Her English essays are free of the kind of grammatical
errors I typically make in my own prose. The thought occurs to me that
if not for her mania, she could otherwise be a very intelligent woman.
It at least tells me that her schizophrenia onset is probably new to her
life — some of her video blogs feature letters from college admins informing her of disciplinary actions for her disruptions in class, so I cannot imagine her mania was present while she was in grade or high school. That makes her story all the more tragic.
What is most startling is some of her college essays read exactly
like the kind of radical feminist manifestos that has become popular on
college campuses in recent years, lending some anecdotal weight to my
personal belief that many of the people who adopt these kinds of radical
ideologies are suffering from some kind of disorder.
The videos from just a few years ago show a girl attractive enough for her age; her newest videos betray the impact of an untreated mania lifestyle.
In 2011 she was in the Vermont State Hospital for treatment;
according to one of her posts she was released after only six months.
This was obviously a mistake.
As I watch these videos I recall Lena Kochman is just one of the 1.5
million homeless Americans roaming our streets, many of them suffering
from manias like she is. They don’t get the treatment they need, and
without it their mania makes it impossible for them to function in our
society. Instead they wander the streets from shelter to shelter,
receiving free food, clothing and (obviously) smartphones with internet
access that keeps them surviving but they do so while continuously angry
and afraid.
___________
I hate to suggest we should bring the asylums back, but it’s pretty
goddamn obvious that what we’re currently doing is not working. The
shelters are not equipped to handle schizophrenics, nor are the
colleges. Only mental health professionals can assist people such
as Lena Kochman through a cocktail of anti-psychotics and therapy.
___________
My words of encouragement fail to convince her. She will simply
delete my messages, as she has others. If anything they likely embolden
her behavior. Giving attention to a paranoid schizophrenic without the
ability to remove them from their current predicament is often a wasted
effort. This is the reality of psychosis; once reality has become
distorted, any rational arguments can no longer reach you. I know this,
and yet tried anyway.
I’m not the only one who has tried to reach out to her.
It’s human to want to help such a lost soul. Yet there is no way to
help such a person through the internet. She, and other homeless maniacs
like her need treatment that only hospitals can provide. There’s no
solace to find anywhere else, be it reddit, YouTube or WordPress.
I think our country needs serious mental health reform. There’s
absolutely no good reason why someone such as Lena Kochman should be in a
homeless program and enrolled at a community college where she is
taking on debt, instead of receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital
inpatient program. Her life serves as clear evidence that there is
failure at multiple levels in our society (the city and federal
government, her college, and the prior hospitals she was enrolled in)
and that we can do better.
https://careymartell.com/2016/08/the-feminist-schizophrenic-who-society-did-fail/