaint in the Northern District of California federal court, claiming Meta violated federal children&#8217;s online privacy and state consumer protection laws.
&#8220;Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24080215-meta-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">233-page complaint</a>. &#8220;Its motive is profit.&#8221;
The lawsuit alleges that Meta has misled the public about the &#8220;substantial dangers&#8221; of its social media platforms by concealing its practices to make its &#8220;most vulnerable&#8221; consumers — teenagers and children — into addictive and compulsive social media users.
The states cited research that shows children&#8217;s use of Meta platforms is associated with &#8220;depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and many other negative outcomes.&#8221;
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tennessee-school-district-sues-social-media-companies-over-growing-mental-health-crisis-among-students" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> an advisory in May, citing a link between spending time on social media and the nation&#8217;s mental health crisis among the youth.
&#8220;I&#8217;m issuing this advisory because we&#8217;re in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, and I&#8217;m concerned that social media is contributing to the harms that kids are experiencing,&#8221; Murthy told The Hill.
According to a 2019 study, adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 who spent over three hours on social media per day had double the risk of developing symptoms of depression and anxiety, and the blame should not be placed entirely on parents who attempt to manage a healthy dose of social media for their children.
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&#8220;It&#8217;s an unreasonable expectation because prior generations never had to experience and manage the rapidly evolving technology that fundamentally changed how kids thought about themselves, how they thought about their friendships, and how they saw the world,&#8221; said Murthy.
Meta said in a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/instagram-facebook-children-teens-harms-lawsuit-attorney-general-1805492a38f7cee111cbb865cc786c28" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> to outlets that it shares &#8220;the attorneys general&#8217;s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,&#8221; the company added.
Eight other attorneys general and the District of Columbia <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/24/states-sue-meta-addictive-features-kids-00123217" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> are filing separate lawsuits against Meta for allegedly violating state consumer protection laws, bringing the total number of states to 42.
If the states succeed, Meta could be forced to pay massive fines and change how it advertises and designs its platforms to the public.

In this photo illustration the Meta Platforms logo seen in

33 States Sue Meta Alleging Social Media Platforms Fueled Youth Mental Health Crisis

33 States Sue Meta Alleging Social Media Platforms Harm Children's Mental Health

Big Tech

Facebook

Instagram

Social Media

The off-duty <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/off-duty-pilot-accused-of-attempting-to-shut-down-plane-engines-mid-flight-charged-with-83-counts-of-attempted-murder-reports" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alaskan Airlines pilot arrested</a> on Sunday for allegedly trying to shut down the engines of a fully occupied passenger flight in midair has been charged in federal court.
Joseph Emerson of Pleasant Hill, California, was charged with one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants, according to a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/duty-commercial-airline-pilot-charged-federal-court-interfering-flight-crew" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from the District of Oregon Department of Justice.
Emerson, 44, was riding in the cockpit jump seat as a passenger on Horizon Air flight 2059 — an affiliate of Alaska Airlines — when he attempted to shut down the plane&#8217;s engines during a flight that departed from Seattle Paine Field International Airport and was scheduled to land at San Francisco International Airport.
Emerson was sitting in the jump seat located in the cockpit just behind the captain and first officer flying the jet. Pilots commonly ride in the jump seat to hitch a free ride when traveling personally or professionally.
Airline officials said in a news release following the incident that the pilots were forced to divert the aircraft to Portland International Airport in Oregon for an emergency landing because of &#8220;a credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat.&#8221;
“The jump seat occupant unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines,” the airline said in a portion of the news release <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-charged-attempted-murder-trying-shut-alaska-airlines-engines-fligh-rcna121681" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by NBC. “The Horizon Captain and First Officer quickly responded, engine power was not lost and the crew secured the aircraft without incident.”
Federal authorities said the incident began halfway between Astoria, Oregon, and Portland.
&#8220;Emerson attempted to grab and pull two red fire handles that would have activated the plane&#8217;s emergency fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines. After a brief physical struggle with the pilots, Emerson exited the cockpit,&#8221; authorities said.
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During the flight&#8217;s descent into Portland, authorities said a flight attendant had to stop Emerson from attempting to grab another emergency exit handle after other attendants had already placed Emerson in wrist restraints and seated him in the rear of the aircraft.
Alaska Airlines released a follow-up statement on Monday night identifying Emerson, saying he tried to shut the engines down by engaging the Engine Fire Handle, also known as the fire suppression system.
&#8220;The fire suppression system consists of a T-handle for each engine,&#8221; the statement read in part. &#8220;If the T-handle is fully deployed, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine. In this case, the quick reaction of our crew to reset the T-handles ensured engine power was not lost.&#8221;
Audio recorded by LiveATC.net revealed that Seattle-area air traffic controllers were alerted about the attempt to turn off the plane&#8217;s engines.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit, and he doesn&#8217;t sound like he&#8217;s causing any issues in the back right now,&#8221; the pilot told Seattle-area air traffic controllers in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. &#8220;I think he&#8217;s subdued. Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and are parked.&#8221;
Upon arrival, the Port of Portland Police Department arrested Emerson for trying to seize control of the flight filled with 80 passengers on board, including lap infants, two pilots, and two flight attendants in the passenger cabin, according to local media.
Emerson was charged with 83 felony counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment, and one count of endangering an aircraft, according to Multnomah County Sheriff&#8217;s Office booking records.
Emerson remains in custody in Multnomah County on a federal hold pending his first appearance in federal court on a later date.
According to court documents <a href="https://abc7ny.com/pilot-joseph-emerson-alaska-airlines-pleasant-hill-david/13960619/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by ABC, Emerson told police he has been struggling with depression for six months and hadn&#8217;t slept in almost two days. He said he told the flight attendants to restrain him and said to authorities he was having a &#8220;nervous breakdown.&#8221;
Emerson also claimed to have used psychedelic mushrooms and wanted to wake up from what he thought was a dream.
Aubrey Gavello, a passenger on the plane, told ABC that a flight attendant alerted the other passengers that Emerson had suffered a mental breakdown.
&#8220;After we did land and the gentleman was escorted off, the flight attendant got back on the speaker and said, plain and simple, &#8216;He had a mental breakdown,'&#8221; Gavello said. &#8220;We needed to get him off the plane immediately.&#8221;
Alaska Airlines said in a statement <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12666655/pilot-joseph-david-emerson-trial-attempted-murder.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by the Daily Mail that the crew responded without hesitation to the &#8220;difficult and highly unusual situation.&#8221;
&#8220;All passengers on board were able to complete their journey with a new crew and aircraft,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;We are grateful for the patience of our guests throughout this event and are reaching out to each of them individually to discuss their experience and check-in on their well-being.&#8221;
According to the airline, Emerson joined Alaska Air Group as a Horizon First Officer in August 2001. He left the company in June 2002 to join Virgin America as a pilot. After Alaska acquired Virgin America in 2016, Emerson became an Alaska Airlines First Officer.
He later became an Alaska Airlines Captain in 2019.
&#8220;Throughout his career, Emerson completed his mandated FAA medical certifications in accordance with regulatory requirements, and at no point were his certifications denied, suspended or revoked,&#8221; the statement said.

US-AIRPLANE-ACCIDENT

Off-Duty Pilot Accused Of Attempting To Shut Down Plane Engines Mid-Flight Hit With Federal Charge

Off-Duty Pilot Accused Of Attempting To Shut Off Plane Engines Mid-Flight Hit With Federal Charge

Airlines

Plane Crash

Portland

San Francisco

Seattle

On August 28, 2003, 46-year-old pizza delivery man Brian Wells walked into a PNC bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, with a massive metal collar around his neck, covered by a T-shirt. He gave the teller a multi-page rambling note demanding $250,000 in cash.
While Wells was waiting for the money, he grabbed a lollipop from a bowl on the teller’s desk and leaned on a cane, which was later determined to be a working gun disguised as a cane. The bank didn’t have $250,000 lying around, so Wells was only able to walk out with a bag stuffed with less than $9,000. Witnesses would later say he walked out of the bank swinging the cane and didn’t seem fearful or nervous at all.
Outside, Wells attempted to follow directions that would allow him to remove the collar around his neck, which he had told bank employees was wired to a bomb. Wells was barely out of the bank a few minutes before police surrounded him and placed him in handcuffs.
<div id="attachment_610009" style="width: 422px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-610009" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-610009" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-412x576.webp" alt="In this photo released Sept. 17, 2005, by the FBI, Brian Wells, 46, of Erie, Pa., carries a plastic bag of cash after robbing the PNC Bank in Summit Towne Centre in Erie on Aug. 28, 2003. Wells is shown sucking on a lollipop inside the bank, wearing a collar bomb and carrying a cane-shaped firearm.AP" width="412" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-412x576.webp 412w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-215x300.webp 215w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-768x1073.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p-1100x1536.webp 1100w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/070216_pizza_vmed_4p.webp 1240w" sizes="(max-width: 412px) 100vw, 412px" />Credit: CCTV. AP.</div>
While sitting cross-legged on pavement, Wells told the police officers that he had a bomb around his neck that would explode.
&#8220;Why isn&#8217;t anybody trying to get this thing off me?&#8221; he asked them.
Soon, a beeping could be heard from the collar, and Wells became more desperate for help. Not long after, the bomb exploded, killing Wells instantly.
The images of that day have not been forgotten, and while we know who was behind the bank heist plot, one question remains to this day: Why was no one ever held responsible for Wells’ death?
The answer surely comes from the law enforcement’s determination that Wells was a co-conspirator in the plot and, subsequently, his own death. But that raises a similar question: Why, after all that we now know, is Wells still considered a co-conspirator?
His family certainly insists that he could not have been part of the plot. His sister, Jean Heid, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/05/pizza.bomb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> CNN in 2011 that her brother was “innocent 100 percent.”
&#8220;They screwed up big time,&#8221; Heid said, referring to the officers present went Wells died. &#8220;They let an innocent man, my brother, die while in their custody and they didn&#8217;t even lift a finger to help him.”
&#8220;This case is going to be looked at for years to come, and they don&#8217;t want it known that they screwed up,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Brian never would have done this.&#8221;
The evidence that Wells was involved in the plot has always been shaky. The main person who claimed Wells was in on the whole thing was Kenneth Barnes, a convicted crack dealer who was convicted for playing a role in the bank heist. Barnes had every reason to lie about Wells. If Wells was involved, then Barnes and the other co-conspirators couldn’t be charged with his murder, which could have landed them on death row. Barnes was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the bomb plot, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years after he testified against another co-conspirator.
An FBI agent, in a court affidavit, said another witness corroborated Barnes’ story. There was also a witness who claimed he saw Wells driving away from a home where the bomb plot was concocted on the day before the bank robbery. There is no evidence to suggest Wells was there collaborating with his killers – for all the witness knew, Wells was simply delivering a pizza to the people who planned to use him for their plot.
And the FBI maintained that even if Wells was involved, his role was limited to some of the early planning stages, and that he was never willing to wear the bomb collar that caused his death.
&#8220;We have reason to believe that at some point that he was coerced, that it was placed on his neck by another individual,&#8221; U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19718261">told</a> NBC News in 2007.
One reason authorities came to believe Wells was involved was his demeanor inside the bank. He was reportedly calm and did things that someone forced to rob a bank against their will would not have done. But perhaps that was Wells’ nerves showing, just not in the way one would expect.
Wells’ connection to the co-conspirators was through a prostitute he frequented named Jessica Hoopsick, who knew Kenneth Barnes. In the 2018 Netflix documentary “Evil Genius,” Hoopsick admitted to setting Wells up for the crime, even though she described him as a friend. She said that Barnes promised her drugs and money for the name of a person he and his co-conspirators could use to rob the bank. Hoopsick insisted Wells knew nothing about the robbery plans and wasn’t in on the planning.
It doesn’t appear any follow-ups have been conducted since Hoopsick’s bombshell revelation.
Another blow to the idea that Wells was involved comes from the random nature of the call that led him to the radio tower where the collar was placed on his neck. His boss at the pizza restaurant where he worked answered the phone but couldn’t understand the person on the other line. His boss then handed the phone to Wells, who took down the order. Maybe Wells was hovering, waiting for a call at that moment, or maybe it was a complete coincidence that he happened to be the one nearby to take the order. Had another employee taken the call, or another delivery driver gotten the assignment, would they have been the one in the collar?
While authorities are reportedly unconvinced that Wells was an innocent victim, there is no doubt that Kenneth Barnes, Floyd Stockton, William Rothstein, and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong were involved.
How their involvement was discovered, however, was a story all its own.
Police had no leads as to who was behind the bomb plot, and were struggling to solve the case, until September 20, 2003 – nearly a month after Wells’ death. Rothstein, a handy-man and part-time shop teacher who always wanted everyone to know he was the smartest man in the room, called 911 on that day to report a dead body in the freezer in his garage.
The body turned out to be that of James Roden, Diehl-Armstrong’s boyfriend, whom she had killed before asking Rothstein to dispose of the body. Rothstein explained to police that he humored Diehl-Armstrong about disposing of the body so that he could report her to police.
Diehl-Armstrong, a former valedictorian who was bipolar and a shadow of her former self, was charged with killing her boyfriend Rosen. Diehl-Armstrong had previously gone on trial for killing another boyfriend in 1984, but she claimed self-defense and was acquitted. Following that death, several other men associated with Diehl-Armstrong died under mysterious circumstances.
<div id="attachment_610017" style="width: 234px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-610017" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-610017 size-medium" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666-224x300.jpg" alt="Subject of the &quot;Evil Genius&quot; documentary Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong mugshot. (Photo courtesy Erie Police/Getty Images)" width="224" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666-224x300.jpg 224w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666-430x576.jpg 430w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/08/GettyImages-1012208666.jpg 764w" sizes="(max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px" />Photo courtesy Erie Police/Getty Images</div>
Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, to killing Rosen and was originally sent to Mayview State Hospital, but later transferred to a state prison.
Rothstein, meanwhile, died of cancer at the age of 60. A previous suicide note he had written stated that his would-be suicide had nothing to do with the Wells case, a curious inclusion. On his death bed, he refused to discuss the Wells case with investigators.
During this time, investigators linked Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong to the payphone that was used to call the pizza restaurant where Wells worked to order the pizza that kicked off the bank heist.
Police eventually spoke to Floyd Stockton, who was Rothstein’s roommate at the time Wells was murdered and who was a fugitive on a rape charge involving a disabled teenager. Stockton told police that Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong were involved in the bomb plot. Rothstein reportedly needed $250,000 to satisfy family members looking to sell the family home in which he lived. Diehl-Armstrong wanted the money to pay Kenneth Barnes to kill her father, who was giving away her inheritance. 
It is believed Rothstein built the bomb and obtained some parts for it from Diehl-Armstrong, but he died before he could be charged.
Diehl-Armstrong at times gave information about the Wells case but denied her own involvement. It was never clear when she was lying and when she was telling the truth. She was charged with the bomb plot in 2007, convicted to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2011, and died in prison on April 4, 2017, at the age of 68.
Barnes also died in prison, on June 20, 2019, at the age of 65. He had been Diehl-Armstrong’s “fishing buddy” prior to their involvement in Wells’ death.
Stockton was granted immunity for cooperating with law enforcement and died on August 10, 2022, at the age of 75.
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cropped-cropped-wells1

Pizza Bomber: 20 Years Later, One Big Question Remains Unanswered

Pennsylvania

Robbery

True Crime

A new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/denmark">Danish</a> landmark study finds that suicide rates and psychiatric conditions are much higher among <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/transgender" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trans-identifying</a> people.
Trans-identifying people in Denmark had a suicide death rate 3.5 times higher and a suicide attempt rate 7.7 times higher than people who did not identify as transgender, according to the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2806531?guestAccessKey=458dc50a-ea74-489c-bc68-c0128d48a4e3&amp;utm_source=For_The_Media&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=ftm_links&amp;utm_content=tfl&amp;utm_term=062723" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a>, which was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
There were 92 suicide attempts and 12 suicide deaths among the study&#8217;s 3,759 trans-identifying people between 1980 and 2021.
The study analyzed the medical and legal gender change records of nearly seven million people in Denmark, including the nearly 3,800 transgender people, over the last four decades.
Trans-identifying people also tended to die younger overall, whether by suicide or something else, the study found.
However, suicide rates in both groups decreased over the four decades the study examined.
&#8220;Results suggest that transgender individuals had significantly higher rates of suicide attempt, suicide mortality, suicide-unrelated mortality, and all-cause mortality compared with the nontransgender population,&#8221; the study said.
Meanwhile, the rate of psychiatric conditions was higher for the trans-identifying group.
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Nearly 43% of the trans-identifying people had a psychiatric diagnosis, compared with just 7% of the non-trans-identifying group.
“This is beyond doubt a huge problem that needs to be looked at,” said one of the authors of the study, Dr. Morten Frisch, a sexual health epidemiologist at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen.
The study&#8217;s authors suggested that their findings might possibly apply to the U.S. as well since the U.S. and Denmark have similar suicide rates, about 14 suicides per 100,000 people.
However, the rate of people who identify as transgender could be as much as ten times higher in the U.S. than in Denmark, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/health/transgender-suicide-risk-denmark.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Williams Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles suggests, although the Danish researchers also noted that they may not have captured newer waves of trans-identification that are more prevalent among younger populations.
Gender ideology activists in the U.S. often argue that trans-identifying people, especially youth, are at a higher risk of suicide if they are denied drastic medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or gender surgeries such as double mastectomies and later genital surgeries.
However, Denmark is famously progressive on the transgender issue and <a href="https://www.equaldex.com/equality-index" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rates</a> as one of the most LGBT-friendly countries in the world, even above the U.S.
The group of Danish trans-identifying people analyzed in the study were recognized as transgender in either their legal or medical records.
In 1989, Denmark became the first country in the world to legally recognize same-sex partnerships. Denmark <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/christine-jorgensen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has allowed</a> people to undergo sex change operations and receive hormone therapy since at least the early 1950s. Since 2014, Danish people 18 and older can <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140829002605/http://www.amnesty.org/en/en/news/denmark-transgender-law-2014-06-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legally change</a> their gender simply by stating that they want to do so.
In the U.S., critics have sounded the alarm about the permanent effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries. Young people who previously identified as transgender have also spoken out about regretting getting medical intervention.
At least <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-states-with-restrictions-on-medical-child-sex-changes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17 states</a> have moved to restrict hormone treatments and gender surgeries for children as more minors seek them out.
Meanwhile, it is more popular than ever for youth to adopt new gender identities. An estimated 300,000 minors aged 13 to 17 <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/transgender-estimate-press-release/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">identified</a> as transgender as of last year, a sharp increase over the previous few years. From 2017 to 2021, gender dysphoria diagnoses in children nearly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tripled</a>.
If you or someone you know needs support now, call or text 988 or chat <a class="c-link" href="http://988lifeline.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://988lifeline.org" data-sk="tooltip_parent">988lifeline.org</a>.

Daily Life In Poland

Landmark Study Shows Suicide, Psychiatric Conditions Much Higher In Transgender People

Denmark

Gender

Mental Health

Puberty blockers

Social Issues

Transgender

World

Singer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kesha-attorney-defamed-dr-luke-with-claim-about-lady-gagas-rape-judge-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kesha</a> revealed during a recent interview that her anxiety once got so intense that she actually believed she might be experiencing a psychotic break.
The popular &#8220;Die Young&#8221; singer sat down with Apple Music&#8217;s Zane Lowe, and during the course of a <a href="https://pagesix.com/2023/05/24/kesha-reveals-she-mistook-her-intense-anxiety-for-a-psychotic-break/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wide-ranging conversation</a>, the topic turned to mental health and what it meant to &#8220;act normal.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Kesha: ‘Gag Order’, Rick Rubin &amp; Walking a Fine Line | Apple Music" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4iz1_ps7ePs?start=374&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The &#8220;Praying&#8221; songstress explained the situation, saying, &#8220;I went through this crazy psychedelic spiritual experience in the midst of the anxiety … it was pure anxiety. My brain felt like … I thought maybe it was the process of having a psychotic break or something.&#8221;
&#8220;I’m a triple Pisces, I love weird, unexplainable, spiritual, supernatural stuff,&#8221; the singer continued, explaining that she hadn&#8217;t really found peace on a personal level until she really dove into her own spirituality until she felt comfortable with herself.
&#8220;So after this happened to me, I went down a total — it’s my rabbit hole I’m currently in, is just the paranormal and also different spirituality, different things people believe in. I’m just trying to read about it because I feel like we’re all talking about a similar thing,&#8221; she said.
The singer said that she often felt as though her &#8220;social graces have gotten a little rusty,&#8221; adding — when Lowe laughed and asked her to provide a &#8220;playful example&#8221; — that she found herself discussing intensely personal things with strangers.
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&#8220;When people start doing small talk, I start telling them about my like psychedelic experience and then they&#8217;re just like, &#8216;I just wanted to ride the elevator with you&#8217; and it&#8217;s just impossible now,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m like &#8230; full-blown.&#8221;
&#8220;This is also — the question in my mind is, &#8216;How do you act normal?&#8217; Like what does that mean?&#8221; she continued.
She went on to describe just how crippling her anxiety had been at times, noting that her initial image was so loved that she felt as though she couldn&#8217;t show all sides of herself.

Ke$ha

Singer Kesha Says Her Anxiety Once Got So Bad She Thought She Was Having A Psychotic Break

Singer Kesha Says Her Anxiety Got So Bad She Thought She Was Having A Psychotic Break

Music

Music Industry

The man accused of attacking two female staffers for Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) on Monday reportedly has a long history of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mental-illness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mental illness</a>, according to the man&#8217;s father.
Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, was arraigned Tuesday in Fairfax on charges stemming from an incident where he allegedly attacked the two staffers with a baseball bat, the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-connolly-congressional-office-attacked-b054946db16043819b36b49695d3b49d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. He was also charged in connection with a hate crime for a separate incident an hour earlier where he allegedly bashed a car windshield and chased a woman after asking her if she was white.
Tran Pham&#8217;s father, Hy Pham, told The Washington Post that his son has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that he has battled mental illness since he was a teenager. Hy Pham said that his son is not married and could not hold down a job because of his condition, which the Associated Press described as being &#8220;untreated.&#8221;
Hy Pham added that he has tried to get his son help, but has not been successful.
Tran Pham has been charged with aggravated wounding, malicious aggravated wounding, felony destroying property, and a misdemeanor hate crime.
The reports said that Tran Pham has had previous incidents with law enforcement, including as recently as last year when a police officer who was responding to a call involving him sustained minor injuries.
He filed a lawsuit against the CIA last year, claiming that the spy agency was torturing him “from the fourth dimension.”
The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) said in a statement, “At approximately 10:49 a.m. on Monday, May 15, a man entered Representative Connolly’s District Office. Two Congressional staffers were assaulted with a metal bat and received non-life threatening injuries. Congressman Connolly was not in the office at the time of the assaults.”
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“The Fairfax City Police Department responded and arrested the suspect. At this time, it is not clear what the suspect’s motivation may have been. Based on what we know right now, investigators do not have any information that the suspect was known to the USCP,” the statement added. “Special Agents with the United States Capitol Police Threat Assessment Section were dispatched to Fairfax, Virginia. The Department simultaneously coordinated with our partners at the Fairfax City Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Washington Field Office.”

House Holds Hearing On Washington DC Oversight

New Details Released About Suspect Accused Of Attacking Congressman’s Staffers With Baseball Bat

New Details Released About Suspect Accused Of Attacking Congressman's Staffers With Baseball Bat

Assault

Former child star <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/celebrities">Amanda Bynes</a> was reportedly placed on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mental-illness">psychiatric hold</a> following an incident involving her wandering the streets of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/los-angeles">Los Angeles</a> naked.
The 36-year-old flagged down a passing motorist early Sunday morning and asked them for assistance, revealing that she was having a &#8220;psychotic episode,&#8221; as reported by <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2023/03/20/amanda-bynes-psychiatric-hold-5150-mental-health-found-naked-roaming-streets/">TMZ</a>. According to the outlet, authorities picked up Bynes and placed her on a psychiatric hold under the direction of a mental health team.
TMZ noted that Bynes did not appear to be injured when she was detained. 
The former Nickelodeon actress was previously placed under a conservatorship in August 2013, which gave her mother, Lynn Bynes, legal control of her finances and other decisions. She had been placed on psychiatric holds multiple times after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
 That conservatorship was terminated in March 2022.
&#8220;Amanda is excited and looking forward to living independently,&#8221; her attorney <a href="https://www.foxla.com/news/amanda-bynes-conservatorship-terminated">told</a> Fox News Digital in a statement at the time. &#8220;She believes her condition is improved and protection of the court is no longer necessary,” he told People.
Bynes has been keeping a low profile ever since. 
The “She’s the Man” actress was scheduled to appear at 90s Con in Connecticut over the weekend with other popular stars from that era, including cast members of “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Charmed,” “The Wonder Years,” and many others. But Bynes canceled her appearance on the “All That” panel due to an unspecified illness.
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The former child star broke into acting working on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series “All That” (1996–2000). Bynes became a household name and got her big break starring in the spin-off series “The Amanda Show” (1999–2002). 
Bynes moved on from TV to films, appearing in the comedy “What a Girl Wants” (2003), the sports comedy “She&#8217;s the Man” (2006), the “Hairspray” musical (2007), and the comedy film “Easy A” (2010). She took a hiatus from acting following several mental health incidents and admitted substance abuse problems.
During an <a href="https://www.papermag.com/amanda-bynes-break-the-internet-2621549455.html">interview</a> with Paper magazine in 2018, Bynes apologized for how she treated people during the throes of her addiction. &#8220;I&#8217;m really ashamed and embarrassed with the things I said. I can&#8217;t turn back time but if I could, I would. And I&#8217;m so sorry to whoever I hurt and whoever I lied about because it truly eats away at me.&#8221;
Her scheduled event at 90s Con would have been Bynes’s first public appearance since her conservatorship ended last year.

Jill Stuart – Front Row – Spring 2010 MBFW

Former Child Star Placed On Psychiatric Hold After Wandering L.A. Streets Naked: Report

California

Celebrities

Entertainment

Los Angeles

Neurologists are reporting that the majority of teenagers who began experiencing strange tics after watching TikTok videos during the pandemic are recovering.   
Since 2020, doctors have been treating thousands of teens for sudden, explosive tics with no known biological cause that they believe are linked to popular TikTok videos of individuals claiming to have Tourette&#8217;s syndrome. According to a recent New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/tiktok-tics-gender-tourettes.html?searchResultPosition=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a>, the neurologists treating the new cohort of &#8220;functional disorders&#8221; say that the majority of cases have resolved on their own. 
“Adolescence is a period of rapid social and emotional development,” neurologist Dr. Tamara Pringsheim told the New York Times. “They are like sponges, grabbing onto new skills to cope.”
This phenomenon, known as &#8220;TikTok tics,&#8221; is considered by medical experts to be one of the most prominent modern examples of mass psychogenic illness, a condition in which groups of people experience similar symptoms without a clear medical explanation. Similar outbreaks have occurred for centuries and can spread rapidly in small communities. 
Clusters of sudden symptoms can also occur among groups, which usually reflect shared stressors among group members. In the Middle Ages, nuns in a French convent began meowing like cats due to fears of possession by the devil. Similarly, in the 2000s, hundreds of children of asylum seekers in Sweden became mute and bedridden for prolonged periods of time.
When discussing the TikTok tics, neurologists often mention Le Roy, a small town in western New York. In 2011, a cheerleader at the local high school began to experience spasms; then, her best friend started to snap her head. Within a few weeks, the tics had spread throughout the school&#8217;s social hierarchy, affecting 18 girls, one boy, and one adult woman. Although the national news media speculated about toxins or viruses contaminating Le Roy, the neurologists who treated the affected individuals knew that many had experienced trauma or serious illnesses in their families.
The TikTok tics arrived during the COVID pandemic lockdowns, a period when many teenagers were home from school, feeling anxious and isolated, and relying on social media as their primary way to communicate with others. 
Teens began to emulate the TikTok creators by repeating identical words, such as &#8220;beans&#8221; and &#8220;beetroot,&#8221; and performing similar gestures like pounding their chests. TikTok videos under the hashtag #Tourettes have been viewed <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/tourettes?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7.7 billion times</a>. As a result, pediatric movement disorder clinics saw an increase in patients, causing wait times to extend from three months to one year. Dr. Pringsheim described the influx of patients as &#8220;an avalanche.&#8221;
Neurologists call them functional tics, or functional tic-like behavior, as they appear to start out of nowhere, and “functional” in medicine refers to “no known physical cause.” Functional tics differ from Tourettes, a nervous system disorder with a known physical cause characterized by unwanted repetitive movements and sounds that usually begin in childhood. Tics can arise by imitating others with tics, similar to the phenomenon doctors <a href="https://www.henryford.com/blog/2022/03/tiktok-giving-teen-girls-tics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">describe</a> of witnessing siblings of children with seizures develop “functional seizures.” 
A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X22000682" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new paper</a> published earlier this month in Comprehensive Psychiatry proposed that “social contagion” through prolonged social media use can explain why some teens, mostly adolescent females, self-diagnose with rare mental illnesses and personality disorders online. 
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-media-is-influencing-teens-to-adopt-mental-illness-identities-researchers-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paper proposes</a> that social media platforms like TikTok, whose <a href="https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">core user base</a> are teen girls, and the popularity of online communities that glamorize mental illness, may act as a “spread vector” for adolescents to adopt various disorders as part of their online personas.
Experts are trying to understand the various factors that made these teenagers so sensitive to what they watched online. A study from the University of Calgary co-authored by Dr. Pringsheim analyzed nearly 300 cases from eight countries and found that two-thirds were diagnosed with anxiety, one-quarter had depression, and one-quarter had autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 87% of the patients were female, a known skew found in previous outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness.
In new research that has not yet been published, the Canadian team has also found a link between TikTok tics and transgender identities. In a sample of 35 adolescents, 43% experiencing tics also self-identified as transgender or nonbinary – another suspected form of &#8220;social contagion.&#8221; Additional neurologists interviewed by the New York Times noticed similar trends among their patients.
According to neurologists, most teenagers who experienced tics during the pandemic have recovered without requiring intense treatment. Those who have continued to experience tics have been resistant to accepting the functional diagnosis. Additionally, some have experienced difficulty in addressing the underlying stressors causing the tics, and as a result, have developed other symptoms with no known biological cause, such as functional seizures or functional paralysis.
One teenager interviewed by the New York Times said their tics ceased when they stopped watching TikTok videos and stopped searching for &#8220;definitive answers about their mental health and identity.&#8221; 
“After a year of therapy, I came to the conclusion that labels are stupid,” the teen said.

Unrecognizable woman with phone addiction looking at her mobile

Wave Of Teens Who Developed Strange Tics From Watching TikTok Videos Are Now Recovering, According To Neurologists

Canada

Medical Research

TikTok

A proposed law in New York could allow mentally ill male inmates to assume a non-male identity and be granted access to women&#8217;s prisons, according to a women&#8217;s advocacy group.
Yesterday, the New York Senate added an <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/S2860" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amendment</a> to Senate Bill 2860, euphemistically called the &#8220;gender identity respect, dignity and safety act,&#8221; that would allow male prisoners to be placed in a correctional facility or other institution that matches their self-determined &#8220;gender identity.&#8221; According to the women&#8217;s advocacy group, these &#8220;other institutions&#8221; added to the bill likely include <a href="https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/forensic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">psychiatric facilities</a> for the criminally insane and possibly high-risk sex offenders.
&#8220;The Bill expands beyond correctional facilities to extend to &#8216;other institutions&#8217; housing incarcerated individuals,&#8221; said Amanda Stulman, the USA director for Keep Prisons Single Sex (<a href="https://usa.kpssinfo.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">KPSS</a>). &#8220;Presumably, this would include forensic mental health facilities. So, this New York Senate Bill would presumptively house mentally ill incarcerated men with mentally ill women.&#8220;
In criminal law, when individuals are found &#8220;<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/not_guilty_by_reason_of_insanity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not guilty by reason of  insanity</a>,&#8221; they are generally required to undergo psychiatric treatment in a mental institution. Aside from 44 prisons, New York State has several maximum-security psychiatric facilities for criminals, including <a href="https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/forensic/bisot/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two locations</a> that treat high-risk sex offenders. Oakview in Marcy, New York, which houses 303 residents, and Bridgeview in Ogdensburg, which houses 92 residents, are home to individuals &#8220;deemed as high risk to sexually offend and in need of intensive treatment while serving prison sentences.&#8221;
Senate Bill 2860 would allow anyone who &#8220;self-identifies&#8221; as not just transgender, but even &#8220;gender nonconforming,&#8221; &#8220;nonbinary&#8221; or as having an intersex condition, to &#8220;presumptively&#8221; be placed in a facility that houses the opposite sex. According to the bill, inmates are not required to demonstrate or provide documentation that their “gender identity” existed prior to incarceration, and their records are permitted to be kept confidential.
In addition to housing placement, this new bill would allow inmates state-sponsored access to cross-sex hormones and surgeries to affirm their &#8220;gender identity,&#8221; but also the right to deny using hormones or surgery, which may have castrating effects that would make their presence safer for women.
&#8220;As with the laws and policies of many other jurisdictions, the provisions of this proposed New York Bill permit any inmate, at any time, making no modifications to their body or presentation, to claim a &#8216;gender identity&#8217; which requires a correctional system to place them in cross-sex housing,&#8221; Stulman told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;They cannot be challenged or denied on the basis of lack of sincerity or past crimes, no matter how much their criminal history is one directed at women,&#8221; she added.
All correctional officers and staff are required to address the inmate by his new name and pronouns, and be given access to &#8220;commissary items, clothing, personal property, and programming and educational materials consistent with gender identity.&#8221; Male inmates would also be allowed to be searched by female corrections officers. Any violation of these stipulations, and the inmate can sue the state, paid for by the state.
Additionally, the bill would limit the use of &#8220;involuntary protective custody,&#8221; a safeguarding practice that keeps trans-identified male inmates segregated from the female population, because it is deemed &#8220;harmful&#8221; to the male inmates&#8217; wellbeing.
According to the bill, a denial of placement into the women&#8217;s ward shall not be based on &#8220;discriminatory reasons&#8221; like their sex characteristics or if female inmates complain about being housed with males. They may, however, be denied placement if there is &#8220;clear and convincing evidence&#8221; that they &#8220;present a current danger of committing gender-based violence against others.&#8221;
Another amendment to the bill was the implementation of a time restriction that would require prison officials to make a determination on prisoner placement within a two-day period. Stulman said this poses serious potential risks to women, as two days is not nearly enough time to conduct a proper mental health and risk assessment of male inmates.
&#8220;Incarcerated women are rightly petrified while state legislators imagine themselves as civil rights heroes,&#8221; Stulman told The Daily Wire. &#8220;But this is no &#8216;civil rights&#8217; movement. There is no &#8216;right&#8217; for male inmates, however they identify, to be incarcerated with women.&#8221;
&#8220;Such an idea is contrary to decades of American and international jurisprudence, including the United Nations’ Mandela Rules, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Rule 11(a) provides: &#8216;Men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women, the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate,’” she added.
Stulman&#8217;s organization, Keep Prisons Single Sex (KPSS), which has both United Kingdom and United States representation, campaigns for single-sex accommodation within the prison system and access to data on male inmates in women&#8217;s facilities. KPSS penned a <a href="https://usa.kpssinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/KPSS-Submission-to-New-York-Senate-on-Bill-2860.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the bill&#8217;s sponsors and the <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/committees/crime-victims-crime-and-correction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">committee</a> on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, highlighting their concerns with the new bill and citing past incidences of sexual assault committed by male inmates permitted to house with females nationwide.
According to KPSS, <a href="https://usa.kpssinfo.org/data-from-california-shows-that-1-3-of-the-men-seeking-to-transfer-to-womens-prison-are-registered-sex-offenders/">33.8%</a> of the incarcerated men seeking to transfer to women’s prisons in California are registered sex offenders. The Federal Bureau of Prisons issued a <a href="https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/docs/fbop_annual_prea_report_2020.pdf">2020 report</a> that found sex offenders are responsible for approximately 50% of sexual offenses that occur in prisons.
The bill is currently in committee, likely to be put on a calendar to be voted on, debated, or amended. The bill&#8217;s lead sponsor, Julia Salazar of the 18th Senate District, did not respond to The Daily Wire&#8217;s request for comment and clarification in time for publication.

Handcuffed

Proposed New York Law Could Put Criminally Insane Male Inmates In Women’s Prisons, Advocates Fear

Proposed New York Law Could Put High-Risk Male Sex Offenders In Women's Prisons, Advocates Fear

Gender Identity

New York

Prison

Researchers have examined the troubling trend of teens self-diagnosing mental illness through social media. 
A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X22000682" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new paper</a> published earlier this month in Comprehensive Psychiatry proposed that &#8220;social contagion&#8221; through prolonged social media use can explain why some teens, mostly adolescent females, self-diagnose their purported rare mental illnesses and personality disorders online. 
&#8220;We believe there is an urgent need for focused empirical research investigation into this concerning phenomenon that is related to the broader research and discourse examining social media influences on mental health,&#8221; said the study&#8217;s lead author, John D. Haltigan, and co-author, Gayathiri Rajkumar, in a recent <a href="https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/social-media-and-the-rise-of-performative" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> for Reality&#8217;s Last Stand.
The paper focused on the uptick in teens presenting with tics with no known biological cause and the resurgence of the extremely rare <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-the-recovered-memory-movement-can-tell-us-about-the-gender-affirmation-movement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple personality disorder</a>, now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), in which a person claims to harbor multiple distinct personalities. Also mentioned are the prevalence of autism, depression, eating disorders, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/at-least-6-of-students-identify-as-transgender-at-one-california-school-district-data-analysis-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gender identity-related</a> conditions on social media. 
&#8220;That rates of teen and adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation have <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1diMvsMeRphUH7E6D1d_J7R6WbDdgnzFHDHPx9HXzR5o/edit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">risen precipitously</a> since the advent of social media and smartphones is likely no coincidence,&#8221; the authors said.
The paper proposes that social media platforms like TikTok, whose <a href="https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">core user base</a> are teen girls, and the popularity of online communities that glamorize mental illness, may act as a &#8220;spread vector&#8221; for adolescents to adopt various disorders as part of their online personas.
&#8220;While posting about personal struggles with mental illness online may be emotionally genuine to some, it is more accurately understood as a behavioral display to fit in and appear unique to others online,&#8221; the authors said.
Since the pandemic in 2020, while many were shuttered indoors relying heavily on social media, neurologists began seeing <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/tics-and-tiktok-can-social-media-trigger-illness-202201182670" target="_blank" rel="noopener">droves</a> of teen girls reporting the sudden onset of physical and verbal tics. Experts believe that teen girls around the world have started reenacting tics after watching popular influencers with Tourette’s syndrome on TikTok. 
Neurologists call them functional tics, or functional tic-like behavior, as they appear to start out of nowhere, and &#8220;functional&#8221; in medicine refers to &#8220;no known physical cause.&#8221; Functional tics differ from Tourettes, a nervous system disorder with a known physical cause, characterized by repetitive, unwanted movements and sounds that usually begins in childhood. Tics can be imitated by watching others with tics, similar to the phenomenon doctors <a href="https://www.henryford.com/blog/2022/03/tiktok-giving-teen-girls-tics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">describe</a> of witnessing siblings of children with seizures develop &#8220;functional seizures.&#8221; 
On TikTok, the hashtag #tourettes has 7.6 billion views, #DID has 2.4 billion views, #borderlinepersonalitydisorder has 1.5 billion views, and both #transgender and #autism have 16.9 billion views. 
&#8220;Unfortunately, many content creators posting these videos are not medical professionals, but are instead self-identified patients or mental health advocates who often speak on mental disorders with little to no expertise on the matter,&#8221; the authors said. 
In the Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) portal, popular content creators capture themselves &#8220;switching alters,&#8221; summoning their distinct personalities in a short video format. Historically fewer than 200 cases of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) were documented over many centuries until the popular 1976 TV movie “Sybil” featured a woman who suffered from the affliction. By the late 1980s, one <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-true-story-behind-sybil-and-her-multiple-personalities-1.4268459" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimate</a> found that more than 40,000 patients, mostly women, had come out of therapy believing they had DID. 
Recently, mental health professionals have seen another <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/abcs-child-psychiatry/202203/the-tiktok-inspired-surge-dissociative-identity-disorder" target="_blank" rel="noopener">boom</a> in self-diagnosed DID, which they believe is socially influenced, not organic. The authors argue that these novel mental illnesses have become identity signifiers and are used to build a social media following. 
&#8220;They may incorporate mental illness symptom presentations they are exposed to in online communities to socially assimilate and build social capital within these communities,&#8221; the authors said.
The paper sources the onset of &#8220;mental health content&#8221; to a social media platform that was popular in the 2000s called Tumblr. It &#8220;provided users who typically were seen as outcasts&#8221; with &#8220;a sense of community and belonging,&#8221; the authors said.
In 2012, Tumblr implemented a policy against blogs that promoted eating disorders, self-mutilation, and suicide due to their popularity among teens and young adults. The authors note the attempt to &#8220;de-stigmatize&#8221; and &#8220;normalize&#8221; mental illness may have had the unintended effect of glamorizing it.
&#8220;The continued evolution of this trend underscores an urgent need for increased understanding of the influence of social media on mental health, including its phenotypic clinical presentations and the possibility that increasingly algorithmic social media platforms may serve as a vehicle of transmission for social contagion of self-diagnosed mental illness conditions,&#8221; the paper concluded.

The Social Media Overuse

Social Media Is Influencing Teens To Adopt Mental Illness Identities, Researchers Say

Health

United States

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